So up until January 13th two other students and I will be working on designing a board game. Our game is called Combistry, (combining and chemistry) and I'm my group's writer and production manager. This pretty much means I have to keep people on task and work on written aspects (such as the game instructions, advertisements, etc.). I've finished revising the game design document, and it's gone through a lot of changes since the beginning, but I think now we as a team now have a clear idea of how the game functions. It's not the prettiest document, but it contains enough information for us to all have one at least similar idea of what the game is going to look like. However, I don't know if our group's chemistry (ha get it?) is the best. I'm a little concerned about how the game is all going to come together. Since one of my group memebers already posted their post, I can tell that they feel as if they're on schedule but the rest of us in the group is behind schedule, which I was unaware of. I think that we all struggle with communication, which is extremely problematic. I think we need to really utilize team meetings as well as maybe just make a schedule for the entire process so that we know what's going on. I think we've made pretty good progress this week though. It's a little difficult because our work is all interconnected and we have to wait for each other on some things (ex. I have to wait for a card to be designed to be able to finish the instructions). I still think though that we've gotten a lot of work done so far, but we still have a lot more to do.
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Preproduction is incredibly important, but it's definitely most effective when the information from this planning is put into clear and concise words and in a nice organized way. This is why documents are so important, and this post will be focusing on a one page game design document, as well as the game pitch (in this case in the form of a powerpoint).
Both of this documents are essential in the preproduction of game design. We'll start off with the basics of a one page game design document. These documents are very similar to infographics; while you want to include all of the information that you need to in order to give people a clear idea of the mechanics of the game, you need the document to be visually appealing and catch people's eyes. Similarly, you need to keep your powerpoint for your game pitch very simple. Obviously, you should have additional information in your head that isn't necessarily included on either document, but the purpose of these documents is less about capturing the fine details (which ultimately will probably change in delevopment anyway) but rather to just capture the essence of the game and communicate it to your team. So really, the most important thing is priority of important information, and communicating that information in a clear and concise way. These documents are so important because a game design team needs to have a single vision of what the game is going to look like. Both documents can really make or break the game. Without a GDD, there is no sense of unity, and it's very difficult for a team to work together to create something coherent. The pitch is equally important because it gets people interested in the game, including the team, and gets their ideas flowing. Also, GDD's can help you see flaws in your idea since it forces you to work out all of the basic details, even things you may have overlooked. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
February 2020
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