Game design documents: Plans come in many forms

When I was creating my first games, I didn’t think I needed to bother with design documents. 

Eventually, I realized that I was creating them anyway. I left notes for myself in various formats:

• Comments in the code itself. It’s right there, which makes it easier to reference, but it gets distracting. The other problem is that it gets tricky to clean up comments later (unless you’re okay with distributing exasperated rants about your buggy, poorly implemented code).
• Plans written on paper. Working in a space outside the game’s systems — especially outside of the computer — helps for visualizing problems in new ways. The tough part is maintaining the discipline necessary to convert those solutions back into digital formats.
• Digital files. Donald and I have been doing more with Google Drive documents, and digital records are useful for copying and pasting ideas between plans and projects. The risk is that “the map is not the terrain”: It’s easy to waste time perfecting the design document instead of developing the game. 

Each format has its own strengths, which is why the broader concept of “what a Game Design Document should look like” ends up being such an amorphous glob. I have found many perspectives online:

• What should a Game Design Document consist of and why should I write one? Thomas Steffen asks and answers this question, asserting that “Builders don’t just build, they make blueprints and follow measurements.” He also notes that the document will need to be flexible enough to accommodate changes and iterations during production. 
  
  
• How To: Write a Game Design Document is the full Game Developer treatment from Danielle Riendeau, discussing common elements and providing examples (design documents from Grim Fandango and Deus Ex).
  
  
• Creating a Game Design Document is Brenda Romero sharing her thinking. She writes, “There are sometimes multiple ways to do something right in the game industry.”
  
  
• Common game design documents is a collection of archetypes put together by Max Nichols. He dismisses the idea of a monolithic, contains-every-detail-you-need design document as “a tidy fantasy.” Instead, he lists different ways that teams can communicate necessary information.
  
  
• Game Design Document template for independent developers was created by Jason Bakker. I liked his advice to “Be thorough, but don't be absolute. Remember that everything must be allowed to change and evolve over the course of the project, and the design document is a general description more than a blueprint.” 

There are also documents online for Grand Theft Auto, Diablo, Doom, and Monaco. 

Ultimately, the game design document ends up taking on whatever form is most useful for the team that needs to use it. (Game design is all about testing and experimentation, which includes experimenting with the tools you use to make it easier.)

That's Just Science

Over at Unwinnable, they’re discussing the 2023 movie Talk to Me:

“Talk to Me may be the most credible supernatural teen horror movie ever made, simply by dint of the way that the kids in the film turn the medium-istic hand into a party game, heedless of the larger questions it raises, or the possible consequences of their actions – until it is too late and those actions have come home to roost.”

Orrin Grey, the author of the review, asserts that the movie’s credibility comes from (realistically!) showing how idiot kids will eagerly do dumb things for entertainment. 

But it’s not just kids. Over at the University of Virginia, they have known for years that people are willing to do stupid things whenever the opportunity is available:  

“For 15 minutes, the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to. The results were startling: Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think”

More recently, Erin Kissane put it into a Mastodon-specific context:

That's part of a larger post from Kissane that discusses how and why people engage with specific social networks, which is a topic that seems relevant for Blaugust.

Blaugust: Retreating into the Future

I’m joining Blaugust this year because the internet of the future looks like a return to the internet of the past. An article in The Verge exaggerates the current situation, but not by much:

Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” 

Elsewhere in The Verge, James Vincent has drawn parallels between auto-generated text and geofoam, a synthetic material stuffed into “the empty spaces that progress leaves behind.” Generative text has made it increasingly difficult to connect with people and websites that share useful information; the internet’s largest platforms have become hollow exercises in mass-produced content for monetizing web traffic. 

This decline of great powers has played out elsewhere in literature and history. Eleanor Janega sees parallels with the collapse of Twitter and the cascading failures of the Roman Empire:

In reality the “fall” wasn’t because outside forces wanted to destroy Rome – they just wanted to control it. There was a slow and steady degradation of the services that the Empire could offer, and people began to respond to this with smaller and localised communities.

Online, a shift towards smaller, more localized communities looks like a return to internet communities of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s: webrings and niche resource pages curated by passionate individuals. In the Fediverse, people are being encouraged to post more on their personal websites:

I found Blaugust, the Festival of Blogging, through my Mastodon account. The festival promotes a similar idea, encouraging people to publish more blog posts on their own sites during the month of August, and I’m hoping that it can help me overcome some of blogging’s emotional obstacles. 

