The next course of the games development specialism I am currently doing with Coursera in my spare time is game design. This course is all about the story, game mechanics and in essence a blueprint for any game that you wish to start creating.
Something that is a very familiar concept that is part of this process is prototyping, we do this day to day with web based software engineering to test and evaluate our ideas. Of course in gaming it makes much sense after the amount of time and effort it takes to build games, you really are better iterating, testing and failing early on to ensure you “find the fun!”.
So far I am coming towards the final week of this course so thought I would share the story bible and the ever evolving start to my game design document.
The game is an infinite runner / platformer using single touch controls. I have published the story bible and the game design document which is ever evolving and a work in progress.
There is even a quick video of a prototype to test out the game mechanics of the “command cubes” (check out the documents for more details).
We are looking to progress and create this game in the coming months next year. First of all though we need a solid plan with some quick prototypes / user testing to ensure we are barking up the right tree so to speak ;)
View Poncho the Pug Story Bible
View Poncho the Pug Game Design Document (WiP)
View Prototype Video of Cube Mechanics
Jon Sharratt