An update long overdue

So, long time no write but now I am back and hopefully will keep this up with at least a post a week.

Right now, or since the start of this semester really, we valiant members of group 10 have been working on Escape, a top down stealth game set in an office building during ca 1950. Our Min character is named Tommy and he has killed a dude and he wears a duster coat and a fedora. Not a trillby. There is a difference.

So, the last two weeks I have been busy mostly working on our design document, the compilation of what our game shall become.

I will be honest and say that I did not actually believe that the design document would feel that important on such a small project, especially now when we work with SCRUM having planning meetings and backlogs and all that.

But, I was wrong.

Very wrong. By writing everything down or rather trying to write everything down you raise all the questions that needs to be raised like, “how do the ventilation shafts really work?” or “what options are we going to have on our options screen?”. These were far from the only questions and today I made the experts (read other team members) help fill out all the blanks in the document. It also brought up some interesting things like the programmers wanting me to use the word “Sprint” rather than “run” while discussing character movement since you “run” programs thus eliminating any chance of a misunderstanding, I would never thought of that myself.

There is a lot of hard work in writing a game design document and I think I volunteered to take on the most of it just because I felt quite insecure about my abilities in that department, I knew that if I did not force myself to do it I will never get any better at it so I gripped the opportunity to force myself to work with something that isn’t all that fun but still very, very important.

One of the main problems I have is that I have a hard time taking myself serious when I write, being scared of this I often overcompensate and write short, stifled, boring and sometimes almost painful to read.

The design document needs to be concise and precise but still readable, and writing texts like that is truly a skill that can be used anywhere.

But, writing was not the only thing I have done I also made some tables and desks, and I realized that it is actually quite hard to tell a desk from anything else if it is seen directly from above unless there is something on them.

Oh, look! It’s a brown square! With beveled edges!

Oh, look! It a pixly desk with actual physical inbox and outbox!

It does however feels good to open up a bit light on the pixel-pushing since I have done almost zero 2d art discounting what I have done since I started at Visby.

And I do not actually know if beveled corners were “in” with the desk manufacturers ca 1950 or if I am being anachronistic.

On a bit of a more personal note I am afraid I might have some mild OCD since I without really thinking about it just poured out my bag of Ahlgrens Bilar and lined them up three and three with one of each color in each “group” and the ate all the left over green and pink ones while I was thinking about what to write here.