11 replies to this topic

[thecorpament]

Hey I was wondering if someone would wanna talk to me about an idea for some software that I have, maybe any game designers could tell me if it will be useful or successfull, thanx guys.

[NomadRock]

you could just say it here...

That's the entire pupose of a forum, to talk about things.

[thecorpament]

ood point NomadRock...well its basically just software that will help ease the design of video games by helping designers to create the three main documents necessary to develop a game, the design document, technical design document, and maybe a proposal document. Similar to what software like Palo Alto's Business or Marketing Plan Pro does for business and marketing plans, I was thinking this would help the design process. The planning beforehand would make the game quicker to develop, no more experiences of team members not being on the same page when it comes to design, a way for non-programmer or non-artists to go about documenting game ideas, basically a word processor at heart, but so much more. I'm not suggesting industry standards or anything for these documents, just something to make the design process easier. Tell me what you guys think, I need some honest feedback. Or if you have any questions or anything. I'd buy if it would save time and hassle during the design/coding process, but thats just me.

[eddie]

It depends on the market you're reaching for really.

For the hobbyist, I don't know if anyone would really be interested in that. Speaking as a programmer myself in that domain, I'm more interested in seeing how things organically grow, to test myself against my creation. When I need to pen things down, I use things like DokuWiki and the like. It's lightweight, robust, and easily collaborated on.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, big companies won't shell out for something like that (unless you have the marketing savvy to sell it to the execs, unbeknownst to the teams below -- normally how big business works, I've noticed), because they have their own processes that they much prefer having control over.

Perhaps something in the middle market: people who don't have the fat-to-burn like the higher ups, and the people who are a little more committed than the average hobbyist.

Then again, it all depends on what you're putting into this project, and what features come out of it.

I could be wrong -- it's never happened before, but maybe one day I will be. :D

[thecorpament]

Well I believe for designers this tool would be well needed and liked. I think since the video game industry is so young, unfortunately, things like planning and documentation are neglected. And any design documentation tool for video games would obviously be better than any current word processors, but in any event, regardless of the specific proccessess that differing companies follow, I think that they would all agree, if they had half a brain that they wouldn't go about just creating a game without some form of documentation. And obviously due to the non-linearity of gameplay and etc. this would not be static software, meaning it could be changed and altered to a specific company or individual's needs. I think what it would ultimately come down to, regardless of who specifically its marketed to, all games need these documents to be designed, so it would be a matter of either choosing some feature rich industry-specific software like this and implementing it, or doing something like opening up word. And as far as price, we're not talking about some astronomical economic investment, software like this is usually about $100.00-$150.00. And if you can consider factors like the fact that an error inserted into the development process early and fixed at the end of a project can cost 50 to 200 times more than if the error had been identified and corrected during the design phase, or the organization and efficiency that would be gained by using such software, then thats a small investment for a huge return. No one would start a business without a business plan, they buy palo alto software's business plan pro, no one would direct a movie without a script, they would get Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000, sure they could use word, they could also design it in the sand with their finger, but tell me which would you prefer? If your intelligent and a good game designer, it would be this software each time correct?

[TheNut]

When it comes to something as serious as planning, no amount of software can truly replace the need for an experienced Software Engineer or Business Analyst. After that, it’s as simple as having access to Microsoft Office as well as some pre-defined templates and going at it.

Personally, I have several Word document templates for engineering software. From requirements gathering to design, implementation and API, test plans and so on. The Microsoft Office suite in this regard is most excellent for getting the job done. How exactly could another piece of software truly compete without having reinvent the wheel? Writing something as complex yet easy to use as the MS Office Suite is no simple task.

[monjardin]

TheNut has a good point. We use a Word template for requirements, deisgn, interface documents and the like. And Visio is just fine for all the diagrams we need. What goes into the documents is detailed for ISO certification.
[NOTE: We don't do game development, I'm just a hobbyist here. Do pro game devs even think about ISO standards? It's a must for certain contract work.]

I'm sure there would be a market for you tool, but you probably need to add a zero to your price estimate. You definitely won't be selling as many copies as Microsoft does Office. So, I don't think you can compete price wise.

