The Business of Video Games: Part 3

This is when the Game Designers go to work. They labor for days, typing out documents and having earnest discussions about how the economy of the Mushroom Men actually works. Blood, sweat, and tears will go into whether or not the Pink Pony has 21 hit points or 22. The job of the Designer is not only to figure out how the game works, but also to write down everything. How many, what they look like, who they hate, what their weaknesses are, tastes great or less filling, slacks or cords, one or two sugars, everything. And it all has to fit together and make sense.

The other departments like to mess with the Designers. They will come by and point out that on page 7 of the Master Design Document, the Gorillinarians speak with a British accent, but on page 113, they lisp. This causes the Designers to not only fix the problem, but to review every single thing they have written to make sure everything is consistent. This can take days, but it is vitally important that Design has everything exactly right.

The joke, of course, is that once the project goes into full-scale development, everything will change anyway.

Up Next: Production!