Game Design

By Michele Fisher

A Brief History

Computer games started in the 1960s Earliest games were developed by hobbyist

on the university mainframes. Original content vs pre-existing content IPRH – Intellectual Property Rights Holder

Introduction

What is Game Design? The purpose of the game design process is

essentially to direct the creation of a game given a set of constraints. These constraints vary depending on the type of game being designed. (Wikipedia, 2006)

Game design forces you to think about all aspects of your game in detail.

What should we consider is designing a game?

Technical Design Document Creative Design Document Project Management Development Team Production Design Art Design Programming Design Audio Design Quality Assurance

Platform Considerations?

Arcade machines PC Consoles

Nintendo X-Box Playstation

Handheld Portables

Game Genres?

Real-time Strategy (RTS) Role Playing Games Sports Puzzlers 1st Person and 3rd Person Shooters

Design Documents Technical Design Document

Summary of the project Staff assignments and considerations Listing of core code modules required

Creative Design Document Back-story for the game Basic character navigation features Outline of inventory system

Project Planning

Tasking – making assignments according to who will execute which task.

Tracking – Charting the progress (or lack of progress) for any given task.

Example of planning tools MS Project NXN Alienbrain

Key Roles

Developer Publisher Producer Designers Programmers Audio Programmers Game Testers

Art and Design

Modeling – building art assets including character models and props

Animation – focus is on animating character motions and environment in 2D or 3D

Mapping – focus is on creating texture maps to apply to geometric surfaces including character models and environments

Audio

Composers write background music, opening and closing music, and cutscene music for game scenarios and cinematics

Suspense or climatic music Special FX – the kicks, crunches, booms, and

bangs

Quality Assurance

Testers perform critical debugging tasks by playing through games looking for the following: Gameplay problems Freezes Misspelled text Inconsistencies Missing or confusing features

Summary

In review, we have discussed: A brief history of gaming The purpose of game design Some game design considerations Design Documents Project Planning and key roles Art Design and Audio QA

Any Questions???