Plan for cheese_phantom

Barbarians in the Bargain

I work on the design of a game which working title is "Barbarians in the Bargain".

I have worked out the basics of the game, but now I have to go into detail and work out things such as the behavioristic model of NPCs and objects, so that the gameplay and challenges that I want the game to contain will be present once the basic mechanism of the game starts to revolve around the player. I also have to draw flowcharts, storyboards and diagrams to give readers of the document a better insight on the different aspects of the game.

Once the design document is in a proper state, including an assets inventory, I'll go for a prototype. Table-top, as I have no programming skills. I will try to balance the mechanisms and see what works and works not. Hopefully I will be clever enough not to add new stuff, but to cut off things that I realize are not very central to the game or just create needless micro-management. I'll see if I can improve and smoother the flow of the game.

If I am satisfied with this "dry-balancing", I'll start to work on a marketing plan. I'll see what routes can be taken to sell or profit from the game. After all I will ask people to help me to make the game and it's good to be able to promise more than just fun, experience and a place in the game credits section.

Finally the time will come to kindly ask people if they're interested in making the game with me.


I am not EA, so I don't have schedules and deadlines, but just because I will have more work to do in my day job after September 15, I will try to put this down until end of August. At least the part before the marketing plan and the prototyping.

I hope this plan page helps me to be more disciplined. My most busy days at work are Wednesday and Thursday right now so I spent a block of 4 days to work on the design: From Friday to Tuesday (giving myself one day off). I will now put a rule for myself and say that I report progress on this each Tuesday.

Currently I have a document of 15 pages which is structured like this:

I-General Description
Subheaders include "Title", "one sentence description" "platform", "genre", "subject", "design philosphy", "story and conflict", "Player goals, objectives, tasks", "counter-dynamics, obstacles", "win-lose conditions", "game world description", "objects", "characters", "game flow-walkthrough", "flowcharts and diagrams".

This chapter is almost completed, just requires the game flow section to be re-written and the diagrams and flowcharts to be drawn.

II- Commercial Aspects
This chapter is complete. It will be later rewritten and used as a separate document, the marketing plan that I mentioned above.

The current chapter includes the headers "USP", "Target audience segments", "target platforms", "distribution options", "options in commercialization", "Options in content expansion".

III-Core Game Design
Includes chapters "Cameras/POV", "Gameplay", "Controls", "Missions and Levels", "Game Dynamics", "NPC behavior", "Object behavior", "Fun Factors", "Rewards structure/Power Ups" etc...

I have to heavily work on this part. I have defined all required headers, subheaders (for example I have chapter "3.3.2.1.2.2 Formulas for object behavior", which reflects the depth of detail I am already into, but the headers itself don't do it of course. So there are lots of words to put in this.

IV-Inventory of Assets.
Empty yet :-)

I want to get from 15 to at least 25 pages within this week(diagrams etc not included).

So next Tuesday, I report on the progress I made.

Until then, Cheers!