PC Game Design and Creation Challenge 2!
Welcome to the new and improved PC Game Design Challenge. Over the coming months we’ll design a 1-3 level demo for PC. Ultimately there will be a part three, in which we can concentrate on what’s next? The end of the cycle.
Every week a challenge will be set, so we can discuss how the design cycle affects us holistically. What’s a good or bad idea, how to try and a approach more complicated subjects and breakdowns of certain ideas into the creation of a game. Not just dreaming about an implementation.
Game design parameters:
The purpose is to make a demonstration of a full game (a subset if you will) that can be showcased and used for marketing purposes. Genre types include (RTS, FPS, RPG) the setting is up to you (SCI-FI, Medieval as a couple of examples).
Length of the demo: Your demo must last for at least 30 minutes.
THIS IS A 3D ONLY CHALLENGE!.
Example goals are a guideline. They are there to reference as mile stones, if you don’t get that far don’t worry.!
Layout:
Note: New contenders to the challenge will be given a month additional to catch up.
Part 1: The approach!
How do we approach ideas?! Research!!
The first week will involve play testing an already successful game, although were not there just to enjoy them. Note down any interesting points, from artwork, to mechanics / flow of the game and how it fits together. From the UI / Sound right through to the story line and how said storyline affects mechanics.
Talk about creating an emotional response in visual mediums!. This is where you start writing the overall plot.!
Week 2: The design doc!
We’ll touch on the plot and refine ideas (P.S try to word it so people can’t guess the end before they’ve played it) just some general conceptions, the systems we’ll implement and how to tie core components together estimating a timeline. A design doc can be updated, but it’s essential we know what were trying to achieve. We’ll discuss target market’s and who were doing this for.!
Month 1:
Based on your design document Implementation, we’ll be looking how to roughly prototype variable systems. At this point we should have the plan thoroughly evaluated. There should be no doubt about the processes and what needs to be done:
We want something functional by the end of this process, which enables us to visualise our end goal. We’ll also discuss resource management and advanced game topics.!
Example goals for this month:
- A basic blockout (cubes etc.) to figure out AI / Navmesh impact.
- A basic UI that will allow you to exit the game, change basic settings and have basic interaction (pause, save).
- A basic camera and player controller system.
- A basic start screen leading into the game.
- A rough prototype of more advanced systems (let’s say your game requires an inventory for example.)
- A basic combat mechanic system.
- A basic navigation system.
- Basic level loading / interaction (trigger volume) support.
- A basic introduction to the story, the game must have a purpose.
- A basic Health system, or reward system.
- Create a basic understanding of time association for various mechanics.
Month 2:
Art Month, this is the part where we create assets and animations, talk about speeding up the pipeline… Talk about maximising efficiency with tools and setting an engaging immersive atmosphere to further draw in your customers. Whilst the art doesn’t need to be perfect, it does require you to get as close as you can. It’s less to polish later…
A breakdown is required (don’t be shy, we all can improve)…
Example goals for the month:
- Turn blockouts into functional level design, using materials and textures. (Highly recommend shaderforge or equivalent for this).
- Modular workflows and procedures.
- Turn enemy’s into collide able objects w/ animation, learn to use sockets and third party toolsets efficiently.
- Learn and implement post processing, lighting systems, colour correction.
- Learn and implement advanced material functions like world camera offset, noise masks, emissive materials and trigger post process for event cycles.
- Learn and implement basic particles for various objectives.
- Learn and implement systems like atmospheric scattering, light shafts and other useful tools.
Month 3:
Back to basics, in this month we’ll learn about improving our skillsets. Instead of warping around in circles by yourself, we’ll spend an entire month learning how to squeeze every last drop of knowledge out of anything we can find.
Essentially the goal plan is to learn new techniques (how crafting systems work, how to do advanced clean up AI, hair systems, cloth systems anything you believe will benefit your game)…
- Learning state tree (BT) AI systems, or AI state machine functions.
- Learn event driven camera tracking.
- Learn advanced topics like destruction and cloth implementation.
- Learn about performance impact, route cause analysis and how to asses profiling for distribution across multiple types of hardware.
- Learn about the pro’s con’s of procedural placement and advanced workflow manufacturing.
- Learn about advanced PhysX implementations and improving character controller system.
- Approach design of implementation of said topics.
Month 4:
M3 is tie in month, this is where we’ll discuss approaches on tying various systems together via plotlines and mechanics… Upgrade systems and a little bit of polish.!
Example goals for this Month:
- Interactive trigger event and release system mechanics.
- System testing and analysis.
- Fixing common issues.
- What can we do to visually improve?
- Dialogue or story transitions.
- Reputation, selection and other player interactive mechanics.
Month 4 week 1:
At this point, we’ll play test each others designs and give feedback on how to improve. Please note at this point artwork will not be finalised, there will be bugs and it takes an open mind to constructively criticise.
DO NOT give the test demo away outside of the entrants to this challenge!.
Rest of Month 4:
This is where we take the feedback of others and improve variable systems.
Month 5:
Were back on Art, we’ll improve the UI / add more to our scenes to fill in the gaps and make it finally feel like an accomplished game with plenty of information to attract the eye. We’ll discuss about extending scale in a linear fashion, so the player can’t walk through the game in 10 minutes but we don’t burn out. At the end of this we’ll create a gameplay video to showcase our ideas.
Example goals:
- Increasing scale with minimal impact on repetition.
- Modular mesh and texture scales, using textures to split up the gaps.
- Decals and other scenery improvements.
- Polishing and sending out demo’s for review.
- Complete in-game UI settings for everything your other mechanics require.
Month 6:
At this point we’ll scurry to polish the earth and moon, get some final feedback on parameters and start working on getting a trailer together.! We’ll finally discuss the next phase “releasing the game” in preparation for part 3.
Goals!.. Have a demo ready!..
Any suggestions? Please let me know, if you want to join sign up below :).
