In that case, it's already politicized and many of us need not apply.

Welp if you were looking for the opposite of the personality trait I'm looking for, you pretty much nailed it by being bullish the second you get a notion in your head to do things a particular way.

Publicizing the process only serves to democratize the process. It won't work, because people will vote even though they aren't willing or capable of making an actual contribution to the process. It's not a popularity contest. I also don't want to alienate people who could help the project in other ways just because their design or their first choice didn't get picked.

No matter how hard you try I know for a fact that none of your ideas are going to work the first time you write them. I want it to be private so you don't have to be publicly butthurt when I tell you that we can't do Captain Author Insertion M.D. because we don't have enough animators to draw his thick golden curls waving in the seabreeze or the sheen of sweat glistening on his brow.

I do know what I'm talking about.

I'm not the sort of person who would turn away someone who's really good just because I disagree with them on evolution or religion or retarded crap like that.

I don't care if my stuff gets picked nor do I care if you rail on my ideas, and I never said people shouldn't still submit their stuff to you by e-mail should they wish. I just firmly believe that this process should be public and not behind closed doors. I fully agree that one person (in this case, you) should call the shots. If people aren't mature enough to accept the choice made, that's their problem.

EDIT: And yes, I would say this no matter who was in charge.

Except that the choice of the game we are making should be democratized. You'll alienate more people by doing it privately, rather than putting the process of design choice out in the public. People will assume you made a choice because you liked that person, not because their design was better. Do it right here and we will see all the other options and also see that, yes, that idea is better.

And if you want us to 'grow up', then you should trust people to contribute even if they don't get the design they want. Like Geb, any designs I submit will be done publicly.

A game designer's job is to establish the overall direction of a game project and lead the artists in the execution of that project, typically by maintaining and enforcing adherence to documentation. The ability to express yourself in a Word document and maybe even come up with an interesting idea is the beginning of the process and it's entirely insufficient for the success of the project. A great team can save a terrible idea, but a terrible team can never execute a great idea.

You both seem to be under the impression that you are designing a game and not applying for a leadership position. I wonder why that is? Is it... perhaps... because you don't know what a game designer actually does? Maybe if you people didn't have something personally against me you could trust the fact that we aren't even at the stage where we are even picking the type of game to make yet?

Then maybe you should be asking for applications, and not design documents.

To clarify: design documents should have been requested with the explicit purpose that they'd be used to decide on the game designer.

I still believe that things should be done publicly. I prefer having records of the process available to everyone, to have the decision process laid out for all to see. It's how I lead my projects.



As stated before, miscommunication gave us that impression, not because we don't know what a game designer does. Please try to keep your assumptions to a minimum and give your potential team members some credit.

The implication was that whomever submitted the best game would also be the game designer. And, actually, that's the way it should be - the person who gets the job should be the one most passionate about the game being created.

If these are to be separated, then both should be done publicly. It doesn't matter if it SHOULDN'T be a popularity contest, because it's going to be no matter what. If nobody likes the chosen game designer, it doesn't matter if they are the best, because nobody is going to want to work with them anyway.

While I've appreciated JM's input on the matter thusfar, I have to disagree with him on his last point to at least some degree. A leader doesn't require them to be liked, just to get things done.

I hope the politicizing I've contributed to does not overly discourage anybody from helping out on this project. I simply want the best for it, which is why I've spoken up on what I have so far.

I think you both need to take a step back and start over. Jon`C needs to state exactly what he wants from everyone. And then Gebohq and the rest can go from there.

So why are you interested? I've already had people tell me that they won't work on the project if you're in a position of authority. Are you saying that I should be listening to them?

[quote=Cool Matty]Jon`C needs to state exactly what he wants from everyone.[/QUOTE]

People interested in being the game designer should email me rough draft design documents. My email address is captain.cliche at google's email thing.

I'm looking for a simple outline of gameplay and technical requirements, a rough style guide and a short one or two-sentence summary of the game. Grammar and formatting will matter because it will be the game designer's main job to write and maintain documentation for the project. Keep it short and don't do a lot of work on each one: around 2 pages would be ideal as these design documents will not be used for actual development.

I'm looking for the right designer not the right idea. I would much rather get multiple drafts from each applicant. If you have 7 ideas send me 7 drafts.

Yes.

Jon`C: Can you, to the best of your ability, tell us how you will be judging on the right designer? I imagine it involves the following, but I wish for as much clarification as possible:

• Clarity of information: concise writing, organization logical for use by other team members, clean grammar and spelling.
• Summary of game: objective(s), core game mechanic(s), "fun factor," depth/reply, first 5 minutes and description of narrative (if applicable), whatever else the designer feels might be critically important that doesn't cover these.
• Technical requirements: presumably the very basics - 2D or 3D, camera, "game needs AI to be able to handle such-and-such"...the equivalent of "materials needed." I say "presumably" because I would hope you're not asking the game designer to also be the technical lead. That's like asking the director to be the stage manager of a theatrical performance.
• Competition: What games is your game like? What does your game have that your competitors don't have?

Things such as the equivalent "milestones" or "task schedule" or what-have-you I presume would be covered under the producer/project lead, and other details can wait for later. Since a game designer also acts as a leader, perhaps a sentence or two on "why I think I'm qualified to lead" should be included as well, unless you have a better idea for judging leadership.

