Production Document and Presentation

Document sent off to stean and dash. And gone through presentation. Think everything got covered right and as of tomorrow going to start work on the map and how the levels flow, kind of to look at the progression through the city, which should help influence the story once I get working on that.

Some troll will tell you this isn't a salad...

Right been a while since I updated and I think I need to flesh out what I've done at the moment so I have a bit of reference more than anything.

Got the in game menu sorted out, might need to be a couple of tweaks to it in the time but it's alright as it stands at the moment. Got the basic game overview down and most of the parts of how the UI works. Gameplay elements have also been put down in their simplist form before they need to go into further detail, but I'm sure that's something that happens further in development. Covered the Law briefly and criminals and citizens. Got the tech and a list of other weapons that aren't part of the Judges arsenal. The ammunition has been detailed with what I have at the moment for the basic kinds and the unlockable.

Crime and unhappiness are in a separate doc too, though this might need some expanding on with how the Justice standing works, though I might need to get down crime lists and some values for how much standing is given. Problem with this is the fact that the story hasn't been defined just yet and some of the crimes and parts of the story I think need to be looked at first.

I've begun to get into the character development but not gone too far into that yet because I've not got a clue where I put the original spec trees but that's not a massive problem coz they are at home somewhere. Also looked into the character customisation briefly but I think alot of these elements need some of the story involved and figure out the equipment the player will get and if that changes the look at all (Dredd fans are very fickle alas).

Also got the help of Chris, my graphic designer, who I have emailed and asked to come in on monday if he can do to have a sit down and a chat while looking at some ideas that he has done.; I've asked him as of yet just to get some thumbnails down so we can have something to look at and see. Iv'e also given him the address of a blog post that I thought was pretty good for reload animations from the People Can Fly blog (guys who did Bulletstorm). It was basically explaining the way they had to think about working the load times so they weren't too long or short, and I thoguht this was a good way to inform the weapon design. If you think about how long they take to reload they will almost make themselves as they will show the ways they are made. Here's the addy anyway if anyone wants to see it.

http://www.peoplecanfly.com/blog/2011/02/reloading-reloading%E2%80%A6/#more-462

I think that is about everything I have down at the moment. Need to get some stuff down for vehicles at some point but all the writing at the moment is sending my brain three kinds of sideways. Think I might have a bit of a break and work on the story a bit, maybe see if graeme fancies coming in and bounce some ideas off him. Might be a good idea to plough into that book at home and have some ideas about non linear story writing, seeing as I want some nice little parts to go on like that in the game with the way the gangs work and how some side missions will creep into the game, the naughty little buggers.

I think that might be it for now. Mostly updating to give myself a break. All this creativity...Wears a man down. Oh, also on the peoplecanfly bloggy thing, I noticed the lead game designer there was telling people not be one. Involves a lot of document writing. Oddly, I like writing documents and I found out it's near all you do while at TT. Think I might be going into something I enjoy.

User Interface

Got the first part down and made the user interface for the game. Got all the details in for what everything means, from weapon and gadget selection to how unhappiness in the city is shown (though don't think it's goign to be with the little smiley faces). Just quickly thrown together with a few pictures from various sources on google. Next I'm going to focus on the main gameplay elements and get the overview up on 3d for games when it's done (Y)

The Wall of Bone

Right. Since last week I've been working on the wall. The whole wall. It's now covered in my notes for how the design document is being fleshed out. I've put them all down as questions for the time being, so as to give myself more thought behind what I am doing. They are basically the ideas I have, but I feel putting them down as questions will allow me to look at the ideas I'm having myself and consider what I already have in my head as the brief. With this I can think about what is being done and force myself to question the ideas themselves.
At the moment they are split into four main sections:

• Gameplay Elements - these are the yellow cards and these are the questions about how the game will function. How weapons work, how the player moves in the world, how the NPCs work in the world, how arrests are made, etc. Everything about how the game plays is detailed here.
• Character Customisation - these are the blue cards and these are more defined than the gameplay elements. This details how the character is created when starting the game and how the other aspects are controlled, such as the character specialisation trees and the way a character can use equipment
• Game World - the pink cards are the various things within the world. NPCs, weapons, vehicles, locations. This also covers the multiplayer aspect
• Story Development - the green cards detail all the story. This encompasses the tutorial section, mission progression, how the various sectors are unlocked and the overall, which is revolving around the term of office of Dave the Orangutan

With these main areas I hope to cover all the main aspects of the game and how it is created and get everything in line so that I am able to create a coherent design document, which eventually can be taken into a company, so that this fantastic game can be made.

The next part of the process, which I am yet to start, will be the city layout and finishing the story, but this won't be until the main portions of the game have been finished and documented. It's likely that I will be pouring over this for a while and some of the aspects will be changed over time, moving across the cards on the wall and, with any luck, taking over 313