My talk at IGDS 2012, where I present a new way to write game design documents and a little game design tool.

1. The Tiny Game Design Tool
and other little useful things.
Written by Federico Fasce

2. Hi!
Hello there! My name is Federico Fasce

3. And I’m one of the cofounders of Urustar, a small game design studio located in genova,
Italy.

4. A game is a system capable to
generate emotions through
agency in a ritual space.
Here is our little definition of what a game is. That’s just what a game is for us, and it defines
what kind of games we love and we want to make.

5. Games like Ed Key and David Kanaga’s Proteus

6. Or like thathgamecompany’s Journey.

7. How we (don’t) work.
So, how we do game design? Let’s start saying how we don’t (always) work.

8. The Game Bible
We kinda hate the whole concept of Game Bible.

9. We feel it’s an enormous waste of paper and energy

10. Rule #1
NOBODY reads the Game Bible.
That’s because of various reasons. First one is that you get always the feelings nobody really
reads the Bible. Actually, is very difficult to cover all the complexity of a game system in a
linear document. Even the game designers are often puzzled when reading the bible.

11. Rule #2
The Game Bible is NEVER in sync with the
project.
Secondly, it’s very hard to keep the documentation up to date.

12. Rule #3
You write the game OR you write the
Bible.
Third, you tend to write documentation when you have to write gameplay instead.

13. How we REALLY work.
Now, here’s how we are trying to work now.

14. The FIELD NOTES
METHOD
(still experimental)
This is our experimental method.

15. Based on SCIENCE!

16. We took inspiration from the voyages of the Beagle

17. Where a young Charles Darwin was doing what every science and naturalist does.

18. To observe, take note and learn from what they see. Our methods works in a same way. The
project is conducted in an iterative fashion. For each iteration the game designer publishes a
document divided into two parts. Each part is further divided into two paragraphs.

19. Description
First part is descriptive. Here the game designer observes and describes how the game is like.

20. #1 Observations
(What is right? What wrong?)
The designer start with general observations about what is right and what is wrong in a
game.

21. #2 Results
(What has been achieved?)
Then they state the results. What goals the team achieved with this release?

22. Prescription
The second part is dedicated to prescriptions: how the designer intends to address problems
and improve the game?

23. #3 Hypotheses
(What possibilities emerged?)
First, they state the hypotheses: what new things could the team add to the game? What stuff
seems to make sense now?

24. #4 Corrections
(What will be done next?)
Then, the corrections. Each problem emerged in the first part is now addressed with a
possible solution.

25. Only two rules
1- Each part of the field note is open for
comments.
2- Only the game designer can publish
a new field note.
All this stuff has just these two simple rules.

26. The TINY GAME
DESIGN TOOL
Another little thing we produced is the Tiny Game design tool

27. It’s a small tool meant to be used by beginners and in game jams.

28. For further information about this one, have a look at http://tinygdtool.urustar.net.

31. MDA Framework
Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
Hunicke, Zubek, LeBlanc – 2004

36. Playing a game is a voluntary attempt to
overcome unnecessary obstacles.
Bernard Suits

40. http://tinygdtool.urustar.net

41. Everyday in our office.
To finish, these are some tools we use when in office

42. ##MARKDOWN
(because Word is too mainstream)
Markdown has quickly become the standard for all our documents. It’s fast, easy to use and
exportable pretty much everywhere.

44. The emergent task planner
http://davidseah.com/
The ETP by David Seah (http://davidseah.com) is a great instrument for activity tracking

45. And Basecamp suite is unvaluable to keep all the team on the same page.

46. Just a little game.

47. Alien
Eater
This is our newest little game. We made it using the Field Notes system.

48. Thank you!
federico@urustar.net
@kurai
@urustar