Having made numerous digital assets for our board game project, I’ve been using Illustrator a lot recently. Back when I didn’t know what I was doing, the program was infuriating to use, so I’ve complied here some useful tips to make the experience more pleasant. I said this about Photoshop and it applies here too: click through all the buttons, tabs, and anything else you see. Click everything. Find out where everything is. If you already know where it all is, great! Presets and menus will make your life much easier. When creating a shape, click once instead of dragging out an outline, and a menu will pop up that lets you type in in values for the size (and in the case of polygons, number of sides). Using transform on the right click menu also lets you input values. If you need things to be exact, don’t eyeball it. I repeat, don’t eyeball it. This will make lining things up much easier. Speaking of lining things up, borders of any size will be ignored when shapes snap to guidelines. It makes arranging things absolutely infuriating, in my opinion at least, but it’s good to know. There are different click tools. They do different things. They’re found at the top of the tool menu, right next to each other, and they’re used to modify shapes in different ways. I recommend you experiment with this for yourself. That’s all the main ones. Keep in mind, it’s a good idea to experiment. So, to summarize:
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When it comes to games, you need to think through what you’re doing and how you can keep going with it as your project evolves. What works for now might not work for the future, and a lack of planning is a recipe for disaster. In a few personal anecdotes, I’ll explain why. I first really noticed how important it is to plan ahead when we were working on making character sketches. I came up with something simple (an astronaut) that worked for the project, and very quickly found out that said character and to feature in a storyboard. Luckily for me, space can be a setting for just about anything if you like science fiction enough, so coming up with a scene involving an astronaut wasn’t too hard. However, there was another piece of this project that was very important: the directions specified that the sketch should be clear enough that another student could model the character based on it. It gave me a sneaking suspicion that this was exactly what was going to happen, and sure enough, I was right. There was an unexpected twist, however: someone’s character had to be used as a promotional piece for our board game project. Things like this are the reason why having a versatile and changeable idea is important, because there will be twists and turns you’ll have to adapt to. While I’m still sort of talking about sketches, I’ll share a story about the process of making my character sketch. I failed to plan for the fact that people have arms. I started drawing my astronaut too close to the edge of the paper, realized I didn’t have room for the arm, and had to erase the head and shoulders I’d just put so much work into. There are two things I learned here: keep paper space in mind, and never make your lines too dark at first. Chances are, you’re going to be erasing them. Learn from my mistakes. Don’t jump straight into a project without thinking it over first. So, to summarize:
Our class has been working on board games for a week or two. We did this last year, but the process is much different this time. In this blog post I’ll discuss our current process as compared to the old one, as well as take a more in-depth look at my role in development. DevelopmentLast year we made board games in teams of five, and it didn’t turn out all that well. The end products were hastily put together, and work wasn’t organized. This year, we’re working in teams of three, with a lot more time, a lot more planning, and a lot more structure. We have clearly defined roles and weekly meetings, something we didn’t have last year. Working in a smaller team with clear roles makes the going much easier. Everyone has their own pieces to worry about, rather than a bunch of people all trying to work on one thing and disagreeing. The main concern with the current structure is communication, but by having meetings every week, making a schedule, and keeping a game design document updated with all changes, my team has been able to keep everything organized. Clearly defining who is responsible for each piece of the game not only prevents overcrowding on a particular project, but also makes it easier to pick out problems, since team members know their own work and goals very well. Having a smaller team also makes communication easier, and there’s not as many conflicting opinions. Overall, it’s a lot more efficient. Narrative DesignOn my team, I’m the narrative designer. This means I’m responsible for any and all things involving writing, including ads and press releases, as well as keeping the game design document updated. For this last bit especially, communication is absolutely vital. You can’t document a game if you don’t even know what it’s about. I’ve done some research on narrative design, and I’ll tell you now what the Internet has to say about it. First of all, according to this article, narrative designers are more than just writers. We create stories through action and build the world the game takes place in. Story isn’t always super obvious in a board game, but it’s there, hidden in the game progression. Game progression is definitely something I’ve worked on, since I’m responsible for making the directions. Of course, this requires a lot of input from the production manager, so I’m not just making it up, but I am very involved. I read in this article that games tell a story through game mechanics, much like how books tell a story through words. This relates to my work making the game instructions, as mentioned before. The gameplay in the game I’m involved in making is mostly based around cards, representing problems and the resources needed to solve them. I created the cards, minus the illustrations. While what the player is really doing is drawing and laying down cards, it represents the management of resources to maintain an electric grid. Game mechanics truly are a means of storytelling. So, to summarize:
A game design document (GGD), created by the designer, contains all the information needed to make a game. These are usually huge books, but it’s actually possible to put it all onto one page. Having watched Stone Librande’s video on this, I’ll share what I’ve learned. Why put it all on one page? Admittedly, you will probably have to leave out a few minor details. However, if you make a huge, thick book, you’re basically leaving out a lot more detail, and here’s why. Almost nobody is going to read that whole. It’s even more unlikely that anybody is going to remember all that, and even more unlikely anybody will be willing to go hunting through all those pages again to check details they aren’t clear about. It’s vital that the other members of production have all the information, and if they have to read through a massive book to do that, then chances are they just aren’t going to do it. Besides, even if they did read it, that would take a lot of time, and it would also take the designer a lot of time to write it all. Time isn’t something you want to waste. A one-page GGD, however, doesn’t require any turning of pages, because it’s all there on one page. It can be posted on a wall where everyone can come and look at it, and can be easily referred to later. In addition, this document will probably change over time, and updating a single, communal document is much easier than updating a massive book that multiple people have copies of. At this point I imagine that you’re wondering how exactly you make one of these. It’s usually in multiple pieces, attached together. While this is technically multiple pages, it’s still all laid out as if it’s a single page, so it has the same effect. As I said before, the document will probably need updating, and it’s much easier to do so if the document is in multiple pieces, rather than a single massive sheet of paper. The individual pieces will still be fairly large, however. It’s also important to make sure these are all dated, which will also help if the document needs updating. I recommend the back, since putting a date on the front of each piece might be distracting. In terms of format, the typical one-page GDD puts the main graphic in the center, larger than the rest. Around this are callouts, containing more detailed graphics of parts of the main graphic, as well as textual information. For example, the main graphic might be a map of the game, with callout of each area, complete with information on what players will encounter in that area, such as items and enemies. The main graphic could be of something smaller, like a map of a single level. It is very possible to have more than one of these, but it’s a good idea to keep them in one place (somewhere people will see them all) if there are multiple. It’s also very important to have white space. If the whole thing is too crammed, it becomes overwhelming, and people won’t take in everything. Massive walls of information are intimidating, in much the same way as a massive book is. So, to summarize:
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AuthorI'm moving on to my 4th (and final) year as a Game Art & Design student at Durham School of the Arts. I'd like to call myself an artist, but I'm a programmer at heart. Archives
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