Comments on: Evolution Vs Intelligent Design

By: Daniel Karlo Medallo

Daniel Karlo Medallo — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:17:04 +0000

As a gamer, student and a developer, I would agree on what you’ve said. I’ve seen this happening even in a non-games development. This is true especially on a development based on the classic waterfall model. This, however, has gone better when agile model came in. It allows developers and designers deliver features piece by piece and somehow matches the “evolution” and “intelligent design” that was mentioned.
Am I wrong? Has the game producers (project managers) embraced agile methodologies?

By: Stef

Stef — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:35:51 +0000

What you wrote seems true… There is probably more creativity in Indie Flash Games than in big MMOs (where just everything seem so outdated).

By: Pete the crow

Pete the crow — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:10:27 +0000

Just looking at your blogs not in the complex gamekingdom. i am an artist and find your blogs interesting and energetic.

By: James Mackey

James Mackey — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:01:31 +0000

@Raymond Leung
The initial document is what your evolutionary and creative forces act on. If the initial design is loose and unanchored by solid decisions it flounders in a quagmire of choice and often gets carried away with whatever the latest wave of popular design features is (ex: Gears of War cover system).

If your foundations are solid you can use them to branch out into new and interesting (perhaps even unexplored) territory. Most can agree that it’s much easier to improve existing ideas than come up with something completely original that’s great. (If you don’t agree, try it, right now.)

A somewhat arbitrary metaphor: if your goal is to make some pasta, it is practically impossible if you’re trying to make everything from scratch, growing the wheat, grinding flour, making noodles, growing tomatoes, etc. You need to start somewhere to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Any claim that evolution or iteration is more important than the initial design (or vice versa) rests precariously on a chicken or egg dilemma and is rendered invalid by that state. It is simply a matter of work style as to how much importance you assign to each.

By: Mike Escott

Mike Escott — Sun, 23 May 2010 18:45:11 +0000

Thanks for an excellent insight into the games industry, I agree that any institution with a need to turn a profit will stifle creativity by its very nature. I think this is probably true of all areas of industry but there is an unfortunate irony when it happens in a creative field. Of course any “starving artist” would jump at the chance to finally make some decent money and produce a AAA release but with that comes the budget, deadlines and other contractual agreements at the expense of creative freedom.

By: Raymond Leung

Raymond Leung — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:49:58 +0000

Having worked in games development for a few years I cannot agree with what you have said more. From experience whilst intelligent design may be important at the early stages of development to document and brainstorm ideas, these idea remain as thoeries whilst they are still just words on a piece of paper and it is not until creativity and evolution kicks in that a truly enjoyable game can be made, and this is certainly the case at the studio I worked for, a game design document was created at great lenghts to describe all aspect of the game from budgets to schedules, wishlists to controls. However, during producion most of these changed and evolved from what was previously intended whether this is a lack of fore sight or just careless planning, there is however no doubt in my mind that evolution and creativity plays a larger role in the creation of a great game.

Working in a studio that denied creativity and treated you like a drone was definately an eye opener and the experience has stuck with me. What you have said about “people you’re playing to make the game don’t enjoy making it then the people who are going to pay you for it probably aren’t going to either.” has hit the nail on the head, no one in the studio I was work at enjoyed any part of the gameplay, some of the features were cool but that didn’t make the game any more enjoyable.

By: hua tong

hua tong — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:48:49 +0000

I am a student right now. But your ideas and experiences really benefit me. You said “the documentations are absolutely essential to the first implementation of a feature”. I cannot agree with you more. When I designed my board game with classmates, we really found the game dialog really helps us to remember everything including what is going to do next, who is going to do what part, which part of game has been improved or modified during a certain meeting. Sometimes, when we doing wrong or don’t know how to do things in next step. The documentations or dialogs really help us find the way out. I agree with you said that “everybody has ideas and tweaks they want to make”. At first, my team has four people and each one has their ideas and plans about designing a board game. Then, after couples of discussion, we polls to decide to use one idea. It does not say other three games are bad and work on these three games cannot be successful. In my case, we do not have financing problem and work with 300 people. It is only an assignment and quite simple and easy comparing to your game. However, your thoughts really inspire me and one day if I have the same career likes you. I hope you could give me more details about this. Thanks a lot.