Scenariu de joc

[Ghost]

OK, la capitolul asta sunt complet pe dinafara. Be gentle Orice ajutor e bine venit.
Daca am o idee, pentru un joc sau mai multe, ce trebuie scris in scenariu ? Si ce reguli trebuie respectate, in functie de genul jocului, sa zicem shooter, RTS sau simulator ?
Multumesc.

[KingOBeer]

Scuze daca ma bag unde nu trebuie, insa am evitat sa mai fac un thread pe aceeasi tema. Si pe mine m-ar interesa un `scenariu`, dar pentru un joc web-based..

[scarpelius]

Ce inseamna "scenariu de joc"?

[Ghost]

Povestea, conceptul, astea. Pana la urma, nu sunt sigur ca se numeste scenariu, dar mi s-a parut cel mai potrivit termen. Eu am ideea (ideile) in cap, chiar o intreaga poveste/concept, dar trebuie sa stiu si cum trebuie scrise. Din pacate, inca n-am primit nici un ajutor.

[KingOBeer]

Eu am nevoie de orice idee care merge implementata online. Trebuie sa prezint ceva cat de cat interesant la atestatul la informatica Poate sunt oameni cu idei mai multe si mai bune ca ale mele... :P

[Brain]

Se numeste "design document" . Poate nu sunt in masura sa dau sfaturi, dar incearca asta: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991019/ryan_01.htm (daca nu ai cont trebuie sa-ti faci).
si asta (mai mult chestii teoretice) : http://www.ihfsoft.com/articlesgamedesign.htm

[scarpelius]

Ca sa faci un joc din pozitia de game designer, trebuie sa cunosti toate "meseriile" implicate in proces si multe altele pe linga. Multi or sa zica ca ai nevoie de cunostiinte de programare (de regula c++) si grafica 3D. Parerea mea este ca, daca nu esti angajat intr-o firma mare care sa compartimenteze munca, cele 2 sint absolut insuficiente.
Game Designerul are nevoie in principal de leadership, pentru ca el este omul cu viziunea si cel care trebuie sa invete teamul ce trebuie sa faca, fiecare in parte. Cu alte cuvinte, GD este taticul la care toti apeleaza cind se blocheaza sau exista diferente de opinii. Si vor exista, trust me, mai ales in cadrul echipei de arta si 3D, unde fara o mana ferma lucrurile vor lua o intorsatura extrem de urata.
De asemenea el este omul care stabileste si mediaza contactele intre diversele departamente. In primele faze ale dezvoltarii unui joc, art teamul este intotdeauna mai rapid decat programatorii si vor sa-si testeze munca in engine-ul jocului. Si vor sa exporte din prea iubitul lor modeler direct in engine, iar in engine sa arate la fel de bine ca in modeler, fara sa tina seama de faptul ca randarile in modeler se fac off real time. Iar enginul daca exista, este lipsit la ora asta de orice optimizare si este plin de buguri. Ceea ce va crea falsa impresie in capul art-teamului ca programatorii sint buni de nimic. Pe de alta parte programatorii or sa se ia cu mainile de par pentru ca art-teamul vrea sa bage in engine modele cu milioane de poligoane, sau modele care folosesc texturi mai mari de 2048 si care nu sint putere de 2 (desi asta e cam depasita cu putere de 2 la texturi), sau folosesc 50 de meshe pe model in loc de una singura care ar ingenunchia si cel mai meserias engine, sau pun mai multe oase pe schelet decat suporta enginul si ca atare frame rate-ul cade la cel al unui slide show samd...

Cind vrei sa faci un joc trebuie sa cunosti toate astea si inca multe, multe altele. Altfel nu ai decat o reteta pentru esec.

[Ghost]

Multumesc mult pentru lamuriri, scarpelius, dar din pacate nu am decat povestea, la programare sunt piua. Acum vreau sa citesct ce scrie in link-urile lui Brain (multumesc pentru ele), sa vad cum o pot scoate la capat, adica sa scriu povestea jocului, acesta fiind primul pas. Dupa aceea ma voi gandi la urmatorii pasi.

[c0mas]

Cu toate ca cele spuse de scarpelius sunt adevarate, cred ca el confunda game designerul cu project managerul.
Game designerul ar trebui sa se ocupe de partea de game design, nu de dimensiunea texturilor sau de numarul de poligoane si nici de legatura dintre departamente. El ar trebui sa spuna cum vrea sa fie jocul iar project managerul sa vada care lasa de la el

[scarpelius]

Intr-o firma ideala asa se intimpla, fiecare isi cunoaste rolul si se specializeaza.
Dar cind ai la indemina cativa oameni nu-ti permiti sa ai si game designer si project manager separat.
Plus ca de cele mai multe ori cei care angajeaza la noi nu vad necesitatea unui job complet orientat pe game design, ca dovada cerintele cateodata extrem de ridicate pentru aceasta pozitie: C++, modelare organica, compozitie muzicala samd.
Pe de alta parte nu poti sa fi un bun game designer daca nu cunosti destule lucruri din aceste domenii, pentru ca altfel viata project managerului va deveni un iad, tot incercind sa faca compromisuri iar proiectul o sa devina o varza de care toti vor fi nemultumiti. Si daca teamul isi pierde increderea si interesul in proiect, sa vezi atunci cum o sa fie cu depasirile de termene si cresterea bugetului din aceasta cauza.

