Games Design L3
Morten Holland
James Tedder
Pre-Production and Planning for a Computer Game
I will be outlining the pre-production and planning stages
that are included in the creation of a computer game, such as the one I’ll be
making in my ‘Games Design L3’ course.
Finance
Self-Financing
Making a game will cost a lot of money, to buy development
kits, recording software and expensive equipment. So if you make a game that
lots of people really like, then publishing companies will want to buy it,
which will return lots of money and maybe you’ll make profit. It can be risky
though because if your game isn’t popular, no publisher will want it, all the
time and money you put into making that game are essentially wasted.
Indie Funding
Indie funding is very smart because it can cost nothing or
cost very little to create a good game. The creator can create the game in
their spare time whilst gaining money from a day job. This may mean that the
game will take longer to make. There’s a funding source called ‘The Indie Fund’
which was created by a group of independent game creators that are widely
successful.
Crowd Funding
A hugely popular website called ‘Kickstarter’ is a crowd
funding site that gathers money from donators of the public for certain
products or services. Lots of games get funded this way because it obviously
funds the game, but also shows how many people are willing to pay for the game
which means the game already essentially has been bought by some people.
Grants
Grants are basically loans, where people can loan money from
grant companies so that the people can create their business and start earning
money, then that company will pay back the grant so others can take out loans.
However, grants aren’t always given. Lots of people want grants so grant
companies give the grants to people that they think will be successful.
Publisher
Publishers will find games in development that they think
have potential and they will help them create the game and distribute it. Video
game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and
marketing. A huge publishers such as ‘Activision’ publish thousands of games.
Equipment
Unreal
Development Kit – this development kit is very popular in the gaming
industry due to the fact that hundreds of games have been made through this
development kit.
The unreal development kits are free, but you will have to
pay royalties when your game is released. If you earn £3000, you have to pay 5%
to ‘Unreal’.
The minimum requirements for Unreal
Development Kit are:
Processor: 2.0+ GHz processor
RAM: 2 GB system RAM
Hard Drive
Space: 3 GB free hard drive space
Operating
System: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista
or Windows Vista 64 SP2
Unity
Development Kit – this development kit is also very popular due to the
high quantity and quality of games produced that were created on this kit.
There are version that are free, but some features aren’t available to those
users unless they pay.
The minimum requirements for the
Unity Development Kit are:
OS: Windows
XP+, Mac OS X 10.7+, Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS+
Graphics
card: DX9 (shader model 2.0) capabilities; generally everything made since
2004 should work.
CPU: SSE2
instruction set support.
Web player
supports IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and others.
iOS:
requires iOS 6.0 or later.
Android: OS
2.3.1 or later; ARMv7 (Cortex) CPU or Atom CPU; OpenGL ES 2.0 or later.
WebGL:
Desktop version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari
Windows
Phone: 8 (available but deprecated for 5.2), 8.1 or later
Windows
Store Apps: 8 (available but deprecated for 5.2), 8.1 or later
This
development kit costs £75 a month if you have the professional kit, but there
are other kits to choose from such as the free version.
Game Maker
Studio – this development kit is more for starter game developers and
it only can produce 2D games. This kit is free, but there’s a professional and
a collection version which requires payment. It also costs to port your game to
consoles and devices.
The minimum requirements for Game
Maker Studio are:
Program:
Windows XP
or above
512MB RAM
128MB
graphics
Screen
resolution of 1024×600
Internet
connection for some features
Windows:
Windows XP,
Vista, 7 or 8
512MB RAM
128MB
graphics
Mac OS X
Mac OS X
computer required for export
Mac OS X
10.6 Snow Leopard
1GB RAM
Autodesk
Maya 2015 – this development kit is mainly used to create and modify
models for a game and render them. This kit is free, but there are alternative
options.
The minimum requirements for Autodesk
Maya 2015 are:
Operating
system
Microsoft
Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Professional operating system
Apple Mac OS
X 10.8.5 and 10.9.x operating system
Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.2 WS operating system
Fedora 14
Linux operating system
CentOS 6.2
Linux operating system
Browser
These browsers are recommended to be
the most recent version.
Apple Safari
web browser
Google Chrome web browser
Microsoft
Internet Explorer web browser Mozilla Firefox web browser
Publishing
Steam
Once
finished, games will have to be posted onto websites so that they can be
bought. Popular places such as ‘Steam’ have a section called ‘Steam Greenlight’
which is where independent game developers can be discovered and become
successful. They can even be bought while the creator is still creating it, or
while it is going through Alpha or Beta stages.
ID@XBOX
ID@XBOX
(standing for Independent Developers) is a program made by Microsoft where
independent game developers can post their games so that other scan play, give
feedback and buy them. The new Xbox One can also be used as a development kit.
