I’m curious to know how you guys usually go about your development in detail?
As with anything, I get that you start with the foundation, frame, paint, etc. Go from the bottom up usually.
So those of you with experience, would you be willing to share the path you took?
I’m looking for a good “development model” to go off of, and I’m sure a lot of others could benefit from it as well! I’m trying to figure out a detailed order in where I should start. I know a lot of beginners expect to start on graphics right away. I feel like the flamejob should come after I drop the transmission and engine in, but who knows. I’m looking for detailed stuff on how you go about it. Scripting? Do you use really extremely basic placeholder 3D models in place first and get everything working and all your scripting perfected, what?
I’ve had to work on three different business plans in my classes (at the university I’m enrolled in), so I guess I’m kinda in that mode right now, looking for some good outlines/examples and to use that as an idea of where to focus my efforts right now.
Thanks for any and all info you can throw in here !
Real briefly, I begin with a Word document, and I just jot down a bunch of notes as to what kind of game it is, some of the cool features it will have and about 2 or 3 driving points (things that will ultimately define the game).
Ideally, you then get together with everyone on the team and brainstorm some ideas. From this, you’ll eventually come up with a high level “Vision Document”. It doesn’t contain any mechanics or specific levels or anything like that. Its really just a overall description of the game (about 2 or 3 pages long).
Then, the artist and sound guy begin doing some concept work. Meanwhile, the designer and the programmer get together and put together a prototype. No fancy graphics; just use what you have. If you have nothing, use primitive/vector shapes.
While doing this, the designer will be writing up the detailed Design Document. NOTE: None of this will be polished work. The code will be hacked and buggy, but functional. The art will be blocks and spheres (or default Unity mechanic guys). Concept art will be silhouettes and line sketches. The purpose is to identify design issues that you hadn’t considered, and also to make an educated guess as to whether or not it will be as fun as it is in your head.
DO NOT think that you’re making the game at this stage. Just get it working to decide whether or not you’re willing to burn a year of your life on this.
At the end of all of that (usually a couple months), if the game looks feasible and feels fun, then you begin the actual work.
Well I’ve got the design doc down, since I’ve had plenty of time NOT finding a developer, I’ve tried to flesh out the document in as much detail as possible broken into a few subsections. I was more looking along the lines of a chronological order of what a developer would do, from starting development to finishing development. You hit it on the head though!
To me it kinda goes like this:
design doc in as much detail as possible
1a. Figure out the core mechanics that will be prevalent through out your game (i.e. fighting system, shooting system, user controls, etc)
Develop these core mechanics and get them working
Have some basic rudimentary characters with the above core mechanics implemented
Turn the above into a demo by adding on the paintjob
Once this is done, do some tweaking and polish, then go about fleshing out the rest of the game by filling in the rest of the smaller mechanics (i.e. stuff like the user interface for dialogue interaction, the different types of weapons and their behaviors, different types of environment elements/mechanics that your character will interact with)
Add on the finishing touches by getting the rest of the 3D models completed and adding in the dialogue then finish with a testing playthrough and do revisions/more tweaking.
This is of course my idea, any of you have better luck with something else or comments on mine and how to improve it or if I’m missing something important?
I would advise (based on personal experience) that you don’t take that approach. This is almost completely backwards.
You could get to the end of Step 5 and realize that A: Your game idea actually sucks, or B: The concept worked on paper, but fails in practice. You’ve just wasted a year on something you never should have started.
I don’t disagree, but once I’m finished with Step 3, I test out the mechanics plenty of times to actually see if it feels right before going on in to further steps. And from previous experience, I’d say its easy to know when your taking a wrong turn on mechanics. Now whether you get the artwork right or the story right, thats too subjective to tell, so your failure may rest on something like that, something almost out of your control. I don’t think that entire thing is almost completely backwards. From a money standpoint, some people can’t afford to pay for the entire rendering of the environment early on unless they actually see they want to complete the project. And if the mechanics don’t work, you could have wasted the entire time on polishing a terd. I assume you weren’t talking about the whole process though and instead a specific part of what I laid out? Again, the main mechanics/algorithms are what give your game the actual “feel” to its gameplay. So I think those should always be nailed down first when starting development, because if the foundation is wrong you can go on to laying on the shingles or buying the furniture.
Would you care to lay out a little numbered step by step on yours? I think that’d be beneficial
I typically put a well structured list of ideas in a notepad document of features, menu setup, etc… for later reference. I then think of what my first level would be, how it’d be setup, how i’d want to it function. I then build a basic level using primitives and run around it with basic FPS controls. This gives me an idea of if the environment I’m thinking of is even going to be remotely interesting. Once I’ve committed i’ll refine and complete the level entirely. I then begin implementing gameplay mechanics 1 by 1 and eliminating those that don’t work well. Once done with mechanics I’ll tweak the level in areas that the mechanics and the level didn’t work well together. I like to build the level first as it puts the idea of the game in perspective and it’s pretty quick/easy to accomplish without much loss of time if the idea was a bust.
!