Game Design

dangerman

Hi, not much point to this post, just thought i'd tell you about a games design thing that went on recently, some may be interested.

so a week or two ago my college (Dun Laoghaire School of Art, Design & Technology) hosted this bloke Ernest Adams a games design guy from the states but i think currently residing in England.

his website: http://www.designersnotebook.com/Cover/cover.htm

I'll let you make ur own conclusions after looking at the site.

Anyway, we did this games design workshop, where we got into teams of 5, each took on a role (eg. game designer, level designer, art director, user interface designer) etc. Then we were handed 'dreams' that the games we designed were supposed to fulfill.

The one my team got was: 'to sail and manage an ocean liner'

the others were:

become miss world
be a celtic warrior
live in a castle
be an architect

So we had to fill in worksheets, the art guy had to draw pictures etc. then at the end the 'lead designer' had to give a presentation to explain the game.

He listened to all the presentations, asked a few questions and then made conclusions on the games we'd designed.

The other teams did the same sort of stuff with their dreams.

Anyway, my point was this: it was so bloody awful. Example, one group had the idea of having your characters appearance change based on how u did in the game. Just like Vampire: The Masquarade, Fable and many many other games.

And there's Adams saying this was highly original. I think it was the same team that also had it so u had to collect a bunch of cogs to get a door to open.

Another idea he praised as original and neat.

In the end though, his fav game that was designed was the celtic warrior one, where the main character had to go around collecting pieces of an ancient artifact which once united would allow said person to stop the evil bad guy.

:rolleyes:

Note i'm not slagging the ideas, i'm just pissed at the idea that my college got this guy in and he turned out in my opinion to be less than knowledgable about current games. He over simplified the design process to the point of it just being laughable:

On the user interface doc:

"Circle the appropriate control method.

[picture of keyboard]
[picture of mouse]
[picture of console controller]"

The worrying thing is that this guy went for a chat with head-honchos in the college about (so i hear) the possibilities for a games design/development course being developed.

Perhaps he does know his ****, but his presentations and the workshop were so ultra-simplistic. 'you can have 1st and 3rd person...you can have it so u can see yourself as an avatar...or you can have omnipresence.'

His biggest problem was he left out all discussion of the technical aspects of games design. He was sitting with some seriously talented students; amazing artists, multimedia programmers were in there, design students, business students, we were all there, and there's this bloke talking to us like we were children. I'd say 95% if not all the people doing the workshop had a deep interest in games, and he presented it to us like we were in primary school. Maybe he was just concerned about going over people's heads, but it really was moronic-stuff.

I think 3 times he pimped his two books he's written. and pointed out that he had them there and we could buy em off him.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but at the same time this guy was brought in and i'd guess paid a load of cash for the day, and i expected a lot better.

Anyway, a big fat waste of a day. He summed it up at the end of the presentation when he said 'my slides aren't on the internet, because if they were, hah, anyone could get up and do this.'

Too right, and they'd do it better.

amp

More appropriate to our Games Editing forum.

Redirecting from Games.

joePC

Since 2000 I’ve been consulting and writing, so I can’t really say that I have had any games published during that time.

That says it all, sounds like he hasn't much up to date Knowledge of games, Judging by his website not much by way of design or graphics.... The college should really consult the students about hosting talkers....Im sure the students would have come up with more interesting plp.

Thanks joePC

dangerman

More appropriate to our Games Editing forum.

i was gonna post it there, but i saw the editing forum seemed dead.

all the more reason to put this in here i suppose.

Dr. Dodger

sounds like a complete joke to me, i heard it was a complete waste of time

adnans

ah come on dangerman. it was a good waste of time, at least they're going in the right direction of getting a games development/design course in the college no matter who they ask for advice *cough* ernest adams.

i think he was gotten since he was there at the opening of the IGDA chapter, and one of the founders of the organisation (dont quote me on that). people, developers, and other people in the industry that know their stuff should have been consulted via email at least to check on this guy's credentials before being invited. even if everyone recommended molyneux, do you really think the college would splash out on the money to bring him over here?

anyway, our ocean liner cruise ship 2004 game is nearly ready. it comes with a 400 meg patch for online play.

adnans

dangerman

even if everyone recommended molyneux, do you really think the college would splash out on the money to bring him over here?

well, getting someone like that would actually lend some credence to the colleges plans, as opposed to just getting that adams hack in to spoof on about rubbish for a few hours.

Fingers crossed there's lots going on we don't know about.