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"How To Race Squirrels" at Develop Conference in Brighton, 21st July 2011
1.
2. How To Race Squirrels:
Designing and Producing Commissioned Games
Rob Davis
Director, Playniac
Develop Conference, 21 July 2011
3. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
6. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
7. Concept Development
• Happens before and / or after proposal stage
• Absorb the brief / proposal
• Assemble expertise from our team, external
consultants, specialists and / or the client
• Brainstorm to develop, expand and then refine
ideas
• Key stage to gather everyone’s input and feed
into specification stages
8. Written Spec
• If you’ve already written a proposal and that is
being used as is, skip this stage
• Simply 1 paragraph to 2 pages max describing
the game
• Good starting point to save time and risk before
creating more detailed spec
9. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
13. Use-cases
• Becomes large document that is difficult to
maintain… And no one wants to (re-)read!
• Useful for more procedural software; less useful
for most games
• Does specify game functionality very precisely,
but leaves little room to maneuver in
implementation
• Doesn’t give a sense of what the game is like to
play or how the game GUI might work
• So we needed a better technique…
14. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
21. Static Wireframe
• Gives immediate visual sense of game screens
and functionality
• Allows some GUI design to be done early and in
an abstract manner
• Can be assimilated easily by technical and non-
technical readers
• Useful for design and dev teams
• Difficult to get a sense of screen flow and user
interaction, so…
22. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
31. Interactive Wireframes
• All the benefits of a static wireframe
• Clear sense of screen flow and some sense of
game dynamics
• Extremely easy to assimilate
• Extremely useful for design and dev teams
• Easy to maintain once set up
• Can be used for live testing with target
audience
32. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
38. Aside: MDA model of game
design
• Mechanics
• Dynamics
• Aesthetics
• Marc LeBlanc’s game design workshop at GDC
(www.8kindsoffun.com)
• Paper by Hunkicke, Zubek and LeBlank
(www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf)
39. Paper Testing
• Does not convey game mechanics
• Establish game dynamics early
• Conveys substantial part of game aesthetics
• Easy format to refine and tweak game play
• Refine game balance early
• Fun way to test game with no code
40. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
48. Game assets
• Share early and share often
• Test with users
• Meet with client and/or use online collaboration
tools like Basecamp to manage the
conversation
• Be ready to refine and tweak; be ready to throw
away and rework
• “Champion the user” - keep the finished game
and the audience in mind
49. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
56. User Testing
• Be clear with team and client exactly what is
being tested
• Test at several stages, from look and feel to
alpha / beta
• Invaluable feedback direct from target audience
• Chance for dev team, design team and client to
“see the game through new eyes”
• Very honest – be ready for heart-warming
compliments and gut-wrenching criticism
• A lot of analysis to be done with results
57. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
67. Balancing
• Start with a system-wide strategy and the right
formulae
• Start with paper test findings
• Refine using the user test results
• Refine using testing company results
• Refine using using Google Analytics or any
other data capture techniques
• Iterate until it’s right
68. Briefs
and
User
tes;ng
Balancing
Proposals
Concept
development
and
Game
assets
Wrap
up
wri5en
spec
Wireframes
• Use-‐cases
Paper
tes;ng
• Sta;c
wireframes
• Interac;ve
wireframes
69. Wrap up
• This approach is the framework used for many
of our productions
• Every project is unique
• Sometimes one or more stages don’t apply,
sometimes they get re-ordered
• Sometimes the whole approach goes out the
window…
70.
71. Rob Davis
Director
Internships:
Want
to
get
Playniac involved?
Drop
me
a
line.
rob(at)playniac(dot)com Speaking
at
GDC
Europe
in
Aug:
"Where's
the
fun?
How
to
test
www.playniac.com your
game
before
you
build
a
@playniac thing"
www.facebook.com/RacingSquirrels
@RacingSquirrels