INB305 Game Project Design Lecture 1 Unit Outline and P r oject Management

Queensland University of Technology

CRICOS No. 000213J

INB305 Game Project DesignLecture 1

Unit Outline and Project Management

Ross Brown

CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldreal R

Lecture Contents

• Unit Preamble• Motivation and Aims• Outcomes• Process• Project Management


Game Project Design

• “Luck is the residue of design.” - Branch Rickey

• “The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” - Robert Frost


INB305 Game Project Design Motivation

• Typical IT projects at the QUT School of IT have involved single or small group projects with singular supervisory meetings

• Works okay for a standard project• But not well for design style projects• Especially so for Games as they are a socio-

technical product


Fun

• They are a wicked problem revolving around “Fun”

• Require more agile methodologies• Difficult problem requires iteration to a solution• With lots of testing at each phase - critiquing


Critique Meetings

• We cannot organise a complete “daily” agile approach as would happen at a studio

• What we can do is turn the supervisor meetings into a critique session with a panel

• Facilitating the process of having to justify design decisions each step of the way

• Will maximise the feedback loop with the resources we have available


Unit Aims and Outcomes

• Simulates to the Pre-production phase

• With a slight twist – you will be aiming for a green light at the end

• Pipeline setup for game development

• INB380 Games Project will be the Production phase Concept Prototype Pitch Green

Light

Pre-production (In Parallel)

Concept Prototype Pitch Green Light

Pre-productio

n

Game Studio

INB305


Deliverables - Document

• Game Concept Design - Back Story, Character Designs, Concept Art, Conflicts, Levels, Mechanics etc.

• Business Plan – marketing plan and break even point

• Budget – charge for your team’s time in INB380• Timeline – your plan for INB380


Deliverables - Technical

• Investigation of Tool Chain– Review of three engines – Implementation in one engine– Loading and animating content, user interfaces, input

devices etc. – only need examples not complete implementations

• Prototype gameplay movie– Demonstration of major game play component– 5 mins max.


Main Goal

• You have to prove to us that you have a viable (that means fun) game design that you can implement fully for the next INB380 Game Project unit, that will sell if released

• Just like everybody else has to do in the games industry


Uniqueness

• Another intention for the unit is to make you think and reach as far as possible in your game designs

• Yes, you can have a tank first person shooter, or another middle earth themed story about elves…but it MUST have a unique component

• Good ideas implemented well will get better grades


Teaching Process

• Some Lectures – pointers and tips for the unit• Lecture 1 – Unit Processes – Ross Brown• Lecture 2 – Design Processes – Michael

Docherty• Lecture 4 – Design Folio Contents – Peta Wyeth• Lecture 11 – Design Pitch – Michael Docherty


Lectures

• You should know now how to build a game• Unit is about synthesising all you have learned

into one non-trivial project• These lectures are simply to provide instruction

on doing well in this unit• Some new ones may be inserted if needed


Critique Meeting

• Presentations each week on your design at an arranged time and place with the supervision panel

• Panels are:– Ross Brown and Michael Docherty– Ruth Christie, Peta Wyeth and Rune Rasmussen– Penny Drennan and Dian Tjondronegoro

• 2 groups each supervisor – 4 groups each panel max


General Plan for Meetings

• One slide on what you have done for the week• Previous week’s slide to show your progress –

project delta• Suggest slide format will contain prioritised items

on: – Progress, Problems, Questions, Plans


Example Delta Slide

• Progress– Concept art for 2 characters – Luke to show his work– Background story completed – Obi-wan to list main features– Two games engines downloaded and tested – Darth Vader to present

• Problems– Took a while to configure VS for the XYZ Game engine– Worried about evil goblin in level hard to make him evil enough…

• Plans– Test importation in the Frog Game Engine– Design two more characters – wizard and samurai

• Questions– Does any one know of an importer module for Frog Game Engine?– Comments on the Evil Goblin?