(In addition to getting the idea of emotional obstacles from Tracy Durnell, I have also been thinking about her point that blog posts don’t have to be long. Both of those concepts have helped me address some of my own concerns about publishing material that doesn’t feel like it’s “good enough.”)

Michael Crichton Predicted Our Response to ChatGPT

No, it wasn't in his explanation of Chaos Theory. 

It’s his description of Gell-Mann amnesia:

“You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well [….] You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. [….] you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

Most of the breathless hype about ChatGPT seems to come from people asserting that it will radically disrupt the work of someone else. When experts evaluate ChatGPT in their own disciplines, the same optimism is missing:

• Musician Nick Cave has received “dozens” of ChatGPT-created songs that attempt to emulate his work. He is not impressed.
  
  
• Stack Overflow, a website for programmers discussing code, found ChatGPT answers to be “substantially harmful” (emphasized in the original statement) for users who want correct information.
  
  
• Journalists at Futurism looked at CNET's use of ChatGPT for creating news stories, and they found “a series of boneheaded errors.” 
  
  
• In cybersecurity discussions, observers have pointed out that ChatGPT can’t do the actual work required for a successful attack. 
  
  
• One app tried using ChatGPT responses in its online mental health services, and the experiment ended because “messages just felt better” when they were written by humans. 

When it comes to overblown predictions about ChatGPT’s effects, it’s odd to see credible sources change gears and forget what they know. At least Michael Crichton can explain what’s happening. 

TL;DR Just invoke Betteridge’s law when an article asks you “Can ChatGPT fill in mentorship gaps for Gen Z workers?”

Virals, Then and Now

From 2013:

I'd guess we have 12-18 months until the population develops herd immunity to 'viral' headlines. http://t.co/x2GLKF6K8i

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 7, 2013

The timetable was off, but the idea remains valid. A gimmick that is overused will become ineffective. From a 2019 study:

We took a nationally representative sample of 2,102 British adults, and undertook an experimental evaluation of some of marketers’ most commonly used tactics. [....]

Two thirds of the British public (65 percent) interpreted examples of scarcity and social proof claims used by hotel booking websites as sales pressure. Half said they were likely to distrust the company as a result of seeing them (49 percent). Just one in six (16 percent) said they believed the claims.

The results surprised us. We had expected there to be cynicism among a subgroup—perhaps people who booked hotels regularly, for example. The verbatim commentary from participants showed people see scarcity and social proof claims frequently online, most commonly in the travel, retail, and fashion sectors.

And this entire thread is worth reading:

Once something hits ~100 replies, you never want to look at or think about it again. Everyone something *can* say has been said. By day two of that notification tab being flooded with RTs you just feel you're being punished for having been half-clever for a moment.

— mcc (@mcclure111) June 26, 2019

Part of Twitter's problems stem from the fact that huge numbers of automated programs, and humans who act like them, are busy trying to generate social proof on behalf of their patrons. Even when the humans start seeing through it, the algorithms are still being refined to encourage it.

Is There Ever One Future?

Twitter thought that it was very important for me to see this:

What was the most interesting thing you saw SuperBowl weeekend? Mine was a glimpse at the future and it game from a video game.

Get ready for the Oasis.#Fortnite #Oasis #Future
- https://t.co/Wcagb3yTRD

— Keith Akre (@KeithAkre) February 14, 2019

So I read it. And I agree with this bit:

What made the virtual concert on Saturday afternoon so fascinating for me, was that this was the first time I really understood what some other commentators have already been saying. Fortnite is not just a game that kids play – it’s a place they go to hang out.

This article from Quartz compares the game to a skate park. Kids get home from school, log-on and hang out with their friends in a virtual world. The actual game aspect serves as the backdrop.

What I don't agree with is how the post goes on to make hyperbolic assertions that everyone will live in, and enjoy, this future. It's predicting a technological singularity for video games, snaring everyone in the same, homogeneous MMORPG. It's an investor's idea of what the future holds for gaming.

On the other hand, there's Jesse Schell, who has developed video games, written books about them, and teaches classes about new technology. He takes a more pluralistic view:

People always talk about platforms, platforms, platforms, but really it's about, "Where do you play?"

