Since you know the roles in the game industry by now you'll be wondering how the heck everything is being put in a straight line. How is everything working with each other. Are there things that need to be done before programmers start coding or before artists start animating and modelling? Is there a repeated loop inside the industry, and what about the whole workflow? Keep reading, you'll know soon.
Stage 1 : The birth, and evolution of an idea
What gives birth to a game is essentialy, an idea, which is created in the game designer's head. Yes..! World of Warcraft was built inside a head! Fascinating huh? Every huge virtual world out there that we explore for hundreds and hundreds of hours on a daily basis is based on an idea of a game designer! Then, the designer needs to pull these ideas off his head and into something more physical : Concept Documents.
Stage 2 : The Proposal
The Documents are then being changed over time and finally presented to the company. These are the so called "Game Proposal Documents". From here on, things will need to be analysed to the very last bit, and trust me, they are going to be very technical! For example, the genre, the setting, the target audience and even target platforms and budget are explained / estimated here. There is even a risk analysis report describing about every type of profit and loss for developing that game. Really technical if you ask me.
Stage 3 : The Preproduction
After the goals have been set, the deliverables explained, and the idea is accepted, which is the fundamental part of the "proposal" we can move on to stage 3, which involves PreProduction meaning the whole project is being set up, a HUGE list of elementary-level tasks is created, meaning the creation of the Game Design Document, the Art Production Plan and the Technical Design Document. Now i want you to start thinking as this is a factory's pipeline of production.
The designer is responsible for writing the Game Design Document, which clearly states everything the game is about, all its' details, technical or not, the story, the characters, the assets. As i said, everything that can be related to the game even by a little matter. That document will undergo many changes before the game is finished and by "many" changes, i mean really, a LOT of changes, as the document itself has to be up-to-date with the production pipeline.
The Art Production Plan however is the creation of a linear workflow that will be followed by artists, basically more like a path that is responsible of the creation of the game assets. Concept Artists, Modellers, the Designer himself, and the Art Director are all in charge of creating the "look and feel" of the game.
Finally the Technical Design Document is all about defining manpower (programmers) that are scheduled tasks that are code-centered. Game Milestones are also defined at this point, possible revision entries and how the Game Prototype is supposed to be. It is the final phase of stage 3.
Stage 3 : The Development (Game Jam)
After the elementary stuff is out of the way, the main job is now commencing! The long haul in the stages of game development is the development itself..! The assets are being created, meaning composers are studying musical patters and composing soundtracks of the game, while other specialists go "out in the wild" and either "capture" sound effects by recording all the weird sounds they can possibly find that relate to the game, or they either create their own special sound effects.
Storyboard artists create comic-like illustrations that represent the story of a game, Script-Writers are taking care of the narrative side of the game or they either give birth to dialogs between characters of the game. Modellers start rigging characters based on the concept artists' creations and then more and more artists continue the work by either texturing the rigged character and/or animate them!
Others start creating 3D worlds that are then populated by characters and objects rigged/animated by other artists! Then it's the job of the programmers to mash all these together with thousands and thousands lines of code. The lead designer and project manager then have to make sure everything is working just like they imagined it, and make sure the experience they had when they initially thought of the idea is the exact same, when they see their thoughts into newly-created 3d gameplay.
At the same time, testers from the QA department are testing new levels, mechanics, weapons, objects and basically everything a game has to offer, they need to explore everything thoroughly though as the detection of bugs in a game is their primary role when they test a game, so testing battle systems, overusing game items, trying all different kinds of silly combinations is daily bread for them. As the game expands more and more testers are required to test stuff out. You can't imagine how many bugs can be found at this point!
As development is complete, the Alpha-Release milestone is about to be completed.
Stage 4 : Alpha-Release
This is the very first stage that the game is complete and playable, though it is available only to the whole company and not only to the QA department. So, the company has finished the basics of the game and everybody is required to play through it, test everything you can possibly do. For example build a character of race X and go to place Y and then rotate the camera Z degrees. Do we see Screen Shearing? If not, let's try other combinations... Then get item X while doing the Y thing and then do the Z thing while you have completed the W thing. You never know where a bug is unless you do everything possible to detect it! Then it's the role of the programmers to debug that and make the game better.
Stage 5 : Beta-Release
We are getting close. The Second Milestone a game can "hit" is the Beta-Release. A selected few players around the world or a group of people outside the company will now try to identify bugs by playing the game. These are the so-called beta-testers. They are like angels, will identify all bugs for you, that the alpha-testing phase couldn't identify correctly and the best candidates for that job would be seasoned gamers or even nerds! Trust me! You just don't want to see the customer facing a bug, they are evil and will kick the crap out of your "image" if you let nasty bugs nest in your game. That's why you love beta-testers, they enjoy exploring your game 100% and most of the bugs can be "exterminated" that way.
Stage 6 : RTM & Post-Production
This is the final phase! Congratulations, the game can now be released, so that's up to the producers. The game is found to be acceptable, go to a bar, and drink a couple o' beers matey! Just keep in mind that if your game still has minor/major problems and customers start nuking you, all you can do at this point is fix additional bugs through patching. Patches that do such stuff are called "hotfixes" , while big ones that add content are "game revamps" or "major upgrades". You can also maximize profits judging by the feedback of course and think whether or not you are in a position to publish an expansion pack to the game or even a sequel! But that's up to you!
