Design

I believe in being flexible in the processes I use when working on games, for me it is the end result that is important, creating a great experience for the player. Rigid systems inevitably break under high degrees of stress so it is a great advantage to be flexible. It's important to keep the goal in focus and not get obsessed with being a slave to process. A great analogy for me is Bruce Lee, he studied Wing Chun growing up and from that solid foundation he went on to study other forms of martial arts comparing the best aspects from each one. From this he created his own style Jeet Kune Do which he felt was the most adaptable. The key thing with any creative endeavour is to continually evolve and learn.

'Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own ' - Bruce Lee

Design

The basis of my general design process (not specifically game design) is similar in principle to the 'double diamond' design process as illustrated by the Design Council research. I take a lot of inspiration from traditional design practices as I feel the way we design games is no different to what has been done for decades in other industries, and that's probably why the Design Councils research struck a chord with me about universal design principles. This description is not exhaustive but a base from which to build and fall back on. You can check out further details at www.designcouncil.org.uk a great source for all things design related.

Discover

The concept stage that begins with an initial idea or inspiration which can come from anywhere and anyone, a discovery phase that could include brainstorming in which player needs, gaps in the market , or a competitive advantage is identified. These include:

Market research, user research, data analysis, competitive analysis, risk assessment.

Define

Assuming the initial concept is good to proceed with, this is the pre-production stage where you define the brief and vision, in which alignment of business and creative objectives are achieved. It's important to have sign off on the brief from all stakeholders. Key activities:

Define the brief/vision and scope, project/budget planning, prototyping, find the fun.

Develop

This is where full production starts, where prototypes are fleshed out, iterated and tested. Key activities and objectives during the Develop stage are:

Team work, direction, development methodology, player focused testing and usability.

Deliver

The delivery stage, where the game or service is launched in the relevant market. The key activities and objectives during this stage are:

Quality Assurance, sign off and launch, technical and marketing support.

The delivery stage can vary a lot depending on whether you are delivering a game as a service or a boxed product. There is obviously a lot more involved in designing games than this basic process but this is a good start.

Discover

While the ability to ideate is very important, it only forms a small part of the design process, 1% inspiration 99% perspiration. (I hate it when that saying is used to diminish the value of ideas) Designing is not sitting around coming up with ideas all day. This is not to denegrate the ability to ideate, while ideas are ten a penny, good ideas are not, but having that good idea is only the first step on a long road. Generating and facilitating idea generation can take many forms, and can be informal or formal. If you are trying to solve a specific problem then a more structured brainstorming meeting may be appropriate, but the constraints of a meeting can sometimes restrict people going off on tangents which can sometimes be useful. The likely scenario in a commercial environment is that the initial idea or concept has come from somewhere like marketing or a publisher if your in a large organisation.

All design should start with a research phase, to make informed design decisions you have to know what is currently available and what has gone before. Key problems that will need to be solved and need to be identified. Knowing how other people have solved these, the mistakes they have made and what they have done successfully will give you a greater chance of making the right decisions. Look at what design patterns people have used, what the new trends are (user generated content, social networks), behavioural studies of player behaviour and psychology, demographic research, the list goes on and should be relevant to the type of game your doing.

You will have to know your subject matter, if the game is about World War 1 then you better become familiar with that era and the events that took place. If you have direct competitors you will need to define the quality bar and what will be expected for your game to compete, and what basic features will be expected of a game of your genre. Once you know what the competition is you can better define your differentiator that will make your game stand out in the market.

A vital part in this early stage for me is to get the whole team involved in both idea generation and research. Good ideas can come from anywhere, also vital insight into certain problems. It is also useful to give the team ownership and buy in as they will feel they have an investment in the game which is important for team motivation.

Define

This is where the design starts proper for me, where you take the concept, the ideas generated and all the research that has been done and start to form it into a coherent and achievable vision. You define a brief of what you are trying to achieve that contains the key features, and the parameters in which these features can operate in.

It's where you prototype and test these ideas and core mechanics, iterating until you create something that works. 'Find the fun' is a great way to describe this iteration process. 'Proof of concept' is another term that describes this process well. All the main risk areas are identified and solutions found, and if solutions can not be found then features may need to be dropped or alternative ones found. The design should naturally evolve during this period focusing on what the player experience is and whether the features you are implementing are hitting your target audience.

Building the design document is an obvious part of this stage, and there are various ways that this can be put together. Putting a 100+ page document together may not be the best way to communicate the vision to the team, and it may be best to create a series of documents, or set up a wiki or website. How you prepare the documentation will be important especially when you have to maintain and update the documentation as the design evolves with multiple people working on it.

Something that should be defined during this period if it hasn't been done already, is the elevator pitch or x-statement. This describes the game concisely in as few words of possible. This is useful in quickly describing the game internally and externally so that people quickly understand it. Some games just can't be described in a few words, but focusing on how you communicate what the game is about as quickly as possible helps focus on what are the important elements. You may well enter this period with this in place as it may have been part of the initial discovery phase, but as your design evolves it may well need to be modified or changed.

You will need to get buy in from all the key stake holders before this period ends, so that everyone is clear about what you are trying to achieve and what exactly is going to be made. Key stake holders could be publishers, investors, business partners, managers, fellow team members, anyone who has a stake in the game being successful. Defining how you will judge success is also useful, how quality will be judged, and how and when key milestones will be reviewed.

Tools and pipelines should ideally be designed and in place before this period ends and the project goes into production. An understanding of how features will be created technically, making sure you get bang for your buck, and that you create smartly maximising your available resources. A project plan and schedule should then be created once you have proved your core concepts and how you can create them.