I once read that being able to scrap a design documnet is the most important skill in a designer is to be able to scrap their doc. Lately, I''ve been working on a doc, and gathering local talent to make the game. I''ve got one problem with it: I''m losing motivation in making the design document. I have no desire to add on the little details. This could mean one of two things: either A. I''m anxious to start production or B. The doc plain sucks. Anyway, my doc is supposed to be in .doc forum, but what the heck? I''m lazy, so I''ll just post it here. Disclaimer: The following part of the post is long as shit The Design Doc for Enuria World Overview: Enuria. A lonely, isolated planet, slightly smaller than earth, with an extremely low population. The name Enuria is derived from the Portuguese word, Penuria (empty). Empty is a great word to describe Enuria. Its surface forms a near-perfect sphere, consisting completely of clear, pure water. Its thick atmosphere keeps the entire planet at consistent tropical temperatures at all times. To any earth-dweller, Enuria seems like the perfect vacation getaway, but to many of its residents, Enuria is a desert hell. The game area consists of three countries: Kelphaven, Orcania, and Gillea. The Republic of Kelphaven. The peaceful, innocent country consisting mainly of independent fisherman. Kage’s favorite place to go when he can’t find any work. Orcania. While Kage was still a sculptor, he lived in Orcania; a flourishing country that values knowledge and education over everything else. Kage considers this country his haunting past…. a place to which he will never return. Gillea - Kage’s home country. Gillea’s corrupt police/government accept bribes, hire assassins, and do other naughty things right beneath its citizen’s eyes. It’s funny how mislead Gillea’s citizens are. Crime and hotshots run rampant in this country. Storyline Overview: Zooming in a little more, we meet a character named Pete Kage. He was once a famous sculptor, in a different country, going by a different name. Ever since he lost control of his fingers he has been making a living instead, with mercenary work. Pete likes to handle most of his work inside his armed-and-armored hydroplane, the Peregrine, but is never afraid to get out and do some work on his feet if he has to. Along his journeys, he is framed, becomes a fugitive, and then clears up his name. Other Characters: Chade Technical Overview: Enuria will feature an entirely original 2D-scrolling engine that takes advantage of 3D acceleration. It will have a wicked particle engine, jet fast rotation and scaling. I aim to make it 800X600 32-bit color w/ alpha. Some of the music will be quite interactive (it will make changes according to game variables.) An example of this is that the music may speed up as the the Perigrene takes more damage. Hopefully, it will also feature voice acting, but we’ll worry about that near the end of production. The Design The above picture is what I imagine Enuria to look like…. Without the coder art As you can see, it’s a water shooter with a top-down perspective. Notice the water turbulence behind the boat? Definitely wouldn’t look right without it. That’s why I plan to make an in-depth particle engine. Just so you get a better idea of Enuria’s gameplay, here’s a guess at what the control scheme will end up being: Up Arrow – Speed Up Down Arrow – Slow Down Right Arrow – Turn Right (You can turn in full 360 degrees) Left Arrow – Turn Left Space Bar – Fire Weapon A – Addon 1 S – Addon 2 D – Addon 3 C – Communicate When you go in to a town the game will be controlled by menus. The Gameflow Below are the important game events in chronological order. 1. Kage makes a trades a briefcase for “The Warthog Gun” with unknow weapon dealers. 2. Kage secretly follows them to their base and finds a weak spot in their outer walls. 3. Kage escapes back to Venice. He tells the boss of the weak spot. On his way back home, he drives by a building just as it blows up. 4. He looks through his window and sees police in his house. 5. He goes to a friend’s house, and finds out that he’s wanted over his friend’s radio. 6. He gets his boat re-painted, and then takes off west, towards Kelphaven. 7. He stops by in a town called Sandspot. He’s walking around town, when he sees the boss. He follows the boss in to a secret meeting, and discovers a group of rebels’ plans to take over Farrow. 8. Kage doesn’t care. Kage just wants to escape to somewhere safe. Kage continues his journey west. Constantly being pursued by head hunters and police. 9. A number of mercenary jobs are being offered in Kelphaven. Kage takes jobs while learning about the history of Enuria…. And his past. 10. Eventually,Kage takes a job that leads him in to a trap. He is caught and taken to a prison in the North East corner of the known world called “The Raft”. 11. Kage meets the boss again, who is just another inmate on the raft. He finds out that the boss was kicked out of the rebel group, because he was too ambitious. 12. Kage meets a few friends in jail, and organizes a jail break. 13. On returning to the rest of the world, Kage goes to his friend from the old gallery for help. 14. Kage plans to clear up his name by sending a message to the rebel leader, but before he can do that, he is attacked by a band of mercenaries. When Kage kills them, it represents the death of his bad times. He clears up his name, the game ends, etc… Jobs: Assassinate random person Attack random base Retreive random object Steal Certain boat (obtain passenger to help) Enuria Map Key: 1 – Woolsey 2 – Michi 3 – Fiduc 4 – Ashton 5 – Port Angeles 6 – Brigantes 7 – Venice 8 – Rime 9 – Amorika 10 – Gramrok 11 – Damsa 12 – Vahanna 13 – Redhook 14 – Saltwind 15 – Cartoff 16 – Weapons Base -Forcas "Elvis is alive. He is Barney the purple dinosaur. He is the pied piper that leads our children into the wages of sin and eternal damnation."

My recommendation? Take a break.

