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11TH JUN 2015

11 Tips to Speed Up your Game Design

Process

At the start of a project, everything has yet to be done. As a game

designer, our job involves some writing. Often a lot of writing.
Here's a list of general tips to design as efficiently as possible at
the start of a project.

Nathan Lovato
Nathan is a game design expert at GameAnalytics. Currently founder and game
design instructor at GDquest.

A
t the start of a project, everything has yet to be done. There are loads of tasks
at hand, and it is hard to tackle them in the right order. As a game designer,
our job involves some writing. Often a lot of writing.

The large, almighty Game Design Document is a myth. I am talking here of a

hypothetical file that would contain every bit of information there is to know about a
game. For larger teams, they are too many elements to record and keep track of to
have them all compiled in a single document. And  sections of a GDD are relevant
but to a small portion of the development team.

Documents are less than ideal when it comes to assembling coherent networks of
information. But we still have to write a lot in the pre-production phase of a game.
However, there are ways to limit the amount of writing we need to do andMenu to

facilitate our teammates’ jobs at the same time.  If you are working in a studio
already, you’ll have a lead designer to tell you how to work. In this article though, I’d
like to give you a list of general tips to design as efficiently as possible at the start of
a project. It should be of use for your personal projects, as a freelancer, and it should
work nicely with most studios’ guidelines.

1. A short prototype is worth a thousand

words
A design document made of raw text leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Any
amount of words can’t portray accurately the expected feel of a game. On the
other hand, the essential mechanics  of most game concepts can be coded  and
tested in little time. Often, it takes about as much time to develop  a prototype it
takes to write a corresponding detailed design description.

A prototype both describes and provides means to assess the quality of a game
concept. To me, this is an ideal starting point for the preproduction process.
Documents or discussions are too remote from the actual game, and end up wasting
time. However, a playable sample gives every team member a concrete sense of
what the game could be. It gives everyone an experience  to give feedback on. It is
also both fun and motivating to have a working prototype.

There is no need to spend a lot of time on this initial implementation though. Fancy
visuals are out of the question. They would not only waste your time initially, but
they might also prevent you and your teammates from properly judging the
gameplay. Pretty drawings tend to mask the pitfalls of our design choices.
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The Ludum Dare gave us quite a few examples of full blown game series born of a very efficient
prototype.

2. Lean documents
Everyone is busy in a game development team. Nobody wants to read through long
and tortuous bodies of text. Heavy documents are the bane of our coworkers. In
particular on large projects. One can only process so many pieces of information at
a time. One can only retain so much about the project’s details overall. An efficient
design document should focus on conveying the key information that each
teammate is meant to use.

You can take example on screenwriters: the script of a movie is always written in a
simple, descriptive language. The font is big and the document lightened as much
as possible. Everything is arranged so the reader’s experience stays fluid all along,
regardless of his reading skills. Movie scripts are designed for busy producers and
coworkers to get the author’s point.

Writing efficient and lean documents does not only clarifies your thoughts for
everyone: it shows your mastery of the topic  at hand, your understanding of the
studio’s needs. Long paragraphs and elaborate phrasing waste both your and your
readers’ time. Simple is also extremely fast to write, as it stays close to a spoken
language. In turn, it gives you more time to focus on other exciting design tasks. I’d
personally rather be drawing or coding than writing long technical documents. Not
you?
y

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3. Write with your peers in mind
As designers, we write design documents for others. It may be for a client, a
manager, developers, etc. They all have different needs and expectations. A client
may not care about the details of your chosen technology for implementation. On
the other hand, your developer teammates will likely need some details to estimate
the technical constraints that will arise from your choices. In other words, you
should adapt both your tone and content to your readers. Part of your role as a
designer is to understand your teammates  and their needs. Your writings are not
only meant to provide the necessary resources for others to do their work. You also
have the power to facilitate their job or not.

If you want to do your peers a favor, and improve your writing skills: just ask your
readers for feedback! Your coworkers will be glad to tell you what they’d like to see
changed. Or if anything could help them working faster. Ideally, you would want to
know how each profession in the studio works. What does everyone’s job entail?
That is the best way to get into the mind of others: share their craft. But well,
getting feedback should be enough to satisfy everybody.

4. Run tests to prevent unnecessary

chatter
This point relates to the first one in this list. Your ideas leave room for
interpretation… And for discussion! This is especially true for clients who don’t work
in the game industry. They might dislike a coherent and efficient design if they have
no opportunity to see the resulting game first. Just because they don’t trust you just
yet or had something else in mind! It is often easier to show, controller in hand, that
a design choice does or does not work, rather than to explain it. It is common to
disagree on a given mechanic and get bogged down arguing over the advantages of
some choices.

When you are unable to take a decision over 2 options, a set of reference games can
help. The advantage is that everyone in the team can experience the variation
between 2 mechanics. Everyone can get a good sense of which one works best and
why. Sometimes, it won’t be sufficient to solve conflicts. In that case, the easiest
thing to do is to let the lead decide and move on. But often, a prototype will help to
unlock the discussion.

