The weekend after next, I’m heading to Madison, South Dakota to be a guest at a small convention called Nanocon. I’m sure the convention will be fantastic, but the highlight for me will be the opportunity, the day before, to speak to students in DSU’s B.S. in Computer Game Design program.
I’ve been asked to speak primarily to the game design process, to give a sense of how games go from idea to end product.
That’s a broad topic for an hour (including Q&A), so I thought I’d try to narrow down—and make sure I’m not missing anything important—by throwing the following question to all y’all:
What are your most burning questions about the game design process?
Or, if you’re a design vet, here’s an alternate question: What’s the thing about the process that’s most poorly or narrowly understood among game design newcomers?
I thank you; DSU thanks you.
Most burning question? How do you deal with the inevitable moment when you realize your brilliant idea/theme/mechanic that you labored over just got tossed out the window because it’s too expensive/you didn’t explain it right/the world hates you?
What are your most burning questions about the game design process? –
Which produces the better game: the drive and vision of an individual, or the collaboration of many?
Games design vet? Not sure but I have done a couple laps of the block.
What’s the thing about the process that’s most poorly or narrowly understood among game design newcomers? –
The point at which you consider who is going to pay cash money for your game.
Speaking as someone looking in from the outside, at least as far as game design goes, I have a couple questions that I have wondered about. I understand that each company will have different approaches in handling things, but as a general rule…
How does an approaching deadline affect the end product that finally goes out the door?
How much time and effort do game designers spend pitching and/or defending their ideas to management?