PlayStation
Users can
sign up, register their company and then start to publish games for the public
to play and give feedback on. The PlayStation 4 can also be used as a
development kit.
These are the requirements to
self-publish:
Proof of
Corporate Entity
Obtain an
Employer Tax ID Number (see www.irs.gov) (Recommended)
Static IP to
access Developer Support Systems
You must be
physically located in US, Mexico, Central America, South America, or Canada.
Personnel
The personnel team you will need will
include the following job roles:
Animator Lead Programmer
Assistant Producer
Level Editor
Audio Engineer
Marketing Executive
Creative Director
Marketing Manager
External Producer
Product Manager
Game Designer
Public
Relations Officer
Game Programmer
QA
Tester
Games Artist
Technical Artist
Lead Artist
Here’s a link to my blog-post on what
each of these jobs are about:
http://mortenslc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/unit-78-games-design-l3-james-tedder.html
Time Constraints
Making a game can take a very long time and your client brief may ask you to meet a deadline. It is crucial to meet deadlines and manage your time efficiently because it makes you look very unprofessional and problems may start to occur. For the game I am working on, I am trying my best to meet all deadlines.
In a company, you will have to consider the times certain employees/co-workers are available encase you need them for a project. This also goes for equipment and work spaces. You will have to plan ahead of time so nothing gets done late.
In the process of making a game, its important to the get the basics (sprites, animation, movement etc) working first before adding extra features. This is important because if the deadline date has been reached and the game doesn't work, the client won't be happy because you will have wasted a lot of time.
Materials
To create a game, you will need a lot of materials for the staff and some programs and software for the devices used in the process. Some physical materials needed may be keyboards, monitors, mouses, mouse pads, chairs. Some non-physical materials may include Maya Autodesk, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Unity, Unreal Engine. Materials also links with finance a little, in the sense that you need money to buy other materials to use.
Facilities
You will need a some sort of facility to create a game. Usually, the better the facility means the better the quality of working space, which means your game's overall quality will be better. For more in depth games, you may need spaces for motion capture, spaces for recording audio, spaces for testers, artists etc. For the game I'm making, I will only need a classroom with a computer to produce my game.
Contributors
Contributors are heavily linked with the financial part of game creation. One form of contribution is a sponsorship. Sponsors help you promote your game and can provide you with money to create it. Sponsors can help a little, or a lot depending on how well known the company or product is. I will not be using any sponsors in my game.
Codes of Practice
Codes of practice show the views of the company on certain subjects such as equality (of races, gender, religion), contracts and duty of care. Having a good set of codes of practice is good because that way, the public can't slander the company or accuse them of unethical acts, because of the protection of the company's codes of practice. 'Ofcom' and 'Press Complaints Commission' are most commonly referred to but here are a few that are more specific for the gaming industry:
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) British Interactive Media Association (BIMA)
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) Pan European Game Information (PEGI)
Time Constraints
Making a game can take a very long time and your client brief may ask you to meet a deadline. It is crucial to meet deadlines and manage your time efficiently because it makes you look very unprofessional and problems may start to occur. For the game I am working on, I am trying my best to meet all deadlines.
In a company, you will have to consider the times certain employees/co-workers are available encase you need them for a project. This also goes for equipment and work spaces. You will have to plan ahead of time so nothing gets done late.
In the process of making a game, its important to the get the basics (sprites, animation, movement etc) working first before adding extra features. This is important because if the deadline date has been reached and the game doesn't work, the client won't be happy because you will have wasted a lot of time.
Materials
To create a game, you will need a lot of materials for the staff and some programs and software for the devices used in the process. Some physical materials needed may be keyboards, monitors, mouses, mouse pads, chairs. Some non-physical materials may include Maya Autodesk, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks, Unity, Unreal Engine. Materials also links with finance a little, in the sense that you need money to buy other materials to use.
Facilities
You will need a some sort of facility to create a game. Usually, the better the facility means the better the quality of working space, which means your game's overall quality will be better. For more in depth games, you may need spaces for motion capture, spaces for recording audio, spaces for testers, artists etc. For the game I'm making, I will only need a classroom with a computer to produce my game.
Contributors
Contributors are heavily linked with the financial part of game creation. One form of contribution is a sponsorship. Sponsors help you promote your game and can provide you with money to create it. Sponsors can help a little, or a lot depending on how well known the company or product is. I will not be using any sponsors in my game.
Codes of Practice
Codes of practice show the views of the company on certain subjects such as equality (of races, gender, religion), contracts and duty of care. Having a good set of codes of practice is good because that way, the public can't slander the company or accuse them of unethical acts, because of the protection of the company's codes of practice. 'Ofcom' and 'Press Complaints Commission' are most commonly referred to but here are a few that are more specific for the gaming industry:
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) British Interactive Media Association (BIMA)
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) Pan European Game Information (PEGI)
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