Designing Games

Chapter 11. Planning and Iteration

As Hans Grote, a building contractor, observes, a soccer coach will not tell one of his forwards that he can be certain of scoring if, in the sixth minute of play, he approaches the opponent’s goal from the right at an angle of 22 degrees and, 17 meters in front of the goal, kicks the ball at an angle of ascent of 10 degrees, 11 minutes.…If the coach is going to determine the positions from which each of his players should shoot, he should keep in mind that damp earth can stick to soccer shoes. And a clump of dirt between shoe and ball can play havoc with the angle of the planned shot. It would therefore be wise to study the average size of clumps of dirt and their frequency of occurrence, as well as the places on a soccer shoe where they are most likely to cling. But then if we consider that soccer fields in the north tend to be sandy while those in the south have a more claylike consistency, we have to.…No one would ever go to such ridiculous lengths, you say? Oh, yes, they would!

—Dietrich Dörner

The Overplanner

HERE’S A STORY THAT’S happened many times.

A designer has an idea for a game. He wants to do it right, so he decides to not be lazy. He’s going to work in the most disciplined, diligent way he knows—by writing a Design Document. The Document describes everything: mechanics, fiction, dialogue scripts, art style, technology, target markets. The designer rewrites it over and over, analyzing every piece, rethinking, imagining the game play out. ...