1. Writing for Games Lynne Hall, Susan Jones

2. What we will look @ 1. Game Genres 2. Game Design Cycle 3. Early Days Techniques 4. Your Game

3. Game Genres SimulationStrategyPuzzleAction SIMS 2 Ages of Empire Tetris World of Warcraft

4. Game Design Cycle Testing Ideas Research Graphics Programming

5. Ideas & Research (Writer)  Very first ideas about what the game will be.  Action?  Strategy?  Life-like?  Sports  …  Research  Has it been done before?  Intuitively is it going to work?

6. Concept Design (Graphic designer)  Ideas turned into pictures  “Concept Art”

7. Modelling/Texturing (Graphic Designer)  Levels and Characters modelled in 3D  Pictures put on the models to make them more detailed.

8. Programming (coders)  Programmers (coders) write the software to make the graphics work together

9. Testing (players)  Testers play the game  Look for problems (bugs)  Make sure the game isn’t too easy or too hard

10. Starting to create games Beginning to write

11. Generating Ideas  Who?  Using what?  About what? Morphological Analysis Sticky Notes Activity

12. Creating Objectives  Objective is always to create an enjoyable game that players want to play…  What does winning mean?  Needs  Approach  Benefits  Competition Game Value Proposition Sticky Notes Activity

13. Creating Worlds  Set the scene…  What are the key features of the world?  Weather  Geography  Political Systems  What happens in this world?  War, chaos, harvesting crops, building cities…  Who lives there?  Personas  What do they look like  Creating models / diagrams / figures  Why do they look like that?

14. Examples of design

15. Creating Storyboards  Just like a comic strip  Frames depicting  What is happening in the game  Main tasks and activities  What players can do  Does not have to be 2D…  Link frames if part of a story line Storyboarding Activity

16. Next Steps  Work on your game ideas  Provide them in a way that other people can understand  Try your ideas out with players  If they like it, keep going  If they don’t work out why…  Play games