Eddie is right about big business. It's all about convincing management that it will make them money. If you can do that, they won't have any problems shelling out $1500 per seat for your toolset.

[eddie]

Exactly. Monjardin and TheNut, you bring great points to the table.

Just to elucidate a point that both these gents have brought up, but done so rather subtly:

Development is *definitely* about process. From start to finish. Big teams need more process, smaller teams often can get away with a lot less, but regardless, you need some of it.

In a craft as passionate as game development, you find that a lot of people spend a *lot* of time churning out design documents, whether formally or informally. I personally use a lot of my day thinking about these things (I'm the crazy guy you sometimes catch muttering about an algorithm he's writing when he's in the washroom.. Yes, I'm bizarre), and when the need arises, jotting them down.

My tools? DokuWiki with a GraphViz plugin for diagrams. Edgewall's Trac for things that actually dissolve into tasks. And hell, I'm a "one-person shop" (monjardin even politely wondered whether this was too much process for one person alone on another thread.. :D)!

Anyhow, my point being that different developers are attuned to this need differently, and will generally manifest a solution to it on it's own.

Now I don't want you to take this as a negative criticism, if anything I'm giving you a view of how developers work: we're cheap (a friend of mine says, "I've never met a good developer who wasn't cheap"), and we think software can always be better if we did it ourselves. Hence why we'll often choose what's readily available (MS Word, Visio, notepad, etc) or what's cheap (OSS, mostly stuff like wiki's, graphviz, etc) -- we're already used to it, why spend money on something else? Case in point: I was shocked to find out that most of the good developer's I know don't even pay for Visual Studio! If you want to argue about necessary tools in *any* development, I'd say a compiler ranks first!

So if you do want to go this route -- and I'm not saying it's not a worthy route -- I think you need two things: an appealing feature set, and a market plan that appeals to those in management.

I personally hate hoodwinking fellow developers, but often we're very prejudiced against software, and the reality is that a lot of the decisions regarding software get made for us. But that's where the appealing feature set can win us over later. We just have to have time dedicated to using it.

Anyhow, I'll stop this novel here, but I hope this gives you some insight into the programmers mind. :)

[thecorpament]

Thanks for all of your feedback guys, so I've really been thinking about this the last few days and that it could actually be a somewhat successfull at least attempt at some software, so what type of features would designers and programmers like to see in a program like the one I'm proposing. Be specific, maybe this can give me some ideas as to whether or not this is indeed a viable concept. You guys are telling me a product like this would be better marketed towards management, in another post the exact opposite was said, that they already have rigorous documentation practices in place and to market it towards small, independent developers. And we're forgetting I think about the non-programmers and non-artists, they need a guide too because they don't have the skill sets to develop algorithms and 3D models, they need to be able to get this product, follow the guidelines, and be able to pass it to a programmer or artists and have them say I know what you mean, I would've killed for something like this before I knew how to program or render.

[monjardin]

Now, if you are talking about a program that allows non-programmers to create effective software design documents there would be a HUGE market. I have no idea how you could accomplish such a feat. Take a look at my signature.
My direct manager is a brilliant hardware and systems engineer. He has no software development experience. I get the high level system and hardware design, and then derive software requirements and design documents from them. I'm sure he (and many others) would love to be able to churn out software designs at the management level.
Even if you include all the fanciest, most efficient design patterns into your tool, I still don't see how anything be a lot of study can convert a programming agnostic into a software architecture god. With that siad, I wish you the best of luck!

[dcruzshan]

I would like to see IDE and 3d modling tool combined, or some type of plugin for a 3d modeling tool be integrated into Visual Studio .net

For example for example if i where to create a simple ball bounce physics in 3DMAX or maya i would like to see some c#, c++, or vb.net code generated. automaticly.

What do you guys think!.

[NomadRock]

dcruzshan said:

I would like to see IDE and 3d modling tool combined, or some type of plugin for a 3d modeling tool be integrated into Visual Studio .net

For example for example if i where to create a simple ball bounce physics in 3DMAX or maya i would like to see some c#, c++, or vb.net code generated. automaticly.

What do you guys think!.

You might try taking a look at the Unreal Engine 3 toolset. They allow the artists to do much of what you are talking about.