I don't know if you're as obsessive as I am, but when I'm working on something I put a lot of energy into it and think about it whenever I can. This is all well and good when things are flowing, but eventually everybody runs out of gas.

Something non-computer game related, and even non-computer related makes for a good break. I spent summer weekends reading books in a park recently just for this reason.


If you're not ready to do that, I find there are things you can do to fall in love with your game again.

* Find out what originally inspired you. I was inspired partly by Star Trek and Babylon 5. When I felt low, I sometimes watched taped re-runs to get the juice back.

* Find out what irritated you. () There are several games out there that almost are perfect but don't do enough of what you want. Most mission based games are like that for me, and it irritates the heck out of me that there aren't more free-form games. So I intentionally go and play games that are like sandpaper to me, at which point I'm consumed with WHY I wanted to do a different game in the first place.

* Play something that's close to what you want to do. It may get the creative juices flowing because it reminds you of all your good ideas, and can make you fall in love with your game again.

* Make a declaration of principles. I OFTEN get bummed out because my game isn't going to have the hottest graphics features. This saps my will to work on it. But I've made and posted a "declaration of principles" that say what my game's about. The most important one, that I can look up and remind myself of, is that it doesn't take the latest tech to make an engaging, fun world. I remember this, and have a better time getting back to business.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...


Edited by - Wavinator on October 5, 2001 9:35:43 PM

Yeah, doing what lead to the design in the first place is always a good thing to do. And for me, it''s also quite fun - watch Gasaraki, read cyberpunk novels, play Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1). Because I''ve hit the same point with the design doc of the project I''m planning out.

And something to do is always carry pen and paper, for whenever you do hit inspiration. Then jot down your new ideas. Don''t try to add them to the doc yet, though. Like most ideas, wait a while (perhaps sleep on it, if you''ve been missing out on that), then read it again, and see if it blends in well with the game design. If so, add ahead. Then read your design doc all over again. If that doesn''t get the old neurons firing, rinse, lather, repeat the above until you finally have an idea that pulls a whole thought train along with it.

And never, ever, work on maps before the rest of the document is finished. Trust me, you''ll end up revising them forever, just to fit more detail in here and there... That lead to a game design that I booted out the window.


coldacid

Meldstar Studios
- Creation, cubed.

quote:
I''m losing motivation in making the design document. I have no desire to add on the little details.

Tell me about it, I have a dozen or so really good projects which will never see the light of day because I just can''t bring myself to finish the design docs.

Next time, I''m going to mull over the idea for a week or two in my head and then write the whole damn document in one go. I don''t mind making revisions later, but I''ve got to get a complete initial version done first.

Good luck.

Dude you are diffinately not the only one this happens too. Every designer goes through a dry spell in a proj like a writer may find himself at a point in a story and doesnt know or care what happens next. Heres some advise from myself and some article on design. Keep your doc stored someplace and forget about it. In fact I might venture so far as to say start another design if you have one swimming around in your head. I did this and almost a month later I was bored and found myself looking through several designs a had done. I realized my designs were similar and some of the points and details could be carried over to the original. I ended up with a page and a half more details without even conciously working on it. Then I found myself reenergized by this discoverly and had a plethora more of new details to add in.

Basicly dont give up completely or throw it away. Just forget about it may be your trying too hard and that will hurt the design more. And do exactly what wav and coldacid said. I always carry at least a pen in my pocket. Write ideas on anything you have around you(envelopes, napkins, your hand). Hope it helps and you find what your looking for.

One thing I did to get back inspiration was to plan the project in such a way that pretty early on I had a simple prototype. And when I say simple, I mean _simple_. You could start the game in single-player mode, there were no winning conditions, there was only one ridiculously boring map, combat was laughable, etc.

This had two beneficial effects. First, I didn''t get bored as easily as I could always fire up the prototype and think about the new features I was designing in their proper context. Second, seeing pieces of the game working made me throw out a lot of features that didn''t add value, and made me discover new features which when implemented really improved the game. Designing and implementing only the "right" features has really saved a lot of development time.

I guess one could say that the prototype was an extension of the design doc. And while the design doc was nice to have, it couldn''t validate my thinking like the prototype could. The trick is to be disciplined and not tinker on the prototype more than strictly necessary, so that the design work doesn''t stop.

Good luck with your game, and let us know how it goes!

/Martin





... we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...
Winston Churchill, June 4 1940

i think its a very important part of the creative process to take a step back and give things some time if you find the juices drying up. like the poster above said, go do something else. burnout produces nothing but hacked work. have no fear, while you occupy your conscious mind with other things, new ideas are percolating in your subconscious. whenever i do this, when i go back i find new stuff practically fighting to come out.

good luck with it.

Having a prototype to go along is great, since it can also be turned into a model for suits to play with when you go out looking for a publishing deal. There''s innumerable articles here on GDNet and on Gamasutra dealing with getting a deal, and each one (that I''ve read) says to have a model, to show the publisher you''re serious, and to show them that you can have the project done before they can steal your ideas and make their own to fight you off with.

But prototype/model or no, the design document is still numero uno to have. And you can still change it while the game is actually being worked on, as long as you can avoid creature feepage. Stuff like support for better tech, perhaps, or adding another few levels. Nothing major.


coldacid <coldacid@meldstar.com>

Meldstar Studios <http://www.meldstar.com/> - Creation, cubed.