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Spillen me guts - game design documents.

  • It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog on what I’ve been up to. Mostly because I’ve been quite busy with all sorts of work. Thankfully the outcome of which is that I now have quite a deal of things to write about.

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  • [Note: This post is quite long. Just wanted to establish that so no one tells me to shorten it. :D ]

    Designerwatts' 7 rules of making your first team-based indie game.

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Submitted by designerwatts on

WARNING - The following documents contain a lot of spelling errors and a lot of unfinished work.

This was done as a project of my year 12 VCD class.. I might use it in my folio as a game designer when it's totally 100% corrected but that's not gonna be for another 9 months until all the practical/tangible work is done. I doubt anyone would hire me based on docos alone. So I?m gonna spend 6-8 months after graduating high school creating some levels in level editors like unreal ed.

I?m not really stressed who reads all this, if anyone actually will XD. I consider it free to read.. Although if you just copy this work and paste it in your own folio your a doosh bag. XD

Select "save as" on the following link -

http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/contingency.rar

Submitted by Majeeva on Sat, 17/12/05 - 11:17 PMPermalink

Mate,

Thats some great work you have done there, a fantastic concept. Have you had much feedback about it?

Submitted by Caroo on Sun, 18/12/05 - 10:59 PMPermalink

quote:Originally posted by Majeeva

Mate,

Thats some great work you have done there, a fantastic concept. Have you had much feedback about it?

You ARE the feedback XD... i think its ether it's shear size or bad spelling thats killed many people from reading it XD

that or no one looks at this section...

Submitted by Kris on Thu, 29/12/05 - 2:06 PMPermalink

Hi mate... good start! There's a lot of info in there, I haven't read it all because like your potential employer's will be doing, I'm at work during the time of reading this. There's not a lot of time to get through it all. My suggestion would be to keep going on the doc's, but throw together a much smaller pitch document with around 2 - 3 pages max. Sell your idea, if you're responsible for the illustrations in doc #5, doc #7 and doc #8, include some of these - they're a huge plus in helping to visualise your ideas.

Throw a rough logo together, build up a nice visual style for the game and print in full colour. Send this along with your DVD you have planned (mentioned in your other thread). Blow the socks off them in the first three pages and they'll take the time to take a deeper look into your documents.

I'd also recommend working heavily on some mechanic documents. For example, you have your HUD Interface under the Mission Gameplay Outline document. In an industry situation, this would be a completely seperate document and detailed quite extensively. Perhaps work on detailing some of these kinds of documents, it'd be a good way to show your understanding game mechanics. These documents are meant to get across everything the designer is after, the illustrations you have are fine, but they dont tell programmers what should happen when you fire your weapon... does your ammo count decrease by 'rolling' down to the next number? does it instantly disappear? what happens when your fuel gets low? does it blink red? how does the minimap work, does it rotate with you, or is it just your icon that rotates around? etc...

Hope this helps! It's clear you have the dedication & passion to enter the industry. Entering as game designer straight of the bat is rather difficult, especially in Australia, just keep showing your passion and a kind CEO will make a position for you if there's nothing available :)

Submitted by Caroo on Fri, 30/12/05 - 4:20 AMPermalink

^^thanks mate. the feedback is MUCH needed.

gonna start work on two unreal ed levels next year for 6 months. hopefully that will help to in showing level design/completion.

Submitted by Kris on Fri, 30/12/05 - 10:47 AMPermalink

You could document a level prior to building it. Planning out is a big part of the industry, to show you can do this and then follow through with a level would be a big help. Are you going to plan to do a single player level in UE or multiplayer? You dont necessarily have to have AI in order to build a single player level, just build to show your intentions, back it up with a walkthrough etc...

WARNING - The following documents contain a lot of spelling errors and a lot of unfinished work.

This was done as a project of my year 12 VCD class.. I might use it in my folio as a game designer when it's totally 100% corrected but that's not gonna be for another 9 months until all the practical/tangible work is done. I doubt anyone would hire me based on docos alone. So I?m gonna spend 6-8 months after graduating high school creating some levels in level editors like unreal ed.

I?m not really stressed who reads all this, if anyone actually will XD. I consider it free to read.. Although if you just copy this work and paste it in your own folio your a doosh bag. XD

Select "save as" on the following link -

http://www.furry.org.au/caroo/contingency.rar


Submitted by Majeeva on Sat, 17/12/05 - 11:17 PMPermalink

Mate,

Thats some great work you have done there, a fantastic concept. Have you had much feedback about it?

Submitted by Caroo on Sun, 18/12/05 - 10:59 PMPermalink

quote:Originally posted by Majeeva

Mate,

Thats some great work you have done there, a fantastic concept. Have you had much feedback about it?

You ARE the feedback XD... i think its ether it's shear size or bad spelling thats killed many people from reading it XD

that or no one looks at this section...

Submitted by Kris on Thu, 29/12/05 - 2:06 PMPermalink

Hi mate... good start! There's a lot of info in there, I haven't read it all because like your potential employer's will be doing, I'm at work during the time of reading this. There's not a lot of time to get through it all. My suggestion would be to keep going on the doc's, but throw together a much smaller pitch document with around 2 - 3 pages max. Sell your idea, if you're responsible for the illustrations in doc #5, doc #7 and doc #8, include some of these - they're a huge plus in helping to visualise your ideas.

Throw a rough logo together, build up a nice visual style for the game and print in full colour. Send this along with your DVD you have planned (mentioned in your other thread). Blow the socks off them in the first three pages and they'll take the time to take a deeper look into your documents.

I'd also recommend working heavily on some mechanic documents. For example, you have your HUD Interface under the Mission Gameplay Outline document. In an industry situation, this would be a completely seperate document and detailed quite extensively. Perhaps work on detailing some of these kinds of documents, it'd be a good way to show your understanding game mechanics. These documents are meant to get across everything the designer is after, the illustrations you have are fine, but they dont tell programmers what should happen when you fire your weapon... does your ammo count decrease by 'rolling' down to the next number? does it instantly disappear? what happens when your fuel gets low? does it blink red? how does the minimap work, does it rotate with you, or is it just your icon that rotates around? etc...

Hope this helps! It's clear you have the dedication & passion to enter the industry. Entering as game designer straight of the bat is rather difficult, especially in Australia, just keep showing your passion and a kind CEO will make a position for you if there's nothing available :)

Submitted by Caroo on Fri, 30/12/05 - 4:20 AMPermalink

^^thanks mate. the feedback is MUCH needed.

gonna start work on two unreal ed levels next year for 6 months. hopefully that will help to in showing level design/completion.

Submitted by Kris on Fri, 30/12/05 - 10:47 AMPermalink

You could document a level prior to building it. Planning out is a big part of the industry, to show you can do this and then follow through with a level would be a big help. Are you going to plan to do a single player level in UE or multiplayer? You dont necessarily have to have AI in order to build a single player level, just build to show your intentions, back it up with a walkthrough etc...