There's a reason we don't play MMOs in the living room. For like the entire history of MMOs, we've had one or two go to the living room, and they've all died. And they've all done really well at the PC desk.

So what I always say is, "houses have multiple venues." One of them is the hearth. And that's the living room. The family gathers together, and it's a group thing. And then you have the workbench. That's where usually the PC lives. It's a place you go privately, you do hard work, it's very lean-forward. Usually the PC's there.

That's from a Gamasutra interview with Schell where he discusses current applications for virtual reality. His book, The Art of Game Design, discusses these venues in greater detail, but the idea is that people have different reasons for engaging in play, and so they end up playing games in different places.

The problem with the Akre post is that it doesn't allow for that kind of diversity. It just folds everything into the Oasis from Ready Player One. And that brings its own set of issues. Vox has already tracked how attitudes have shifted since the book was published in 2011. (Some people still like it. And that's great! It's okay to like terrible things. It's less okay to declare that those terrible things will be the future for everyone.)

Overall, the tone of the post is consistent. It's a narrow view of a favorable future that is designed to appeal to people who like online games, esports, twitch streaming, Ready Player One, and the Super Bowl.

It's just weird that Twitter's algorithms thought I was one of those people.

Interactive Fiction: Forgotten Tavern

It's another game!

 

Discerning critics have described it as "An odd experience. A sort of mash-up of IF, a dungeon grinder, a world-building strategy game, a roguelike game and one of those games you play on your phone where you have to make burgers or hotdogs to order.

Sort of." You should give it a try!

The Internet Is So Confusing

You can't swing a keyboard without accidentally typing the URL of someone's personal blog, and half of them claim to be advice from experts. The blog is the new business card, and everyone is setting up shop in the hopes that it will show potential customers how knowledgeable they are, sometimes with disastrous results.
No proof of skill is required to start handing out advice freely, but it reminds me of the phrase about stock market tips:

"Those who say, don't know, and those who know, don't say."

Anyway, it's time for me to hop on board this expertise train to pull in some of that sweet, sweet consulting money. The trick is to find a niche that's not already been done to death. So, from this day forward, I am an expert on (and will be answering questions about) the following subjects:

Pencil Sharpening: "Almost as important as having the proper sharpener is using the proper grip with your pencil. Softer lead pencils require a firmer hold, while the following illustration shows the best way to..."

Toenail manufacturing: "Common developments are the Irish hook, the Great Plains runway, and the west side split. These will all have a negative effect on your resale value, which is why it's important to..."

Eggplant wrestling: "Try borrowing some strategies from Sun Tzu. Study your opponent carefully in the days leading up to the match. Does he prefer to use his upper-body strength, or does he specialize in holds that leverage his superior leg work? You can adapt your method by..."

Armadillo repair: "It's normal for daily use to inflict signs of wear and tear on your armadillo, but you can fix some of the more common damage with this basic remedy of..."

Moustache fitting: "As you can see in this chart, your ideal style of moustache can vary greatly depending on your facial structure. It's easier to fit the moustache to your face than it is to use prosthetics to accomodate your moustache, but if you absolutely need to, you can..."

Coathanger maintenance: "While usage will soon run them down, your coathangers can be kept in their prime if you are sure to..."

Spitwad design: "Texture is as important as--if not more so--than size, but the true professional focuses on a consistent..."

Alternative energy sources (e.g., orgone, water-fuel technology, perpetual motion, zero-point/free energy): "What distinguishes this from some of the scams out there is my personal guarantee that..."

Sumerian courtship rituals: "The suitor would then stuff the body of the goat with a mixture of wheat and cloves, while using the head to..."

Beet farming: "Your one-stop source for all beet-farming-related content! If your North Atlantic Spotted Beets keep wandering off, they could be responding to their natural migratory instinct that kicks in each spring. If you make sure that your beet pens are surrounded by fences at least eight feet high (they can--and will--jump over anything lower), you shouldn't have any more problems."

While I would also like to claim expertise in the field of applied stupidity, I have to put in a few more semesters before I earn my master's degree. However, from there I am assured that I'll be fast-tracked for the Advanced Stupidity Application PhD program. I'll provide more information on that as it develops.