[c0mas]

Funlabs, UbiSoft ... si probabil si altii de la care nu am informatii au si game designeri specializati si PM specializati.
A, si nu vad de ce trebuie sa stie game designerul C++ ? sau modelare organica ? sau muzica ? sau baze de date ? sau algoritmi ? De obicei e nevoie de ceva limbaje de scriptare, care de multe ori se rezuma la copy paste, probabil o sa aiba o gramada de editoare mici si cool facute de programare, a si binenteles are nevoie de un procesor de text.
Nu stiu de ce spui ca viata PM-ului este un iad ? GD vine si propune o idee, programarea spune ca nu se poate face sau ca se poate face intr-un anume timp. PM decide daca se face sau nu.
Deci partea tehnica da specificatiile tehnice pentru timpul alocat. GD isi adapteaza designul in functie de specificatii, nu are nimeni de ce sa fie nemultumit. Oricum intr-o firma bazata pe o ierarhie, daca esti nemultumit, probabil se gaseste altcineva care sa-ti faca munca si sa fie si multumit

[Vall]

offtopic : c0mas , un game designer ideal trebuie sa stie de toate ( sau macar sa priceapa ceva din ce i se explica ) , inclusiv programare , matematica , muzica etc.
daca nu stii cu ce se mananca fiecare specialitate nu poti concepe un design document , pentru ca devii aberant. ex :se poate face un storyline care nu-l poate suporta engine-ul , dupa cum ziceai si tu , sau exista prea multe poligoane intr-o anumita scena in care apar in acelasi timp 40 de personaje (fiecare cu ai-ul ei/lui , animatii specifice , sa nu mai zic de poligoane) etc.Cum s-ar zice , tre sa cunosti toate variabilele inainte sa te apuci de lucru.

si pana la urma document designul unui joc va fi respectat in proportie de 30,40 % pana la terminarea proiectului . asta o patesc de 5 ani incoace .

Iar PM-ul este cel mai napastuit om de pe lume , trust me ! La cine se strang datele ? Cine sta pana la 5 dimineata pana se termina de compilat nush ce nivel/engine .. etc ? Cine are de discutat cu Gamedesigner / Leveldesigner / Sound / GraphicDesigner / Programare toata ziua ? Cine i-a decizii importante in fiecare zi ?

Btw Funlabs <> PM specializati .

sorry pentru huge off-topic stuff

[Vall]

Substance and Style in Game Design

Nobody can completely understand the entire field of game design. There are too many interacting elements, too much information, for the human mind to perceive and consider simultaneously. Thus nobody can hope to think about all of game design at once. The only solution available to the designer is to conceptually split the field up into manageable chunks, each of which can then be considered separately.

There are many ways to divide game design so that it can be contemplated intelligently. This article attempts to clarify one of these ways, namely, splitting a game and all of its parts into categories as either style or substance. First, I'll define what style and substance are.

Substance is fundamental, and exists in all games by definition, whether these games run on a computer or not. Every computer game, every board game, every tabletop strategy game or pen-and-paper RPG, are all fundamentally composed of substance elements. These elements are defined by how they act and interact with other game elements. One could think of substance, in the example of a computer game, as the part of the game that comes directly from the code. The purpose of substance elements is to, by interacting according to their fundamental natures, to generate decision points for the player.

Style elements are auxiliary, and exist to help elucidate stories, immerse players, facilitate learning, or to serve many other experience-enhancing purposes. They provide an appearance for the substance elements and make the substance elements resemble recognizable things, real or fictitious. One may think of style elements as all those parts of the game that are defined by the art and sound. Style elements, when present, are not separate from the substance elements, but exist as wrappers for the substance elements. Their ultimate purpose is to allow human beings to associate the substance of the game with something in real life or fiction.

An easy way to understand for the difference between style and substance is by example. Many shooter games have traditionally calculated world collision and bullet impacts by modeling bullets as instantaneous line traces and characters as moving collision cylinders. In this case, the line-projecting cylinder is the fundamental nature of the character - the character's substance. The image of a fighter, the sounds he makes and the way he animates is the character's style.

