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 Features
Game
Design: Secrets of the Sages
Creating Characters, Storyboarding, and Design Documents
Bill Roper, Blizzard
Entertainment
Do design docs and storyboarding play an important role in RPGs? To enlighten
us, Blizzard Entertainment's Bill Roper and Blizzard North's Matt Householder
(see the next section) speak on these issues. First, let's hear from Bill
Roper:
The different teams within Blizzard approach design documents
from different angles. The Diablo II team kept most of the design
within the game. If a change was made to the way monsters worked, those
changes were made directly in the spreadsheets and were recorded that
way as well. The Warcraft III team has integrated their design
documents into a web-based format to make it easier for non-programmers
to follow the changes to the game. Both ways have their strengths and
weaknesses, and in the end it's up to each team to find the method that
best suits their particular needs and group of developers.
The common ground that our teams share in regard to design documents
is in defining and following the vision of the project. In the case of
Warcraft III, this is to create a real-time strategy game that
infuses elements of role playing into the design. We created the term
role-playing strategy (RPS) to help focus the decisions made by the team.
From this basic idea came the concepts of focusing on fewer and more powerful
units, simplifying the resource model, making exploration a key component
of the game, creating more organic campaigns, and making the game even
more immersive than Starcraft. Finding the core essence of the
game and then building upon that concept is how we grow our games, and
the documentation involved is recording decisions and ideas that are made
along the way.
With Blizzard's
stunning cinematic sequences, you can bet these start out as storyboards
before the computer graphic (CG) artists begin animating these short films.
Roper explains how the process works at Blizzard:
Storyboarding is essential in regard to campaign creation and
cinematic sequences. The cinematic department at Blizzard has walls filled
with storyboards scripting out each sequence they're going to create for
each game. They work closely with the development teams to ensure that
the look and spirit of the game are translated into the cinematic sequences
and to make sure that [they've created] the proper continuity. Models
are shared when appropriate and artists from both the cinematic and development
teams get together to brainstorm and eventually create the storyboards.
The writers utilize these storyboards to shape the dialogue, and this
can result in a change in the visuals as well as the acting performances
or sound and music design.
Of course, this all has to tie into the game's campaign storyline,
and so the level designers get involved in the process as well. They also
create storyboards, although these tend to be with both words and level
outlines. With the ability to create in-game cinematic sequences using
the game engine, we've found it necessary to find key elements in the
campaign maps in which to integrate story elements or give players rewards
for completing portions of the campaign. All in all, it's a very collaborative
process involving several different groups within the company.
Matt Householder,
Blizzard North
Another key member of the Diablo II group is Matt Householder,
who also shares some comments in Chapter 4. He adds to Roper's discussion
on the importance of a design documents and storyboarding of these mega-popular
RPGs:
The purpose of a design document is to present the look and
feel of the game to the production team (and publisher's management) in
an efficient and maintainable way. Begin with a one- or two-page overview,
briefly describing the player's viewpoint, gameplay, and controls.
Explain why it will be fun to play. Be sure to cover all the
basic issues in brief—single-player, multiplayer, console versus
PC, player characters, opponent/enemy characters, animation style, background
settings, sound/music, story, etc., and then elaborate on them in later
sections devoted to one major topic at a time. Drawings—sketches,
character designs, screen mockups—are very helpful to visualize the
game. For a large game, the document could grow to hundreds of pages!
A design document is a lot like a recipe for the building of
a game, but the best cooks often experiment and modify recipes as they
go. Likewise, Blizzard North uses a design document more as a general
guideline rather than a "bible" and encourages creative expression
by all the production team members—even exploring major design changes
during the development process.
And on storyboarding:
It's essential for cinematic production, but not strictly necessary
for the production of game code and artwork. One place storyboarding can
help a great deal in game production, however, is in flowcharting the
user interactions of making choices to start up a game, navigating through
game menu screens, and the like.
Both Householder
and Roper discuss the art and science that is RPG game design in Chapter
4.
Chris Taylor, Gas
Powered Games
The creator of such beloved games as Total Annihilation (when at
Cavedog Entertainment) and Dungeon Siege has provided this book
with a design document template (see Chapter 6) that you can use as a
basis for your own custom document, plugging in the necessary game details
to suit your project.
Here, Taylor
explains that creating a design document can be approached in many different
ways:
Design documents can vary from highly theoretical to very technical
and detailed. Over the years I've settled on a system in which I create
an overview document and then a series of appendices that add the details.
From this I then produce specification documents that break down everything
for the person who will implement the specifics. It's great to have a
template to work from because then you can just go through and fill in
each section. You begin with the high concept, then the feature set. Then
you must answer the 10 most jaded and difficult questions that you think
someone might ask you about your design. If you can't answer them right
from the beginning, you may need to go back and think about why you want
to make a game like that in the first place.
