Game Development Life Cycle
Michael Vaganov
Game Development Life-cycle
Crunch Time
Dramatic Tension
Prototype Sprint
“Green Light”
Planning
Beta
Milestones
Approval
Game Pitch
Concept
Pre-Production
Alpha
Gold
Post-Production
Production
Time
“The last 90%”
Concept
You
Game Idea
(Champion)
• Alone, or in a group.
• Start writing down your game idea. Right now!! Use
napkins, pocket notebooks, notepad.exe, anything.
• Define the target audience, game play, premise, etc…
Concept
You
Game Idea
(Champion)
Game Pitch
(presentation,
or elevator
speech)
Game Design
Document
Prototype
• Expand your idea into something that sounds good,
makes sense, and obviously looks doable
• You are selling an adventure.
Game Pitch
You
Game Idea
Game Pitch / Design Doc /
Prototype
Publisher
(Sponsor)
• sell your game idea to someone with money
• You initiate with the publisher.
Game Pitch
You
Game Idea
Game Pitch / Design Doc /
Prototype
Publisher
Game Pitch / Design Doc /
Prototype
• Publisher will try to leave its mark on your idea
based on standards & creative input
IP holders
or other
rd
3 parties
Approval Process
Publisher
Game Pitch / Design Doc /
Prototype
• Publisher contacts IP holders or other
3rd parties
Approval Process
You
Game Idea
Publisher
Game Pitch / Design Doc /
Prototype
• Publisher wants your game!
– after making a few changes or personal assumptions
– And of course, a contract
Planning
Game Idea
Technical
expert
Technical
Design
Game Pitch /
Design Doc /
Prototype
• Most current game idea and defined feature
set is used to make Technical Design document.
Planning:
Getting a Feature Set with a
Scope Exercise
out of Scope
in Scope
1: Put features and attributes on post it notes.
If you want it in the game, and you think it will take more than 5 minutes to do, put it on a post-it note
2: As a group, decide where the note goes in he diagram above (in or out of scope).
Related features should be near each other.
Planning:
Technical Design Document
• Explains technical scope
• Features defined
• Foreseeable technical
difficulties identified
• Time and personnel
estimated
• Technical work
environment defined
Technical
Design
Planning:
Production Plan and Milestones
Game Idea
You
(Champion)
Game Pitch /
Design Doc /
Prototype
Technical
Design
Publisher’s
Producer
(Sponsor)
Technical
expert
Production
Plan &
Milestones
• A Producer acts as a Project
Manager
– makes a Production Plan
– sets Milestones
Green-Light:
Production Plan and Milestones
• TDD used as base
• Target estimated
release date
• Major work items,
personnel required &
dependencies
• Milestone: Expectation
for project progress (for
evaluation)
Production
Plan &
Milestones
Pre-Production
Game
Developer
You + publisher + coworkers
• Gather initial resources
(employees, software,
knowledge, etc.)
The
Game
Industry
Game Development Life-cycle
Crunch Time
Alpha
Prototype Sprint
Dramatic Tension
Beta
Milestones
Gold
Post-Production
Pre-Production
Production
Time
“The last 90%”
Prototype Sprint
• Version 0.0, or “the Prototype”
• Huge creative engineering effort
– Rapid Application Development (RAD)
– Sprint (Scrums)
– Most often done by one senior programmer
• Huge Project Bottleneck…
Prototype
Milestones
Publis
• Publishers watch their investment
– User testing, press, schedule changes
Game
Developer
• Developers manage personal progress
– Code reviews, meetings about bugs & features
Iterative Milestones
• Prototype
• Development
Emphasis on High
Concept & Stability
Initial
Planning
– First Playable
– “Engineer Builds”
– Demo Builds
• Alpha
• Beta
– Release Candidate
• Gold
Deployment
Emphasis on Quality
& Presentation
Each Milestone Evolves the
Game Idea
• Individual Milestones are
composed of many work items.
