1. Mark Nelson mjas@itu.dk Alessandro Canossa alec@itu.dk Design documents Spring 2011 www.itu.dkwww.itu.dk

2. Game pitch  Short overview of the game idea  Both explain the game, and sell it  What’s the concept?  Why’s this interesting and novel?  Why will it be fun?  Why should I be excited to play it? (Or fund it?)  Have you thought the idea through enough that you can build it?

3. Your game pitch: This Thursday!  About 10 minutes per group  Pitch your game idea to the class  Format: however you would like  Powerpoint?  Concept art?  Paper prototype? (Chalkboard prototype?)  Live acting?  Audience interaction?

4. Vision document  Almost-final draft today  Should be close to agreeing on the high-level components  Final version, signed off on by all team members, Thursday  Presumably agreeing with what you pitched that same day...

5.  The game's title (and subtitle) with an appropriate cover image  Company contact information  The game's High Concept, Hook, and One-Sentence Marketing Description  A bullet-point listing of the game's key features  A brief description of the game's Setup  A succinct narrative description of actual gameplay  A brief description of the game's mechanics and victory conditions  Plenty of good concept art and screen shots (or at least screen mock-ups)  Some information on cameras, input controllers, etc.  Ideally, with unique formatting to set it apart Vision document reminders

6. Miscellaneous questions  Vertical slice  Can’t write 50 hours of RPG gameplay in this class  Implement just an episode, but demonstrating all the important elements  Only possible with some kinds of mechanics  These can even be sellable games (Sam & Max series)  Outsourcing assets  Can use art/music/whatever from the internet (check license)  Can get stuff from your friend who’s an artist  Don’t outsource the key things that make your game unique & interesting  Make sure to document what’s internal/external, and match up with roles  Too much outsourcing is a risk

7. Design documents  Who/what are they for?  External  extended pitch to management, investors, studios, publishers (, professors?)  Between teams  requirements specification for requests, documentation of deliverables  Within teams  design reference, progress, risks, roles

8. (You don’t have to make one of these.) 1 Title Page (and a short tagline to indicate what it’s about) 2 Executive Summary (bulletpoints) 3 Game Overview High Concept Genre Hooks (USPs) License (if any) Gameplay Highlights Technology Highlights Art and Audio Highlights Hardware 4 Production Details Current Status Development Team Budget Schedule Competition Treatment for external pitches 5 Game World Backstory Objective Characters Mission or Story Progression

9. (You may do a little of this, more informally.) Example: 1. Designer writes up narrative and gameplay ideas  2. Writer and gameplay scripter sketch how they’d implement it  3. Tools programmer starts planning out authoring tools  4. AI programmer implements functionality the tool needs  5. Engine programmer adds needed AI hooks Between teams

10. Within teams (This is you!)  Commonly done on wikis these days  Easier to read and navigate to specific parts  More likely to actually get updated  Set up a wiki wherever you’d like  Course blog has some suggested free resources  Possibly Dokuwiki on your ITU webspace  See us or TAs if you have problems

11. Design wiki purposes  Coordination  Who’s doing what?  Who needs what done? (From whom?)  What’s the current state of this component?

12. Design wiki purposes  Risks and contingencies  Which ideas are risky? (Ambitious new tech, etc.)  What’s the backup if this is cut or scaled down?  What are the dependencies between components?  Project management  What’s the current progress?  Are we on track?  What’s behind or blocking things?  If we had to ship in two weeks, what would we cut/finish to get this done?

13. Design wiki purposes  Documentation: Central place to go to get questions answered  How does the AI code work?  How are these levels supposed to be used?  What exactly is the story again?  What’s the API for [subsystem]?  How does the combat system work?  Doubles as the place to start when writing a treatment  Or doing a presentation at the end of this class

14. Questions?