Taylor says
the importance of storyboarding depends on the type of game:
When there are a huge number of art assets involved, you absolutely
must do concept sketches, storyboards, and anything else you can to reduce
risk and any chance of doing stuff over and over again. Poor planning
will frustrate people and de-motivate them, so storyboarding is a great
way to communicate the overall plan, look and feel, style, and scope of
the game.
Warren Spector,
Ion Storm Austin
In Chapter 4, Warren Spector—best known for games such as the Ultima
Underworld series, System Shock and Deus Ex—chats
at great length about creating award-winning role-playing games. His suggestions
can also be found in Chapters 12, 17, and 21.
Here he
discusses the importance of a design doc:
A design doc is absolutely vital to me. I know some other hugely
successful developers (who will remain nameless) who insist they never
bother trying to document their games. I can't imagine that!
For me, a design doc is many things: It's a roadmap—an
abstract, iconic version of your proposed game. If you keep it updated
during pre-production and even during production, it's a snapshot, a picture
of where your project stands today, right now. If done "right,"
it includes materials, assets, and information that marketing can use
to generate early press coverage of your game (without bugging the development
team too much!). Toward the end of the project, a design doc that has
been updated appropriately can be a vital tool for manual and cluebook
writers, as well as for QA teams looking to generate playthrough and feature
checklists. Most important, though, a design doc is a vital communications
tool, both internally (ensuring that everyone on the dev team is on the
same page) and externally (for publisher, marketing, and even press).
I just wouldn't know how to make or manage a game without one.
So, how
does Spector—or any game designer, for that matter—write a design
document?
Unfortunately, no two projects are the same, no two teams are
the same, no two genres have the same requirements, and therefore, no
two design docs are going to be the same. You just have to find the elements
necessary to describe your game to your team and to your publisher. Figure
out what you need to provide to ensure that your team has enough information
to implement the vision of a game. Allow each person on the team to contribute
to the extent of their capabilities and/or interests, but give one person
"ownership" of the doc. (In other words, one person should say
yes or no to any idea before it's incorporated into the final doc.) Plan
on revising throughout development, to ensure that the doc reflects the
changing reality of your game's development. Recognize that a time will
come when reality overtakes your doc and continued updating may (MAY)
be unnecessary. And then read the book I obviously have to write on this
subject! I'm completely overwhelmed by how much there is to say so I better
stop. Sorry...
Spector
admits that storyboarding has never been a big part of his development
process:
It's vital, obviously, when planning cinematics, but that's
about it. You always want concept art for characters and locations/maps/levels
before you spend a lot of money modeling and creating them, but that isn't
really storyboarding per se. I remember reading a fine little book called
Behind the Scenes at Sega, about the making of a platform game, that said
every aspect of the game should be storyboarded. That idea just isn't
applicable to the kinds of games my studio produces (and illustrates the
fact that development processes have to be appropriate to the game you're
making—there's no single Right Way to make a game...). Storyboarding
is probably vital to games where you know exactly what path players will
take every step of their journey and where you pre-plan every puzzle and
its one solution.
Storyboards were certainly an important part of the Wing
Commander games, with their emphasis on cinematics, and I bet the
Lucas Arts adventure games use them heavily. But if you're making something
more open-ended than that, storyboards just don't seem all that useful.
We're not (or shouldn't be) making movies here...
American McGee,
Carbon6 Entertainment
American McGee, creative director at Carbon6 Entertainment, has worked
on such renowned PC titles as Doom, Doom III, Quake, Quake II,
and most recently, American McGee's Alice for Electronic Arts.
For this
chapter on storyboarding, McGee gives us his vision for the cinematic
intro to Alice. Read on, and enjoy. If you've ever played the game (and
you should!), you'll get a lot more out of this having experienced the
breathtaking intro sequence.
American McGee's
Alice intro, written by American McGee
Alice
Story
Intro:
EXT
HOUSE
Snow flurries
dot the night sky. Storm has passed.
Camera
glides through leaded glass French doors into the library of a comfortable
Victorian manor.
[Full]
moon's glow, intensified by snow, lights the room. Shelves overflow
with books and papers.
Camera
moves toward a large fireplace.
A napping
cat stands, arches his back, and uses the leg of a nearby desk to sharpen
his claws.
Retreating,
he catches a claw on a damask cloth, which is decoratively draped over
part of the desk.
An oil
lamp sits on the cloth.
Trying
to get free, cat pulls the cloth. The lamp is drawn to and over the
edge. Smashes on floor.
Oil covers
the cat and flows towards the glowing embers in the fireplace.
Flame
explodes out of the cinders and engulfs the cat and paper-filled desk.
