For our second university summer project, lasting from June to the beginning of October 2018, we were instructed to research, analyse and dissect three games of our choice to locate the component parts which would have formed the original games design document of each game. This project was ultimately a ‘toe-in-the-water’ exercise for us to begin to understand what GDD’s are, their importance how their function in existing game development teams. We were told that we need not understand the whole of the GDD, as they are disastrously lengthy, but rather simply establish a good understanding of the component parts which would typically make up a GDD. Doing so would broaden our understanding of why certain design decisions had been applied in our chosen games.
For the whole project I decided to focus on extracting interesting or obscure elements out of my three chosen games, viewing the subject matter from many different angles and in my own words; “…mostly [I have] speculated on the games’ overview, the effects certain attributes, character abilities and mechanics from each game have on the player, and how this contributes to the overall game design. This also demonstrates how each game rewards good players who utilise what they are given well to the desired effect.”
I will try to attach my finished PowerPoint presentation, the result of my project, which in this instance is only being used as a summary of what I learned over the summer. It is also what I used to present to my year as part of the ‘crit’. The real research takes the form of notes written whilst playing each game, several mind-maps of my thought processes among other analytical documents.
The results of all of my findings can be located in the ring-binder folder. Seek the Table of Contents inside for more information.
02/10/2018