Weekly Roundup 29 - 18/09/20 - New Design Wiki and 2nd Project Designs (Patreon)

Hi everyone. :)

Got some progress to show this week of a different sort: It's a little bit dry in presentation but provides some insight into the pre-production stages of designing a game.

1: This Weeks Progress

So first off, I've purchased and created a dedicated online Wiki space for my design documents. Specifically for the upcoming 2nd Project. 

I'm using Confluence. It's a wiki standard we used where I worked previously and I find it's a nice compromise between being a professional online document space while also being easy to use and read.

From here on; all the design and production documentation I'll be doing will be going here.

So what progress was made on the 2nd project design this week?

A pretty good amount! I was able to diagram out and get an idea of the screen-by-screen gameplay loop.

Diagraming loops is a way to get a clearer idea of how many screens and "scenes" are needed to allow for a full gameplay loop.

This diagram for the 2nd project shows the loop from leaving town to go into the dungeon and then return to town:

The gameplay and the way it flows is definitely becoming much more clearer with concepts like using stamina and puzzles as interactions.

For contrast. Here's the gameplay loop for Ticklish Tessa:

Quite different. ;D

There's already more design content there to look over such as potential puzzle designs and how collecting resources work in the game.

Being a wiki. No page is ever finished and they'll be edited and refined all the time.

2: Are you concerned that your designs are publicly visible?

Not at all. 

Almost 15 years of making games has told me that designs on their own have low value. As a guide to make a game they're prized but you also need the skills and the time to turn designs into reality.

If anything making the designs publicly available will give people insight as to what's to come! You're all welcome to share the wiki around. 

3: How long until you start prototyping the 2nd project?

Not long!

My plan is to start initial work on the prototyping around the start of October. The intent will be to make a proof of concept of the dungeon and its gameplay mechanics. 

Take it from a designer: It's not sensible to document out every little design detail. 

But it is sensible to document the systems and content you need to prove that the game's core experience is fun to play.

Once you figure that out, you document the rest of the systems and content.

So leading up to prototyping I'll be documenting:

• The design for 1 enemy encounter.
• The design for 1 freeing a prisoner.
• The design for 1 opening a chest.
• The design for 1 disarming a trap.
• The design for dungeon floor traversal.
• Production documents on how to architecture the game objects and systems in unity.

4: What's Next?

Next is writing, diagraming, and drawing the designs above in preparation to prototyping.

I also may take some time to see if there's anything I can bug fix or improve on Ticklish Tessa but there wont be more content added on it next week.

I know that design docs are a bit of a snooze-fest for some. But with the next upcoming project being much more ambitious the time spent planning out now will save months in the long run.

Cheers!

- Caroo