Practical Game Design

Greenlight gates and vertical slice

As we already know, game development is risky and expensive. To minimize the risk, during the life cycle of a project it will likely have to go through at least one greenlight gate—a point at which the fate of the game is being decided. A failure to greenlight will force the team to go back and iterate on the idea or result in the game being canceled altogether.

Before real production starts, game designers work with their producers to create and present the initial greenlight documentation to the key stakeholders in the company, hoping to convince them that the concept being proposed is a wise investment of time and money.

Once development starts, a version of the game itself is what's being shown. It's ...