• Work items (art, code, content)
– Created in iterative cycles
– Individual workers attempt to
implement their individual
understanding of The Vision
– Collectively, workers
collaboratively change the The
Vision
Game Idea
Game Idea
Game Idea
Game Production Cycle
• Sales & Marketing
Creative
• Production
Management
Art
Design
• “Design”
Sales &
ProductionProgramming
Marketing
Public
• Art
Management
Customer
QA
• Programming
Service
• QA
Evaluative
• Customer Support
Initial
Planning
Planning
Deployment
Evaluation
Implementation
Testing
Private
Game Development Life-cycle
Crunch Time
Alpha
Dramatic Tension
Beta
Gold
Post-Production
Pre-Production
Production
Time
“The last 90%”
Crunch Time
(AKA “The Death Spiral”)
• Unmet project goals
– Mandatory Overtime to meet
deadlines
– High-stress may result in “Burn-out”
Amount of
Work to Do
• Causes
– Procrastination
– Short-term focus early in the project
– Short-sighted production processes
Amount of
Time to do it
Alpha
3rd
parties
Game Demo
Software
Game Content
Test
Groups
Game
Design
Document
Suggestions
Production
Plan &
Milestones
Art
• Demo is made
– Most game functionality, game content, and art present
• First major push to polish the game
• Last chance for feature creep!
Beta
• ‘Feature Freeze’
implemented
• Final stabilization
phase
• QA grows to test
all aspects of the
game
• “Ship it!”
Unexpecte
Influence
Game
Software
Game Content
Art
Quality
Assurance
Programming
Gold
(final candidate)
• Game is nearly bug free
– bugs that exist are too rare,
unknown, or not cost effective
to fix.
– KS = Known Shippable
• Final (Gold) copy is made,
and ready to be released to
the public.
• Schedule the Post Mortem
(Project Review)
Game
Software
Game Content
Art
Programming
Post-Production
• Game has been released
• Monitor public use of the
game
• Patches developed for
problems not caught
during Beta
• Updates or sequels are
planned based on
demand, and evolved
Game Idea
Game Developer
& Publisher
Game
Sometimes it works like that
anyway…
What about… Leadership? Technical ability?
Team funding? Office Politics? Legal/ethical
issues? Poor Marketing? Creative slumps?
Schedule miscalculations? Quality
management? Technical complications?
Market complications? Feature Creep?
Competition? 3rd party issues? …
Your game!
You and your
team’s blood and
sweat and tears!
Right there!!
The
Game
Industry
Appendix
• Job Type Specifics
Production Workflow:
Production Management
Art
Expectation
Production
Plan &
Milestones
Unexpected
Influence
Production
Management
Programming
Quality
Assurance
Sales &
Marketing
Design
• Manage teams
• Communicate and handle the changing Production Plan
– Schedule slips, new ROI considerations, personnel changes, etc
Production Jobs:
Production Management
(& Business Development)
• Executive Producer
– oversees multiple projects (the big boss)
• Producer
– establish policy, manage schedule, handle contracts, handle
budgeting, staff support, reporting to upper management,
interface dev team, interface with press, lead the team,
communicate and ensure communication
• Associate Producer & Assistant Producer
– assist producer
– Assistant Producer is more junior
• Business Development
– acquire IP licenses
– handle legal issues (terms of service, licensing, etc.)
Production Workflow:
Programming
Quality
Assurance
Game
Design Doc
Programming
Game Idea
Software
(the game,
infrastructure, and
game making tools)
Unexpected
Influence
• Work based on an ever-changing Game Design.