A character can thus be, as a thought exercise, stripped of his style and considered simply as an abstract cylindrical game piece that slides around a level, attempting to project lines into other cylinders. The substance is the cylinder; its rules of interaction, its practical properties. The style is what the cylinder is made to appear as, and what the cylinder's actions appear as.

Any number of different styles could be overlaid on top of the sliding, line-projecting cylinder substance. This cylinder could be made to appear as a space marine, a World War II soldier, a puzzle piece in some abstract competitive game, or a robot on treads that fires lasers. The style of the element does not affect the substance - the cylinder still acts the same way whether it looks like Duke Nukem or Bart Simpson.

An understanding of the style-substance relationship is useful because it allows us to better analyze how game elements interact without being too concerned with how these elements appear. This is a good method of analysis since it allows us to focus clearly on gameplay. An important ability to develop is the capacity to mentally strip away the style of an element so that the underlying substance can be examined alone. It becomes obvious when an element is not contributing to gameplay because it no longer has a crutch, in the forms of a cool appearance, to prop it up.

No matter how fascinating the style is (with a few exceptions), if an interactive element or system does not improve the game from a purely abstract lines-and-cylinders gameplay point of view, it needs to be re-evaluated.




Classic computer games like Civilization remain popular today due to having substance.

Substance is always more important in game design. While well-done style is great to have, it is not absolutely necessary to produce a great gaming experience. Substance is necessary. Consider Chess. The game doesn't really resemble contesting armies on an ancient battlefield, but the quality of the decision points it generates is still excellent, which is why it is still popular. The same could be said for classic computer games like Counter-Strike, Civilization and Starcraft. These games have been long surpassed in terms of style quality for years, but the substance remains some of the best available, and these games are still popular.

Substance is what really defines games as games. Forms of entertainment without substance elements cannot be games. Movies and books, for example, are forms of entertainment that consist solely of style elements because there is no non-predefined interaction between elements within these forms of entertainment. They present no decisions to the person entertained and are perfectly predictable the second time they are viewed. Since substance is defined by semi-unpredictable interaction and dynamic generation of decision points, this means that movies and books have no substance. To be a game designer is to be a designer of substance.

There are a few games that exist without any style element. The board game Go, for example, is not generally thought to associate the pieces with warriors since their rules of interaction and appearances don't resemble warriors. Computer puzzle games like Bejeweled often have no style. Bejeweled, for example, does use images of gemstones for its pieces, but the arrangement and action of these gemstones doesn't resemble anything that people do in real life - they are no more than abstract icons.

While style is not strictly necessary to create a great game, it does convey major advantages. These are:

1. Ease of learning, understanding, and retention
2. Story Generation
3. Role-playing
4. Amplification of the wow factor
5. Control and amplification of emotional impact

I'll now discuss these in detail.

1. Ease of learning and understanding

Every human on this planet has years of accumulated knowledge from everyday life. This is a vast amount of information. Game designers can harness this pool of knowledge to make their games much easier to understand. If the substance of the game resembles some system that exists in real life, the style wrapper can be designed so that the game appears to be a simulation of this real life system. Joe User will have a much easier time learning a game with a good style wrapper than the same game reduced to abstract elements since Joe will be able to intuitively predict the rules of the system by relating it to the real-life system it resembles.

For example, a game about cylinders projecting lines at each other and sliding around in a 3D environment would be difficult to learn. There's no reason to assume that there is anything bad about lines being projected at one's own cylinder. Every rule of the game would have to be explicitly memorized before the game could be understood properly.

The same game, wrapped up as futuristic fighters in a blood tournament, is much easier to understand. It's very obvious that something bad is happening when the player's character gets shot. The futuristic action game wrapper creates an association between things in the game and things in fiction. A smaller health variable is associated with real injury and death, which are obviously bad. This is why no FPS game tutorial has ever needed to explain that you should avoid dying. The style wrapper makes it intuitive.

2. Story Generation

Humans enjoy good stories. We like hearing them, watching them, and participating in them. The second function of the style aspect of a game design is to feed the human desire for stories. Style wrappers do this in several ways.

The most obvious way is that style allows designers to incorporate a story directly into a design. Many games consist of a linear or mostly-linear series of challenges that derive from the player's role in some preconceived storyline. This is a well-used basis for game designs that cross almost all genres.

The other way that style helps feed the human appetite for stories is that it causes the gamer to subconsciously create his own stories as he plays. Some players intentionally do this, as in Machinima. All players subconsciously do this. Subconsciously generated stories are often more powerful than predefined stories because they are, in a sense, true, because they are not the product of some game company's brainstorming session. Even better, they are the player's own stories that he experienced and created firsthand. When the player barely survives an intense gunfight because of some incredible turn of chance or feat of skill, that event becomes a story, to be appreciated and retold. It is made more powerful because it did, in a way, actually happen.