Hope you enjoyed reading, till next time!
Stage 1 : The birth, and evolution of an idea
What gives birth to a game is essentialy, an idea, which is created in the game designer's head. Yes..! World of Warcraft was built inside a head! Fascinating huh? Every huge virtual world out there that we explore for hundreds and hundreds of hours on a daily basis is based on an idea of a game designer! Then, the designer needs to pull these ideas off his head and into something more physical : Concept Documents.
Stage 2 : The Proposal
The Documents are then being changed over time and finally presented to the company. These are the so called "Game Proposal Documents". From here on, things will need to be analysed to the very last bit, and trust me, they are going to be very technical! For example, the genre, the setting, the target audience and even target platforms and budget are explained / estimated here. There is even a risk analysis report describing about every type of profit and loss for developing that game. Really technical if you ask me.
Stage 3 : The Preproduction
After the goals have been set, the deliverables explained, and the idea is accepted, which is the fundamental part of the "proposal" we can move on to stage 3, which involves PreProduction meaning the whole project is being set up, a HUGE list of elementary-level tasks is created, meaning the creation of the Game Design Document, the Art Production Plan and the Technical Design Document. Now i want you to start thinking as this is a factory's pipeline of production.
The designer is responsible for writing the Game Design Document, which clearly states everything the game is about, all its' details, technical or not, the story, the characters, the assets. As i said, everything that can be related to the game even by a little matter. That document will undergo many changes before the game is finished and by "many" changes, i mean really, a LOT of changes, as the document itself has to be up-to-date with the production pipeline.
The Art Production Plan however is the creation of a linear workflow that will be followed by artists, basically more like a path that is responsible of the creation of the game assets. Concept Artists, Modellers, the Designer himself, and the Art Director are all in charge of creating the "look and feel" of the game.
Finally the Technical Design Document is all about defining manpower (programmers) that are scheduled tasks that are code-centered. Game Milestones are also defined at this point, possible revision entries and how the Game Prototype is supposed to be. It is the final phase of stage 3.
Stage 3 : The Development (Game Jam)
After the elementary stuff is out of the way, the main job is now commencing! The long haul in the stages of game development is the development itself..! The assets are being created, meaning composers are studying musical patters and composing soundtracks of the game, while other specialists go "out in the wild" and either "capture" sound effects by recording all the weird sounds they can possibly find that relate to the game, or they either create their own special sound effects.
Storyboard artists create comic-like illustrations that represent the story of a game, Script-Writers are taking care of the narrative side of the game or they either give birth to dialogs between characters of the game. Modellers start rigging characters based on the concept artists' creations and then more and more artists continue the work by either texturing the rigged character and/or animate them!
Others start creating 3D worlds that are then populated by characters and objects rigged/animated by other artists! Then it's the job of the programmers to mash all these together with thousands and thousands lines of code. The lead designer and project manager then have to make sure everything is working just like they imagined it, and make sure the experience they had when they initially thought of the idea is the exact same, when they see their thoughts into newly-created 3d gameplay.
At the same time, testers from the QA department are testing new levels, mechanics, weapons, objects and basically everything a game has to offer, they need to explore everything thoroughly though as the detection of bugs in a game is their primary role when they test a game, so testing battle systems, overusing game items, trying all different kinds of silly combinations is daily bread for them. As the game expands more and more testers are required to test stuff out. You can't imagine how many bugs can be found at this point!
As development is complete, the Alpha-Release milestone is about to be completed.
Stage 4 : Alpha-Release
This is the very first stage that the game is complete and playable, though it is available only to the whole company and not only to the QA department. So, the company has finished the basics of the game and everybody is required to play through it, test everything you can possibly do. For example build a character of race X and go to place Y and then rotate the camera Z degrees. Do we see Screen Shearing? If not, let's try other combinations... Then get item X while doing the Y thing and then do the Z thing while you have completed the W thing. You never know where a bug is unless you do everything possible to detect it! Then it's the role of the programmers to debug that and make the game better.
Stage 5 : Beta-Release
We are getting close. The Second Milestone a game can "hit" is the Beta-Release. A selected few players around the world or a group of people outside the company will now try to identify bugs by playing the game. These are the so-called beta-testers. They are like angels, will identify all bugs for you, that the alpha-testing phase couldn't identify correctly and the best candidates for that job would be seasoned gamers or even nerds! Trust me! You just don't want to see the customer facing a bug, they are evil and will kick the crap out of your "image" if you let nasty bugs nest in your game. That's why you love beta-testers, they enjoy exploring your game 100% and most of the bugs can be "exterminated" that way.
Stage 6 : RTM & Post-Production
This is the final phase! Congratulations, the game can now be released, so that's up to the producers. The game is found to be acceptable, go to a bar, and drink a couple o' beers matey! Just keep in mind that if your game still has minor/major problems and customers start nuking you, all you can do at this point is fix additional bugs through patching. Patches that do such stuff are called "hotfixes" , while big ones that add content are "game revamps" or "major upgrades". You can also maximize profits judging by the feedback of course and think whether or not you are in a position to publish an expansion pack to the game or even a sequel! But that's up to you!
Hope you enjoyed reading, till next time!
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