• QA finds technical flaws (Late production, Alpha, Beta)
– Bugs usually added to bug database
Production Jobs: Programming
• Technical Director
– technical design, oversee implementation, set tools, hardware,
and code standards
• Lead Programmer
– supervises programming team
• Engine Programmer
– program core game engine
• Graphics Programmer
– program graphics code
• Networking Programmer
– database, client/server, network protocol issues
• AI Programmer
– make game intelligent
Production Jobs:
Differences between…
•
•
•
•
Normal worker
Lead
Manager
Director
Goal
Goal
Production Jobs: Programming
(continued…)
• Physics Programmer
– program collision and particle systems
• Tools Programmer
– program tools for internal production
• Audio Programmer
– program sound into game
• Interface Programmer
– program graphical user interface
• QA Programmer
– program to assist QA (cheat codes, automated test tools)
• Associate (junior) Programmer
– assigned junior programming tasks
Production Workflow: Design
Quality
Assurance
Game Content
(story, characters,
levels, items,
enemies, etc…)
Design
Game
Design
Doc
Game Idea
Unexpected
Influence
• Keepers of the Game Idea and GDD
– Game Idea changes (hopefully few) should be documented
• Develop non-code, non-art content
– Story, dialog, scripts, maps, characters, items, game balance, ...
• Content and design flaws found by QA
Production Jobs: Design
• Creative Director
– direct creative vision and art style
• Design Director
– support design team, guide design process, document design
process
• Lead Designer
– supervise design team, assemble documentation, high-level
level design
• Interface Designer
– layout content, navigation, usability features
• Level Designer
– building the game world, story, scripting, dialogue
Production Workflow: Art
Quality
Assurance
Art
Art Content
(concept art,
character art,
models, textures,
icons, sound, etc…)
Design
Sales &
Marketing
• Artists and designers often work collaboratively
• QA finds technical flaws in game art
• Pitch Materials
Production Jobs: Art
• Art Director
– oversee art team, set art process
• Lead Artist
– supervises art team
• Concept Artist
– draw game environment, props, characters, storyboards, etc.
• Technical Artist
– interfacing art with game code, scripting game content
• Modeler
– create 3D models with tools like Maya, 3D Studio Max, etc.
• Texture Artist
– skin 3D models
• Animator
– animate 3D models
Production Jobs: Art (Sound)
• Audio Director
– manage audio department, interface with audio
programmer
• Composer
– creates musical score
• Sound Designer
– create sound effects, ambient sound, collects and
edits sound (foley sounds)
• Voiceover Artist (Voice Actor)
– provide voice for characters
Production Workflow: QA
Software
Game Content
Design
Art Content
Programming
Quality
Assurance
Production
Art
• Test the quality of products and give feedback
• QA also determines the state of production significantly
Production Jobs:
Quality Assurance
• Testing Manager
– responsible for several projects, lead testers, manages testing
budget, interacts with management
• Lead Tester
– works as tester while supervising testing team, manages data
entry, determines bugs importance, and summarizes status to
managers
• Compatibility Tester
– tests the game on multiple platforms, localization testing
• Playability Tester
– play early release, offer suggestions, communicate heavily
• Alpha/Beta Tester
– play the product before release, submit bugs, offer suggestions
(game balance, altered, functionality, etc)
Production Workflow:
Sales & Marketing
Contracts
Advertising &
Promotional
Materials
Buzz / Hype
•
•
•
•
Game Demo
Sales &
Marketing
Art
Game Content
Contracts for distribution
Game advertising, promotional material
‘buzz’ or ‘hype’
Track sales with producers during Post-Production.
Production Jobs:
Sales & Marketing
• Promotion
– organize contests, trials, giveaways, and promotional
merchandise
• Sales
– acquire shelf space, try to bundle with hardware
• Advertising
– create advertising for TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, the
internet, etc.
• Public Relations
– organize previews, reviews, interviews, articles, stories, etc.
Post-Production Jobs:
Customer Support
• Customer Service
– help solve customer specific issues
• Community Management
– organize and manage newsletters, track
modding groups, fan sites, and hackers
• Maintenance Programmers
– Build patches, port the game to different
platforms