D3 - DoomSayer’s Dev Diary     

Article by:  Codemaster’s Principle Designer, Phil O’Connor

I have the incredible fortune of being paid to design games. I consider this a privilege, the result of some luck, but at the same time, it’s something I worked for years at achieving. I wanted to be a game designer from a very young age, and I built up the experience and knowledge that eventually convinced people to hire me to do this.

As someone who worked so hard to break into the industry, I have a somewhat stronger opinion than most about the quality of game designers that get in. I feel that every designer should pay their dues before they’re allowed anywhere near game design, and that they should be supremely qualified as students of gaming! Sadly the demand for designers has created a situation in the industry where many people getting into design positions don’t fit the bill.

Game design is one of the most tricky and contentious positions in the game industry. No two companies I have worked with have treated the position of design in the same way. Some designers have producer-type duties/powers, others treat them like artists, and yet others don’t have design positions at all but instead assign the job to a producer, coder or artist.

The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that you need game designers. The problem is, however, that everyone is a game designer, or thinks they are. What I mean by that is everyone can come up with game design ideas, ideas are a dime a dozen.

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Tags: Business, Design, Game Development by DoomSayer
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So what goes into the typical game development roadmap? What do we need to do in order to make sure our project will end up completed and not just vaporware? What are the major milestones involved in a typical game development project? These are all really good questions, and they can all be answered pretty much the same. We need a roadmap of our project. We need to stick to our roadmap at every stage of the project. The roadmap will show what major milestones we need to achieve in order to make our project materialize before the public’s very eyes. So I ask again, of what does the typical game development roadmap consist? The Development Roadmap consists of two seperate roadmaps, the Design Roadmap and the Production Roadmap. Here are the typical kinds of things that you would expect to find in the average Development Roadmap:

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Tags: Business, Design, Game Development, Production, Testing and QA by DoomSayer
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Here is a good article regarding Game Development Roles taken from one of my class lectures. I felt it prudent to record this information for my future reference as I begin my own company. Knowing what roles to position employees in and what each of those roles entails is important in order to keep everyone on task, and on the right task. Here is the lecture:

The production of a video game takes 10’s if not 100’s of people working together to create a vision. In this section, we outline the various different roles that form a typical game production company and what each role does. Note that in your project, each person will be asked to assume several of these roles at once. Understanding what your individual roles are and what you are responsible for will ensure a smoother and more successful development. Note that these roles and responsibilities are in no way standard; each company has its own understanding of what these roles should be within their operation. Be sure to get an outline of your company’s requirements for your role before you begin production. Most companies will have these in the Employee Handbook or similar document. If there are no clear goals and responsibilities, take it upon yourself to draft a document stating what you think they should be so there is no doubt down the line as to what you are supposed to be doing.

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Tags: Business, Design, Game Development, Production by DoomSayer
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