A word to the small amount of lazy people…

• Most of you will work hard, and engage with the process of developing a great game

• Meetings are compulsory - lack of attendance is a probable cause for failing the unit as you have to show you have done the work

• Teams will be quizzed as to effort by each member of the team – so no hiding

• Sustained effort will bring a better design – we will aim for high standards this semester


Meeting Constraints

• Time will be of the essence – roughly half hour per team due to supervisor constraints

• Please use them wisely• Each team member will be rostered to present

the progress report in turn


Good Criticism

• As supervisors we aim to give you the best feedback possible on the design

• Critiquing will be pointed, but will not be personal

• Typically it will be around the question “Why?”– Why did you choose this rendering

technique?– Why did you choose this style of boss

for the level?– Why haven’t you done what you

promised last week?• Criticism is around behavior and

choices


Good Criticism

• Praise will be around the same…criticism involves praise for doing something well

• Other teams are to comment as well

• Remember you are not competing with each other – grades are not rankings within the unit


Weekly Delta

• The focus here will be on improvement

• Taking the ideas you have and creating a high quality game design that is worthy of implementation

• You should show weekly improvement

www.dorodango.com/about.html


Assessment 1: Team AgreementWeek 3

• Help you structure your teamwork processes

• Because the success of your team will largely determine your progress in this unit

• So be quick to deal with problems


Assessment 2: Learning AgreementWeek 5

• Appropriate to parameterise the assessment of your design folio

• Weightings and some components of the final folio assessment are negotiated with supervisors

• But we will expect certain basic deliverables


Assessment 3: Design FolioWeek 13

• You will present to the supervisors a folio of design components for the game prototype

• The folio will contain:– Design Document– Example Digital Assets– Prototype gameplay scenario with roughly 5 minutes of game play


Assessment 4 : Prototype PitchTBA

• 30 minute presentation to supervisors and industry representatives as a concept pitch

• To help you with the process of pitching games to companies for future production


Some Practical Issues

• 2 Gig. IAS download limit has been set aside for you• A subversion repository will be set up once teams

are organised – information on using tortoise/subversion will be disseminated

• Subversion can be used as a location of about 2 gig of files per team – backed up and available anywhere

• Common concept in large team development scenarios…more later


Collaborative Tools

• Should maintain a Google docs site for your design document

• Will enable collaboration on content, and display/referencing at supervisory panels.

• See docs.google.com for details – uploads/downloads word and downloads pdf documents


Project Management

• Arrange weekly team meetings, in addition to the seminars – part of Team Agreement

• Make yourselves available to each other!!!• Appoint a leader – to organise group and

interface to supervisor• 6 hours every week on this unit each…and then

some


Project Plan

• Part of the output of this project is a timetable for next semester’s implementation

• For this semester it will be hard to plan a strict timetable – prototyping is hard to constrain

• However, you have milestones at intervals in the semester• Work back from these to make sure you are ready• Be wise and choose achievable goals – need to scope the

work right down…and then halve it again• You need to show that you can achieve the goal


Milestones

• Engine Chosen – check three• Export/Import Tools – make sure they work for next

semester• Concept Art – game look and feel finalised• Characters – modelled then loaded into game• Back Story – finalise early on• Conflicts/Gameplay – established and then refined• Bug Testing – game should be bug free at end


Milestones

• These should be in place at appropriate times in the timeline

• They can then be refined each week – waterfall is nice, agile iteration is the reality

• Sort out what has to be done and then assign tasks in parallel – work out the critical path

• Subversion system will then allow you to refine without stuffing up teamwork timeline


Task Week 3 Week 5 Week 7 Week 9 Week 11 Week 13

Game Engine (Darth)

Research Chosen Program Demo Level

Program Demo Level

Program Demo Level

Debug

Tools (Darth)

Import/Export

Import/Export

Scripting (Obi-Wan)

Script Char Anims

Script Demo Level Mech

Script Demo Level Mech

Script Debug

Design Document (Obi-Wan)

Back Story

Character Definition

Design Level 1

Design Level 2

Design Level ??

Budget/Timeline

Modelling/Animation (Luke)

Concept Art

Models Created

Models Created Animated

Models Animated

Testing (Stormtroopers)

Q/A Q/A Q/A Final Q/A


Some Misc. Points

• Leaders will have to delegate tasks to appropriate personnel – will have to give up some work to be producer

• Watch your ego – scope down the work, then divide by half again, and you will probably get a third of that done…

• Remember SCRUM – subdivide tasks until they are small enough to estimate for 16 hours work – two days or 2-3 weeks work per person


Team Formation

• Yes, you can work with people you like – please be polite if refusing people

• Teams cannot be greater than 5, and cannot be less than 4 – resourcing issues again

• Remember to hand in Team Agreement by week 3

• If you haven’t formed a team – do it here and now!!!

INB305 Game Project Design Lecture 1 Unit Outline and P r oject Management

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