Comments on: Amateur Auteur Designs http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/ Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:52:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: sswink http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/comment-page-1/#comment-935 sswink Mon, 06 Nov 2006 03:44:03 +0000 http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/#comment-935 @Derek: I think that what he was implying, more than the necessity of constant checkpoints (milestones) on the path to completion and stuff about interdependancies and bottlenecking, is the notion that a game is never finished, only abandoned. As in, a naive developer thinks that the game will suddenly wink into being, or will at some point be 'done' and be perfect. In reality game creation is an ongoing, organic process whose true underpinnings are poorly understood. So much so that almost everyone in the game development community views design as a sort of black magic and adopt bizarre, superstitious beliefs and practices to mitigate their fear of the unknown. @David Marsh: Thanks so much for the encouragement! A little goes a long way :). @Derek: I think that what he was implying, more than the necessity of constant checkpoints (milestones) on the path to completion and stuff about interdependancies and bottlenecking, is the notion that a game is never finished, only abandoned. As in, a naive developer thinks that the game will suddenly wink into being, or will at some point be ‘done’ and be perfect. In reality game creation is an ongoing, organic process whose true underpinnings are poorly understood. So much so that almost everyone in the game development community views design as a sort of black magic and adopt bizarre, superstitious beliefs and practices to mitigate their fear of the unknown.

@David Marsh: Thanks so much for the encouragement! A little goes a long way :) .

]]> By: David Marsh http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/comment-page-1/#comment-934 David Marsh Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:52:26 +0000 http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/#comment-934 I like your take on things. You have a nice style of writing and I love the design of your blog. You are a scholar and a gentleman! Consider yourself bookmarked! I like your take on things. You have a nice style of writing and I love the design of your blog. You are a scholar and a gentleman! Consider yourself bookmarked!

]]> By: Derek http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/comment-page-1/#comment-933 Derek Sun, 05 Nov 2006 18:51:37 +0000 http://www.steveswink.com/posts/amateur-auteur-designs/#comment-933 This article was semi-genius. I especially appreciated the line about "you're not making a game, you're making milestones". Based off the experience I've had working on some mods, that's really where things fell apart. People didn't understand or didn't like the idea of milestones. They just wanted to have a game that played. I worked on a Quake 3 mod a while back that everyone wanted to make all these sweet levels for but we hadn't yet reached our milestone for coding. There was no gameplay! How can you create levels for a game if you don't even know how the players are going to interact with the levels!?! I was severely annoyed by it and ended up leaving the mod because no work got done. Milestones are so important and I think a lot of beginning game designers don't get that. In fact, I still don't understand how to set proper milestones. Any ideas? Anyways, good article...thanks for sharing. :) This article was semi-genius. I especially appreciated the line about “you’re not making a game, you’re making milestones”. Based off the experience I’ve had working on some mods, that’s really where things fell apart. People didn’t understand or didn’t like the idea of milestones. They just wanted to have a game that played. I worked on a Quake 3 mod a while back that everyone wanted to make all these sweet levels for but we hadn’t yet reached our milestone for coding. There was no gameplay! How can you create levels for a game if you don’t even know how the players are going to interact with the levels!?! I was severely annoyed by it and ended up leaving the mod because no work got done. Milestones are so important and I think a lot of beginning game designers don’t get that. In fact, I still don’t understand how to set proper milestones. Any ideas? Anyways, good article…thanks for sharing. :)

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