ID:50932
 
Keywords: help, me, you
Lots of games on BYOND suffer from a total lack of a design document. Or a failure to follow through on initial ideas / goals.

Or simply from implementing horrible code that bogs down the game unto unplayability.

So heres my offer:

Write me a design document and I will critique it. There are many templates out on the internet, but here are some general things it *must* include:

1) An introductory paragraph. This is ONE paragraph only, that describes / pitches the game to the PLAYER. This is what you normally find on the back of game boxes you buy from a store.

2) A very short section with bullet-point goals. All features you put in the design doc must pass by these goals. They're simple and effective goals, such as: "Must be fun", "Must be fast-paced", "Must still provide equal balance between the races of the game", etc.

3) A feature list. This is a bullet-point list of every single feature in the game, described in such a way that it is possible for someone who knows nothing about the game, what its based on or anything else really to figure out. This is things like: "PvP combat", "Player-based merchants", "Spaceships you can fly in", "Interplanetary travel", etc. You don't have to detail every skill, spell or ability in the game - Just the general features. These are similar to the bullet-point lists you usually find on the back of PC games; except, list more than 4 or 5.

4) An atmosphere section. What is the world itself like? Are there distinct areas to be made aware of? This section has to be *detailed*! What towns are there? What areas of the world are there? How do they look? This isn't about artistic specs (like where light shines, how big sprites are etc), but about the feeling you want the player to have when they wander around. Is it an exotic world? is it a dark and ruined world? Get your writers pen out ;) The better you can describe this, the better you can make sure it actually works out that way.

5) An art section. If you're creating a graphical game, this contains things like general art directions for all major sections of the game. How does a particular race look, what special visual feats do they have in common? Where does light fall from in the game? How many shades are generally accepted in icons (3 is fairly standard, varying down to 2 and up to 5 within the game)? Where do sprites 'start' in the icon? Are they multitile or single tile? etc. In order to fill this out properly you'll need to look into pixel art. If you're creating a text-based game, this is things like writing style, line-length, etc.

6) A mechanics section. This is an indepth look at your featureset and this is where your design doc starts to get specific.

My *other* offer is this:

If you have a game that runs slowly, then contact me. If you can specify what runs slowly (or just if its the whole game), I might be able to help you fix it. This either means giving me access to the source code, or showing me relevant stuff pertaining to the slowdown so I can help you.

Given my being a Moderator at BYOND and having been around since 2001, I think I'm credible enough to not incur fear of spreading things around. Nothing I get sent will be turned over to anyone else, and to be honest none of it will probably be there after I help you - I'm perfectly capable of writing my own games.

Why am I doing this? Because I can, I suppose. Helping improve the quality of games on BYOND is a positive, and I'm all about that stuff (that sounded adequately hippy enough for me to end on that note).
I imagine some people could benefit from consultations, but what's with the waterfall model? =)
I must be missing the reference there ;) What I outlined above is pretty standard design document stuff. Basically, I don't want to waste my own time on someone sending me a 3-paragraph word document on their game that makes absolutely no sense ;)
The waterfall model describes a method of software development. I'm saying that you appear to be using a lot of sequential preparation instead of the iteration favored in more modern models. =)