Plan for Chris Labombard

My design and development process

After my last .plan, Ajari Wilson and I began conversing through email. He asked me to detail my design an development process, so I did.

I wasn't going to put it in a .plan, but Ajari convinced me to. So here it is:

This is very difficult to put into words. It would be easier if I knew
exactly what you were interested in knowing. I'm thinking you want to know
how to design your game, so that's what I'm going to tell you.

Forget what you think you know about design documents. We're indies. We
don't need 150 page design doc's with table of contents and reference
tables.

My design doc for The Funk is ~ 2 pages. The design doc for Basic Bob was
about 2 1/2. It would have been 3 1/2 but I didn't plan out it's marketing
strategy.

The design Doc has the following headings:

Focus
Description
Details
Dev Stages
Marketing Strategy
Cost

After each step is filled out I determine if I can meet every section. Can
I cover the costs associated, if not can I find a way to reduce it. Is my
description something I would absolutely love working on? Can I code the
things outlined in the details section? How long is this going to take me?
Does that fit with my overall business plan?

First thing you do is write down your focuses. The constraint on your
design will actually make it 10 times better. As an example, for the funk
my initial focus was:

Trippy colours
Fast pace
Wild mouse sliding
2 month development cycle
Crazy music

After you have a strong focus, start writing down descriptions. Every time
you come up with a new one, put it in a seperate file. Dont brainstorm,
just let them come to you. Eventually you'll see one, or a trend, that
sticks out to you. Use that one.

Elaborate out some details. How you want it to play; What kind of themes
will be present; what types of weapons you want; etc.

If you need weapons, don't write down every weapon you need. Just write
down modern military weapons, or high powered explosives, or water guns,
etc.

After you've got some of the more crutial details hammered out, you have
to start on a basic set of milestones.

Your headings should look like this:

Milestone 1 (Prototype)
Milestone 2 (Game play)
Milestone 3 (Alpha)
Milestone 4 (Halfway)
Milestone 5 (Beta)
Milestone 6 (Marketing)

Under each heading list, with bullets, the bare bones that is needed to
complete that milestone. Don't include anyhting that you don't have to
have. After that, you need to elaborate on every thing. Fill out the
little details of everyhting you need to do. In the end, each bullet
should amount to a task that can be completed. You should continue to
elaborate on it until everyhting that needs to be done is on the list.

At this point you need to develop your marketing strategy. A lot of people
have asked me for my marketing strategy, and I never give it to them. Not
because I'm an ass, or because it's a secret... But because I haven't used
it, so don't know if it works or not.

Basically, you need to plan out target demographics, target groups (like
DDR centred webpages), plan to submit your game to every shareware site on
the net, targeted affiliates, publishers... Also plan to write a press
release and send it out to as many websites as you can find that will take
it. You also need to set up a reviewer pack and snail mail it to website
reviewers and magazine reviewers. It often helps to mail the same pack to
publishers.

After that, assess what the costs will be. What will you pay for art, or a
specific piece of art. Or a code modification that you need, but know you
won't be able to do. No matter how much you try.... there WILL be a cost.
There is really no way around it. If you don't beileve me, just trust me.

After you've completed all that, try and figure out how long each
milestone will take you. Add them up, and multiply by 2.5 ... That is
about how long it will take you if you work very diligantly. For Basic
Bob, I estimated 3 months, and I worked very fast, though not efficiently,
since I didnt know TGE and had no idea what was needed to get the game out
the door. It took me 8 months in the end, partially due to lack of
funds... Had I multipled my 3 months by 2.5 I would have known it would
take me about 7 1/2 months to finish it. (It actually took 8 months)

Now, go through your design and highlight everyhting with red that you are
going to cut. To figure out if you're going to cut it, ask yourself "Does
this make the game funner?"... If your answer is no, then cut it. We, as
indies, can't afford to add content for the sake of adding content. If the
cost of adding the feature signifigantly out weighs it's benefits then cut
it.

Unless you kept that in mind while designing the game, you will probably
find that you just cut half the game. In which case, you are now much
closer to hitting the dev cycle you originally predicted.

A lot of people have trouble cutting features. Trust me, your players
aren't going to complain, as long as they're having fun.

At this point you should asses the game's potential (again). Figure out if
you can meet the monetary costs. Is the dev cycle short enough for you?
Are you in love with the idea? In other words, are you going to love every
second you spend working on it? Does the game have a signifigant enough
market to warrent development? Is it going to be catchy enough to attract
a large audience?

If you find you want to continue developing it, for all the right reasons,
then you need to prototype the idea. Keep it simple, but make sure it
stays true to the game play. Put your prototype up on GG, let the other
dev's tell you if it's fun or not. If it's not fun, throw the design out.
If it's sorta fun, asses wether you think it would be fun with X feature or
whatever. Throw that feature in and get opinions again. If it's still not
a lot of fun throw it out. If it is, move on to MS1.

With your milestones, you want to work fast. You want to pick a feature,
complete it, test it for an hour or so (or longer if it warrents it) and
move on to the next task. In this way, you might think you're wasting time
testing everything, but you're going to save a TON of time in the end.
You're also going to have a much better product, with less bugs, and less
cluttery code to debug in the future.

With this method, youre also compartmentalizing your tasks. You can take a
weekend, or a day and complete a task without having to delve into other
tasks, or half work on several tasks. It allows you to know exactly where
you are in development.

Ok, I think I've rambled on enough. I hope this helps you. I think I might
throw this into a .plan ... I dunno

Let me know if that's actually what you wanted or not.

Things that weren't in the email

Just a few things I thought might interest people.

When I came up with the focus that ended up being the funk.... It was out of pure anger. I was angry at myself and wanted my game ot get noticed at the next IGC. You can tell if you look at the focuses :)

Another thing is. In the end... I'm not trying to make a game. I'm trying to sell one. My business plan accounts for that, and is reflected in my design and dev process.

I hope someone liked it :)