I still have difficulty seeing even a condensed version such as this being 2 pages. You seem to be asking more for the "elevator pitch" given to a publisher or what-not, with the intention of getting a job and not a project funded. Which is fine, but that's not what I would consider even a rough game design document.

Is there anything else I'm missing? Things you feel shouldn't be included or changed? If only you are to see these submissions, I think at least the standards you will be using should be made public. Yes, I understand that game design is an art, and there's bound to be things you are looking for that can't be quantified such as this, but I think it'd help if you gave us something other than "trust me, I know what I'm doing" -- any of us can say that.

Protip: If you don't give Joncy what he wants, Joncy isn't going to give you what you want.

I will be evaluating how well the ideas are articulated, how well they are presented and the scope of the design. I will be asking questions individually about the design documents that people have submitted to me. To be honest here, a part of what I'm looking at is what a person considers important enough to submit in a rough draft.

Two pages is enough.

no prepro? this should be interesting to watch

Word.

This.

In all seriousness though, I agree with CM. Massassi has more than enough talent to go around to get a project like this completed, and done well. I think Jon`C will be a good project leader due to his experience, and his authoritative skills. Everyone needs to stop worrying about who gets to do what and just try to help out in whatever way that you can.

My skills are limited when it comes to game design, though I can stand behind you guys and attempt to help in whatever way possible. If you need some voice acting, I can provide for that, or maybe create a HUD/UI or a menu screen. Just let me know if anything like that may be of interest.

Yeah I agree.

Didn't read the thread but whenever this happens if I have free time I could probably help with some programming. Don't really have any game design experience but I have a CS degree, don't mind doing non-game related stuff (I don't know, networking or UI something). I'm currently working on a project in C#, which I think is what XNA uses, so I'm at least familiar with that. I also have a 360 so I'm cool.

I guess all I'm saying is I'll try and help if I know I have the time and I'll take pretty much any task I think I can handle.

I wish I could halp. Ah well, I'll just be here as a cheerleader.

I have awesome legs

If someone doesn't have any skills to offer game-dev wise they could make a nice looking website for advertising.

So smooth and satiny~!

Doomed to fail.

I'm curious -- who all is at least interested in tackling the game design besides myself? Either a post here or PM to me works equally well.

The thought crossed my mind

Thought about it.

If you send in an idea to Jon`C (which I'd like as many people as possible to get in on), make sure the concept doc has 3 things.

1. A tagline (1-2 sentences)

2. A concept summary describing in a very succinct manner what the game is about. For example, one line about the story, one about your cool game mechanic, and another one about, say, what your game resembles in feeling. You are not limited to these things.

3. Most people don't think about this last one but I'd like to see a justification section. What makes us want to make your game? I have already sent Jon`C a copy of my concept doc but to be honest I'd like to see some other peoples'.

Finally, the concept doc should not be longer than one page. Please keep in mind the scope of XNA (think XBox Arcade games) and what Jon`C has to program - focus on a great idea or neat mechanic.

Attached is an example concept doc (the one I submitted to Jon`C). Once again I stress that I want to see YOUR ideas but I would like them presented in a professional format (similar to this one). Please email your submissions to gettleburger[at]gmail.com with a CC to Jon`C captain.cliche[at]gmail.com.

We have a wiki set up and I'm looking for a couple designers (2-3) to work with me. Me and Jon`C haven't talked about how we are going to choose artists (though I have a feeling we are going to be using a lot of you for freelance work) so don't worry about that just yet.

Interesting concept

But I would wish we could utilize 3d over 2d, even if it's on a 2d plane.

I mentioned this to Gettleburger earlier. With XNA we have limited storage, limited memory and limited CPU power but GPU power to burn.

For example, Super Metroid used 270 frames of animation for Samus (and a different sprite sheet for each suit). To achieve a semi-modern look we'd need something on the order of 64x128 sprites which will use up 32k per frame (uncompressed, but most compression formats don't work well with transparency). That would be ~8.4 MB, which doesn't sound like much but it will add up quickly.

By comparison, a rigged 10,000 triangle mesh with a 256x256 skin with 270 animation keyframes (assuming ~15 bones) will use up about 938 kilobytes of space and memory.

If we're lucky and we end up with enough animators that these sprites can be hand-drawn I'd argue it's worth the effort, but if the sprites are going to be based on 3D models anyway we gain absolutely nothing and lose a lot by converting them to 2D sprites.

I fear outside of 2d art or level design assuming we have a decent editor, I fear I'm going to be useless. I don't do 3d art or animation.

What I can offer :

2D Art
Concept Art
Level Design
Writing

3d is nothing without 2d art so there would still be plenty of work to do

I've decided to steal borrow Gettleburger's format for my first proposal. While I've e-mailed Gettle and Jon`C with the proposal, I am also posting it here, in hopes that it'll add to the brainstorming for other people to contribute.

can you re attach that in a wordpad friendly format

Get Windows 7 and Wordpad can open it

Or just download the Word Document Viewer? Or OpenOffice? How do you not have anything other than Wordpad?

Uh huh

I am on Windows 7 and I tried it

You may need a converter. I saved it so that it could be read on Word 2003, which I presumed is what Gettle did as well. I can attach the .docx file as well though, if you'd like, which is what I originally saved it as (having Word 2007 myself).

I'll have to read it at home, I have office installed there