Fire spreads
through the library at an alarming pace.
Smoke
slithers the door and up the stairs—along the hallway and slips
under Alice's door.
Camera
moves to sleeping Alice.
A tendril
of smoke wisps up her nostril.
Camera
follows.
WONDERLAND—GNOME
GARDEN—TEA PARTY
Alice
and a small assortment of Wonderland characters—Mad Hatter, Gryphon,
March Hare, Dormouse, White Rabbit—having tea around a huge table.
Mood is light and playful.
Mad Hatter,
pouring tea for Alice, drops the pot, which shatters with the sounds
of breaking glass. Suddenly, the ground around the table splits open
and fire comes through the fissures.
Smoke
billows around everyone. The shadow of the Jabberwock passes overhead.
Screams.
Fade back
to Alice's moonlit, smoke-filled room.
INT
HOUSE
Alice
awakens from her interrupted dream.
The [muffled]
screams are coming from inside the house.
Alice
leaps out of bed, clutching her beloved white rabbit, and runs to the
door.
Hallway
is filled with smoke and licks of fire.
She bolts
towards her parents' room, and trying the doorknob burns her hand severely.
She pushes
the door in a little—flames come billowing out.
Alice,
driven back by heat, distraught, screaming in agony and frustration,
retreats.
Camera
follows as she runs wildly down hall.
EXT
HOUSE
Camera
watches as Alice exits house through the front door and stumbles down
the steps.
Screaming,
coughing, covered with soot, she collapses on the front yard in a large
snow drift.
House
is completely engulfed in flames; a section of roof/wall dramatically
collapses.
She curls
up in fetal position, eyes locked on the burning house.
Camera
flies into the fire burning in Alice's right eye.
Alice
faints.
FADE
Cut to
asylum...LET MUSIC MAKE THE TRANSITION
INT
CHILDRENS HOSPITAL/ASYLUM
Rain is
falling outside.
Camera
slowly pulls away from Alice's vacant eye. She's curled on a bed in
a private room.
Sterile,
impersonal except for framed facing photos of her mum and dad on bedside
table. Shares space with a bowl of food and a large spoon. A chair is
the only other piece of furniture.
No longer
the pretty little girl of earlier sequences, Alice is a drawn young
woman; has not seen the sun in ages.
She clutches
a dirty and threadbare stuffed rabbit, whose only eye stares off into
space.
We see
numerous scars on Alice's wrists. Some fresh. One wrist is bandaged.
The night,
visible through a barred window, is boiling with bad weather.
A nurse
in foreground turns and walks slowly to the door shaking her head, speaking
to herself.
NURSE
Glad I
saved that moth-eaten relic [the rabbit] from the dustbin.
(Turns
and says, in full voice)
Please
try to eat something, dear. Good night, Alice.
(The nurse
will resemble the Duchess in game.)
Nurse
locks the door behind her as the darkened sky outside unleashes a burst
of lightning.
Alice
flinches and grasps the rabbit tight.
Camera
pulls in again on Alice.
Every
time there is a lightning flash, she flinches slightly; exhibits no
other signs of activity.
Another
flash offers the opportunity to cut to a close-up of her head and torso,
where the rabbit in her hand slowly turns its head to look at Alice.
It whispers
in a raspy voice, sounding like the worn-out toy it is.
RABBIT
Alice,
pull yourself together, girl. You must help us!
Another
flash pulls the camera back out; Alice slowly turns her head to look
downward at the rabbit.
Another
flash and the rabbit is gone from her hand, but something else is in
the room with Alice.
Camera
pans as if to look out of Alice's eye and finds a large white rabbit
dressed in undertakers' garb standing before her.
RABBIT
You
must help us, Alice. You really must. Follow me, we haven't much time.
Walking
toward to the door, the rabbit pulls a key from its waistcoat and unlocks
the door. Pushing it open, the rabbit steps through into darkness and
begins to run away, again exclaiming:
RABBIT
Hurry,
Alice; we're very late already!
Alice
slowly rises from the bed; she takes the spoon (this will become her
knife) and shambles slowly to the door. Grasping the frame, she propels
herself through the door and into the darkness beyond.
WONDERLAND—INT
RABBIT HOLE
Alice
is falling.
Alice
cries out as she falls. She is once again tossed down the rabbit hole
and through the entrance to Wonderland. But this feels different.
She falls
for quite some time, with the images of her parents, her childhood lifestyle,
and her years at the asylum blending together. Images twist and warp
and several of the twisted Wonderland creatures are briefly introduced
here.
The shadow
of the Jabberwock flies across Alice. The Mad Hatter rides a Victorian
bicycle across her path, only his coattails and top hat visible. Furniture
twists and changes, the walls are pure darkness.
(End
Intro)
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