Creating a Game – milestone 1 – Development Stage 1
or: “Before first Tech-Demo”

Preface
or: “What you have..., what to do...”

So you wrote design document... you can have it in any form... you think that this is “1.0 premium gold master” release? No! It is just “0.1 beta test” release... now you have to work with it and you should spare some time to convert it to some nice, easy editable format. You would ask why, but the design would change many times... it is bible of development... but just as real bible, this also isn't read every day... so things would change, some new ideas would come up with time and this is why your design should be easy editable... So you have to choose format... first of all – it should be viewable by whole team... also notice that large documents are hard to keep clean... it is your choice, but from my personal experience I can tell you that using wysiwyg editor is bad to this... try automatically add something to document written in it without running editor... hard enough to give it up... and that's why we choose to create our Design Document in TeX system (exactly TeX using LaTeX scripts...) it is running on all platforms, so everybody was able to edit it, also *.tex files can be edited in notepad, vim or any other text editor, so we created few automatic process to edit it and everything was running like charm, also results was impressive... so now you have your document ready to change...

Management
or: “How to keep it up and running”

Now you have your team... you should discuss with them your and THEIR ideas... before this they should read your design document to know about what you are talking... there shows up another problem... the way of organize this show, they must to know what thy are supposed to do, I would introduce there three ways to keep your people together...

First method I would call “cage” - this method requires a lot of resources, exactly a huge amount of money... you gather them all in one place, where they work at computers... you must buy computers, rent local, pay them monthly, you give them a full-time job, and in most cases they hate you, they feel like in prison. This isn't best way, but it's chosen many times, because of control that it gives you... You watch at their hands and makes them keep working – for sure it's fastest method and your people doesn't need to have computer in home.

Second method can be used when your people are from one region and you can meet each other in some calm place, I call this “camp” - one time in week they gives you results of your work, but you should meet in place with computer or always have a laptop with you... This is good way, but is impossible to realize even when your people comes from different cities, and what when from different countries? What I can say – very good when you are “local developer”, but requires from your people to have computers and phone or Internet connection...

Third method I call “pajamas” - because your people can work, wherever they want, whenever they want, and even in pajamas... just like they want ... back to case... it's when you have to manage many people from different countries, now they need to have Internet connection! You cannot work any other way... you must create forum and some ftp to let them contact with each other... this gives them freedom, you must have responsible team, but best models/functions/anything can be created when author have vein, and as all of us knows, it comes and goes, cannot be turned on for 8 hours of work, so this is plus of this method... minus is very small control over them.

Bring it on...
or: “Who should work, who can rest...”

For sure scenario writers and concept artists can take long holidays or start working on new project, now there are hard times for programmers... they would have a lot of work, since before graphics are made, you must have something to put it into, so first of all create engine... meanwhile few graphic artists can create some eye candies that would be used to test with engine and would sell your product, maybe some sponsoring, or advertisements would come by your nose if you would have great engine with weak graphics in tech-demo... so – programmers creates engine, editor and all tools, while graphic artists would try to make best with some graphics to demo. At this moment think about tech-demo it should contains best technology that engine would offer and most interesting parts of game... like give plain white territory, put on it one hero, and many enemies, and show how combat looks... (with slowdowns at key pressed and ability to rewind so someone would be able to look closer at what is going on, this isn't required but can be usefull)... also create some particles, and some nice location, show how physics work, maybe let someone drive a moment or run through city... to show what would this be when it would be finished...

Let's say you just created your tech-demo, this is first time you can present your work to someone, to publisher, to public, you can place it somewhere in the net... remember to be careful with showing design document too early, it can be stolen from you or just be point to “creative inspiration” and you would have hard times releasing your game... just give first part of design, right now concept papers are enough, just show publisher you have it, but you don't want to show it now... he would agree with that if you would let him see your tech-demo.

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this is what you should keep in mind while creating your tech-demo, just like last time, for more information check:

www.gamasutra.com
www.gamedev.net

So... that's all for this milestone... and there would be others just to day you would have box in your hand...

Giniu

PS.:

Thanks to all that helped me with this part, but most to my friend - Nelle - for great name of third working method - "pajamas workers" - orginal name was unable to translate, without this, this wouldn't be the same...

 

 

 

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