6/15/99

"I can't give you all my dreams Nor the life I live." -Marianne Faithful This week, as promised: The pitfalls of design. One of the largest problem, from the designer's end, is not having a clear vision of what the project needs. A better way to say that would be this: Great ideas are necessary, but they're not enough. In addition to the great ideas, a designer needs a good eye for detail, for the tiniest details. That's the major difference between being a designer for pen & paper games and computer games. When designing p&p, it's better - it's ENCOURAGED - that the designer lay out ideas and leave much of the rest vague so the Dungeon Master can improvise and tailor the adventure to the party. Pen & paper design is, essentially, a summary of areas and the way an adventure should flow. Computer games, on the other hand, are not only repositories of ideas, they're the Dungeon Master as well, and so a computer game designer has to take into account *everything* a player might want to do. What's on the table? Is there anything of value in the trash heap? Of what kind of wood is the chair made? What sort of utensils sit in the cabinet? What creatures come into and out of the room? Are there any subquests here, and if so, what are their flags? Nailing down these details is the most important part of a designer's job, once the main thrust of the game has been established. Not taking these details into account leads either to a slipshod game or a game that slips. Even when they've all been accounted for, implementing them can take far longer than expected. A realistic schedule with flexibility built in is therefore crucial if one is to have a realistic ship date. That was a long and rambling discussion of the worst problems in design, and it probably could have been summed up with this sentence: Have a clear idea of what you need, and have a schedule that allows for mistakes in the initial stages. Hm. And I didn't even get to discussing other time-wasters, like multiplayer games, new movies, management excitement, and... yes, more meetings. I gotta go. Time to talk to the QA boys! Next week, I'll try to get one of the other designers to throw something in here. No guarantees, though; you might be stuck with me. Colin

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