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How to not not

make a game

On communication and

project management

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Quick Roadmap:

Prologue: other people’s failures
First Half: Project Management
Intermission
Second Half: Visual Design
Closing Remarks & Questions

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Why are we here?

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Why are we here?

One of the biggest concerns of an indie dev is not releasing anything

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Why are we here?

One of the biggest concerns of an indie dev is not releasing anything
Having published games is the easiest way to show you can finish projects.

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Why are we here?

One of the biggest concerns of an indie dev is not releasing anything
Having published games is the easiest way to show you can finish projects.
Bad project management leads to the failure of games all the time

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Why are we here?

One of the biggest concerns of an indie dev is not releasing anything
Having published games is the easiest way to show you can finish projects.
Bad project management leads to the failure of games all the time
The best game is a finished game

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Why are we here?

One of the biggest concerns of an indie dev is not releasing anything
Having published games is the easiest way to show you can finish projects.
Bad project management leads to the failure of games all the time
The best game is a finished game

“Amateurs speak of strategy. Professionals discuss logistics.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte

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Prologue:

AAA games that failed

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John Romero - co-writer of Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, and Quake. Left iD in 95, started production in 97. rumored budget of $30 million. Sold 40,000 copies out of 2.5 million expected. They didn’t keep a good design document so when staff left, they weren’t able to use the works they left behind. Only 2 people stayed on the project all the way through. The company closed a year after release and made it open source.�This isn't the worst game you'll ever play, but there's precious little fun either. - Jeff Lundigran in Next Gen magazine, 2000

Anthem lost its lead developer after the first year of development in 2014, had an unfocused central design so writers pulled it about until 2016 where they ejected the writers with dissenting views. Then, in 2017, since the project wasn’t progressing, a new team was added who couldn’t understand what to do because there weren’t any concrete decisions being made by the designers. Many people left during development, especially in 2018, just before release and didn’t document their work so it had to be scrapped and had a forced release in 2019 so that the studios could work on something else. This lead

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StarCraft: Ghost

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First Half: Design document and project management

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What is an MVP and why does it help?

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Be ruthless about what’s not useful

If it’s not integral to the design, it’s not in the MVP
Ignore the art in the MVP unless it’s 100% necessary
The MVP should be small and focused
If your game idea needs many mechanics to be viable, maybe it needs refining.
If your game idea doesn’t fit in an MVP. It needs refining.

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Build your game in layers!

Implement your game in a modular way
Always have a testable product
Always have the previous version to fall back on

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How to make an MVP

What do you want to accomplish with this game?
How big does it need to be?
What are your goals for this game?

Who is the game for?
What is new with this game?
How should the player feel?

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Don’t overscope, it’s multiplicative

(Design Team)

(Time and money)

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Design is mostly research and testing

Research:

If you don’t play games that are relevant, play them now
Playing is no use without analysis
Look up video essays and form your own opinion

Testing:

The point of an MVP is to have something testable
You can only know what’s wrong with it by actually interacting with it
Be honest about what you are seeing in the MVP. Not about what you hope to add

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RADIT: Research, Analyse, Design, Implement, Test

Research - What do you want to make? Play games in the genre

Analyse - What are players’ expectations? What makes good games good?

Design - Come up with an idea, make an MVP. Focus on player experience

Implement - Actually make the thing

Test - Does it do what you want?

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Don’t be like PIXAR

Pixar makes every movie twice. Avoid that but do it if necessary.

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How to design so everyone is excited

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas” - Linus Pauling�ie. ask the whole team.
Consolidate ideas into possible games
Decide on one and make the MVP
Continue to listen to everyone and see if their ideas will work well with the game
Make sure everyone has a part that they can be proud of

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What is a “design document”?

Explains the current state of the design
Keeps everyone on the same page
Sets limits on what you’re going to do (schedule)
Explains what is needed when (what are the dependencies)
Lets people get on with their work
What are the fallbacks

“anything you can’t explain to an undergraduate class, you probably don’t understand” - Richard Feynman

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How to communicate the design document to the team

Walk them through the design document
If they disagree, stop and find out why
Keep things short but don’t under explain
Don’t let anyone “handwave”
Keep coming back to people because their ideas change without you. The design document isn’t perfect

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Document everything

If everyone leaves, be able to continue making the game
EVERYONE needs to document their work - not just the programmers
Documentation is how each team member makes sure their work is used
Documentation is necessary for consistency

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Second Half: Communication Design

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Kim’s Game Interactive

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Kim’s game Interactive

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What do you remember?

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Kim’s Game

From the spy book “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling�(Harold “Kim” Philby) was later named after him

The game focuses around memorization

The “player” is presented with some random objects�and expected to memorize what they are within a time�limit

People are usually only able to remember 6 objects in 10 seconds

If the objects are “themed”, it’s easier

If you know their names, it’s easier

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Brain Space

The player has a certain amount of “space” in their mind
Everything they have to learn takes up space
Some players have more space than�others
Using familiar signs can help with it…�Which we’ll talk about later

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Where is this important?

Everywhere the player is involved:

UI
Controls
Environment
Cutscenes
Story

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How do you fix it?

Keep the number of relevant things low

Have visual and audio reminders

Repetition

Playtest because you remember everything

If one system is very complicated, make the others simpler

Make your icons “Iconic”

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Visual Language

Fire is red, water is blue, plants are green.
Aim for clear visual to gameplay connections
Connect things to real life
Don’t be afraid of being literal

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Using visual language (in marketing)

“Ask a child to draw a car, and certainly he will draw it red.” - Enzo Ferrari

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Common Icons

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Mr. Ouch

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Recurring Themes

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In the world

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Examples

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SUPERHOT

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Terraria

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Star Citizen

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Civilization (V)

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Factorio

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Directing the Player’s

Attention

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Environmental Cues

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IRL Environmental Cues

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In Racing Games

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Closing

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Who wants to keep learning for their entire career?

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Everything is learning

You can learn from all professions. Try out:

Marketing
Economings
—> Engineering <—
Art
Psychology
Physics/Biology/Sciences
History/Anthropology
And literally everything else!

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Learn from other game’s mistakes

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Testestestestest

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🎉Thank you for coming!🎉

Questions?