[Vall]

si partea a doua :

3. Role-playing

Well-done style allows the gamer to role-play. This is not in any way limited to role-playing games. All games with style involve an element of role-playing, in the general sense of the word, even if they don't involve levels or experience points. Well-done style allows gamers to mentally place themselves in their game roles.

The Tamagotchi was a virtual pet handheld device that was once very popular. There was almost no substance; it provided no goal and few decision points. What the Tamagotchi did well was allow the owner to role play as whatever kind of person he wished - kind and benevolent to maniacally evil. This power to role-play sold many Tamagotchis.
This accounts for much of the attraction of some types of ultra-realistic games. Games like Lock On: Modern Air Combat, SWAT 3 and Rainbow Six, are largely based on the appearance of realism. These games are effective at allowing role-playing because they allow the player to believe that, on some level, he could have done what he did in the game. Since these games are so close to reality, or at least appear so, it is easier for the player to mentally enter the game world. Virtual achievements are more gratifying when they appear as if they could have been real.


4. Amplification of the "wow" factor

The "wow" factor is what people feel when they find gratification in seeing something incredible. Well-done style can provide this. Obvious examples are the awesome graphics usually present in major new game engines. People enjoy marveling at the new effects, even if only for a while, before new becomes old. This aspect of style development is most effective as a marketing tool, not a game design tool, since new becomes old so fast.
However, the "wow" factor also ties in with the generation of stories. If something awesome and unusual happens in a game, it incites the wow factor better when it can be described as something awesome and unusual happening with things that exist in real life. Things that happen in real life are more provocative because the sensations are more intense and consequences more serious. We can amplify the emotional power of incredible events in the game world by associating them with corresponding real events. "My hit cylinder somehow made it past 4 opposing cylinders and hit the goal area in record time." is not as good as "My favorite player got physically touched by four defenders and still made it to the end zone in record time." The real-life association amplifies the emotional power of the event.

5. Control and amplification of emotional impact

The use of style allows games to incite more types of emotions than are possible with only abstract representations, and in a more controllable and powerful way. This is where it is important to realize that substance is only the fundamental game in the decision-making sense - substance presents a series of choices, no more. Substance alone can provoke emotions, but they are not very strong and are not very diverse. Designers who want the gamer to feel fear, get nostalgic or laugh need to design their style to accomplish this goal.
For example, System Shock 2 is by far the most frightening game I have ever played. The substance of the game was well-done to this effect, since it was well-balanced to keep the player vulnerable and needy. The general sense of worry provided by the substance was amplified and focused into terror by the use of the empty spaceship setting, and freakish half-human enemies.


restul de alte zeci de documente asemanatoare le gasesti pe gamasutra

[Andrei]

La inceput sa fie o cinematica cu tine care mergeai asa, si esti omorat.
Faci ceva misto reprezentand moartea, adica lumina alba etc etc..
Si dupa aia incepi sa joci cu fantoma ta Super tare ar fi!!
Sa poti intra in corpul oricarui om vezi in fata ta etc..
Intelegi tu algoritmul

[scarpelius]

Hehehe c0mas ar fi excelent daca ar fi asa de usor pentru PM sa zica: aia da si aia nu. Din pacate astfel de decizii se iau in urma unor negocieri intre partile implicate. Pentru ca persoanele angajate intr-o astfel de activitate au de regula personalitati puternice si nu poti sa le desconsideri opiniile si sa inclini balanta cind intr-o parte cind in alta. Trebuie sa si convingi partile implicate ca solutia aleasa este cea mai optima pentru proiect si trebuie sa te bazezi pe experienta lor ca sa gasesti cea mai buna solutie.
Altfel o sa ai doar niste angajati care fac ce zice sefu si ii doare undeva daca proiectul pe ansamblu devine o harababura.

@Next_Level: ceea ce zici tu e un fel de vis asa, care nu are nici o noima. Eu personal nu vad nici un algoritm in ceea ce zici tu. Dar daca esti in stare si te maninca degete ca sa scrii, poti sa elaborezi intr-un thread separat.

[c0mas]

Intr-adevar poate avea loc o negociere, dar eu nu i-as spune negociere, mai bine brainstorming ca sa sune mai profesional, in care PM-ul sau cum ii spune celui care ia deciziile este informat asupra posibilitatilor (optiunilor), dar tot trebuie sa existe cineva care sa medieze brainstormingul si pana la urma sa ia o decizie.

Btw Funlabs <> PM specializati .

vail, ca unora le place sau nu, pana la urma asta este titlul jobului lor. Eu nu sunt in masura sa zic daca isi fac treaba bine sau nu si oricum probabil oricine este subiectiv incercand sa raspunda la intrebarea asta, dar ... pana la urma toate jocurile au iesit pe piata, nu ?