5. Do your research at the start of the

day
day
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Looking for new ideas is a brain intensive task. It can exhaust you within a few
hours. Bouncing back and forth between concept research, programming, drawing
and writing will suck your juice in no time. This is a general productivity tip: if you
want to stay efficient for a whole 8 hours a day, you need a short term work plan. A
list of tasks to tackle in a smart order You should gather all of the raw material, the
ideas you need when you arrive at the office. Or even the day before!

That is one of the most basic productivity hacks. Always plan all structure your
work. It permits you to focus on the big picture, on arranging ideas all at once. It
almost relieves your mind from that heavy-duty for the rest of the day.

Propositional concept artist start their work with thumbnails. Animators with rough
animations. Composers with the chord progression or a thematic structure. And
writers with an outline. Only that way can we keep working at it can stand,
satisfying pace, over the course of a whole project.

6. Learn how to code

To me, gameplay programming is part of the fundamental skillset any game
designer should have. For one, we have to communicate with developers often.
Because of that alone, it’s useful to understand what coding entails. At least to some
extent. But more importantly, this permits you to test your ideas by yourself. It
makes you more autonomous, knowledgeable and efficient overall.

A game designer who codes is also an ideal match for most game studios. You
just need to know your basics and to have a few samples of your work to prove your
skills. With that, you  will have no problem finding work. If you can code, other
developers won’t need to translate your documents and iterate based on your input
anymore. Instead, you will be able to provide them with a playable example
showcasing the basic healing balance you are aiming for. You will be able to stay
productive throughout the whole game development cycle.

Strong programming skills are extremely useful if you are looking to progress
professionally. A good lead needs to be not only skillful, but also versatile to some
extent. And anyway, there are plenty of stable positions available for developers out
there. They are sought after, contrary to artists and marketers.
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Game designers with strong programming skills are most wanted in the industry. Kudos if you have
artistic skills on top of that.

7. Use pictures
“An image is worth a thousand words”, or so they say. The saying is often right,
provided that the picture is relevant. You can illustrate a level’s layout and
challenges well with a plan. There is nothing like a concept painting to give a good
sense of your future game’s ambiance. You can also describe systems with easy to
read diagrams better than with plain text.

Coming up with good figures for your documents may take a while. But they can
both clearly convey your ideas and greatly enhance your teammates’ reading
experience. A lovely picture will even help to sell your writing. This is a sad truth, but
a truth nonetheless: the overall visuals and feel of your documents will affect your
peer’s perception of your work. It is not enough to come up with a great concept.
You also have to know how to properly present it.

8. Shorten that iterative loop

Don’t wait to have a whole slice of gameplay to put your game in the hands of
testers. By then, you could have wasted time polishing poor controls, focused on a
technical aspect that doesn’t matter to your players, or worked on the system so big
that you can only backtrack at an unpleasant cost. In any design related job, it is
critical to iterate, and to do so fast.

A kfl h h ld kl l d f hf
An iterative workflow means that you should tackle a limited set of rough features
at a time and get feedback before you polish them. It takes hours of focused workMenu
to
code or design a small set of mechanics. But only a few minutes for your peers to
ensure that your work is going in the right direction. So if you haven’t already,
shorten that loop!

9. Use analytics early

Regardless of how many testers you have at hand, including yourself, you can track
all sorts of useful data with an analytics API. How many times did any tester fail on
a given level? How many got through a given challenge? Those simple pieces of
information give you a sense of how well you balanced your game. They are hard to
track by hand. Yet, they are especially useful on the early stages of a project. And
they stay relevant during your beta test sessions… And even after the game’s
release!

A tool like GameAnalytics will track and plot all of that data for you. If you’re using
unity, the SDK is even available as a convenient package to load into your favorite
IDE.

10. Work with efficient tools

Some IDEs are more efficient than others when it comes to prototyping. Until now,
for 2d prototypes, my tool of choice has been the HTML 5 IDE construct 2. On any
given project, within 1 to 2 hours, I can have a simple yet precise working prototype
with it. Because it’s HTML 5, it gives me the ability to forward the game to a remote
teammate for feedback extremely fast.

The actual developers of the corresponding game can pick any other engine to code
the final product. Obviously, within a fixed team, it is ideal to all work with a
common set of tools. As you certainly know, a tool like Unity is great for both
prototyping and long term work. A perfect fit if you are going for native games. If
you’re a lone game designer or a freelancer like me, technologies like HTML 5 or
Haxe are great for rapid prototyping as well.

11. Use placeholder content

The early pre-production phase is no time to fiddle with unnecessary details. It is
unlikely that  the early prototypes will  be kept as they are. They are often dumped
because they are proof of concepts more so than solid bases for a product. At that
stage of a project, you shouldn’t hesitate to use dirty tricks and other placeholder
assets and snippets of code. The only thing that matters, as far as a game concept is
concerned, is that you find the right design direction. And it does take some trial
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and error to get there.
Those last notes may seem basic to some of you. But trying to stay efficient across
the board does require a shift of mind. I see it often enough: using and reusing
placeholder content is not natural or intuitive to all fellow professionals.

Summary
Overall, this list can be summed up in 3 general points:

1. Use and abuse prototypes

2. Write and code with your teammates in mind

3. And don’t neglect the clarity of your presentation

Is there any tips or advice you would like to share with everyone? Did we miss
anything essential? Let us know on twitter or Facebook!

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