The first day of the school year… and we went straight to it!
During Week 1, we focused on formulating our ideas and gathering inspo for a game we could make into a potential game/GDD. We first defined a GDD, a descriptive document that serves as a blueprint to build your game—hearing that as the overarching task of this semester was pretty daunting.
However… before I start talking about anything else, what makes a good GDD? We know a GDD is a document that serves as a blueprint to make the game, but how is it good? I made some notes below which is my idea of what a good GDD would look like. I’ll explain some of the choices I made below.
| Artistic Direction | Communication | Simple Language | Clear Sections |
| A good GDD needs to have an artistic direction. This means the GDD itself is a reflection of the game. This is a good starting point because the people working on the game with you can understand what type of tone and setting the game needs. | You need to communicate your ideas to your teammates clearly and concisely. Make sure the idea you have is able to communicate with different disciplines of Game Design. Programmers, Managers, Designers and Artists will all look at your document. | This ties into communication, but having simple language will help your teammates understand what you want to achieve. I love waffling as much as the next, but overly formal language will confuse your teammates. Maybe opt for “massive” instead of “gargantuan”. | Make sure your GDD has specific sections so your teammates know where they are in your GDD. An example of some sections are: – The Brief – Pitch/Overview – Design Goals – Art Bible – Sound Design – Marketing – Platform Requirements |
Now with that defined, I can speak about the tasks we did in class this week.
The first task we did was generating an idea using a chosen logline that could help us explore a game idea. We used a template that Vanissa gave us. We chose an adjective with the first letter of our name. Mine is “E” so I chose: Elegant, Eager, Eccentric and Ecstatic. Even with just these adjectives, there could be some cool games generated from them. The second one was picking a genre based on your birth month. I am born in October, so as you know it’s spooky season. Therefore, my genre is Survival Horror/Stealth. Then based on the day, we pick a setting. 17th was Snow-covered mountains.
Putting all of this together, it makes:
“Eerie Stealth game set in snow-covered mountains.”
We ended up choosing my idea. The finished Idea is a fox that is separated from its’ mother, navigating a snowy landscape while avoiding dangers such as predators and poachers. I worked with my classmates to expand on this idea as a game. While I don’t want to create a game like that for my GDD, It was a good example of idea-generating using variables out of your control (such as when you were born).
The Essential Experience?
What is the intended emotions that you want the player to feel? What don’t you want them to feel? Those two questions are the “essential experience” of your game. On Thursday, we focused on these two questions. I jotted down some games that I played recently and broke them down into 3 adjectives that reflect the way they make me feel.
E.g Roblox: Imagination, Structure, Playfulness
I used this reflection to aid me in the next task: making a Game Idea about an experience. This particular one was a dream I had and wrote about it afterwards. I found this task of breaking down things to their essentials helpful with how I should define the experience for my potential game.
Reflection
I know what type of vibe I want my game to have. In my about, I say that I’m into:
...low poly graphics reminiscent of PS1/2 graphics. I like exciting colours, like neon and “tacky” ones.
So how fun would it be to make a game like this? I explored one aspect of this interest in the game idea I had in year 1, so I wanted to expand on other aspects of this aesthetic. Touching on the PS1/PS2 side would be super interesting, and I’ve been drawn to very stylised games recently.
Over the weekend, I’ll make a mindmap of the “experience game” and the above idea.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
WOW!!! love this!!!