Insight from a designer with a track record

[Margalis]

http://www.davidjaffe.biz/ (God of War director)

Note that this is probably less true for a MMORPG to some degree. However what Jaffe is saying is what I have been saying for a while. (Which means he must be right!) Jaffe also has a track record of good games including one of the best PS2 games that was a critical and commercial success. As I've said before, if you visit any amateur game site and look for design docs you always find the same shit - way too long, full of trivia like item names and stats that are 100% certain to change instantly.

Back when I first started as a game designer, I assumed that game design docs were like screenplays. You wrote one- usually a meaty fucker coming in at around 200 pages- had it bound all nice and neat, then passed it out to what I assumed would be an eager as hell team who were dying to know what MY vision was! Man, what a fucking joke!

Making games is NOT like that...not at all. And over the years, I've seen my game design docs drop from 200 pages to 5-10 page pamphlets. Sure, if you add up all the additional docs that get written as production rolls on (and other team members have added ideas and mechanics and assets that make YOUR original vision a MUCH IMPROVED TEAM vision, then you prob. surpass the 200 page count). But initial docs, anything beyond 10 pages and you are just writing to hear yourself write...get a fucking blog for that, yeah?

And even with just 10 pages, you still end up changing around 80% of the gameplay once you actually get into the game making process.

Edit: His blog post of an IM conversation is pretty interesting as well:

Yes this is true and ICO works as a whole, satisfying experience so I can see potential there. But so much of what made ICO work for me was NOT the interactive but the art and sound design and visual design....it added to the experience but it was the periphery elements making you feel, not the gmaeplay.
And to me, until the CORE of what games are- INTERACTIVITY- are the things that are the story telling tools, it will always feel like we're just missing the target.

[Samwise]

Yes this is true and ICO works as a whole, satisfying experience so I can see potential there. But so much of what made ICO work for me was NOT the interactive but the art and sound design and visual design....it added to the experience but it was the periphery elements making you feel, not the gmaeplay.
And to me, until the CORE of what games are- INTERACTIVITY- are the things that are the story telling tools, it will always feel like we're just missing the target.

I think Raph said the same thing in Theory of Fun.

I still say that HL Episode 1, despite being a very vanilla FPS as far as gameplay goes, does a better job of using a game medium to tell a story than most games before it have.

[stray]

SotC does Ico better by offering both the atmosphere and compelling interactivity (it's a game solely based around epic boss fights for goodness' sake).

Though it should be said that Ico's interactivity lies more in it's puzzle and exploratory elements. And it's completely fine there. More than fine.

[EDIT]

I think a game that lacks good interactivity, but still manages to blow me away despite all of that is Silent Hill (the entire series really..).

[Margalis]

Yeah I love Silent Hill. It's funny, I tried playing Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (GC remake) and quit after an hour, so boring to wade through cutscenes and codec conversations for the actual game.

But then, the gameplay of Silent Hill in nothing to write home about either. But it has such a powerful, oppressive and depressing atmosphere. Hard to think of another game like that. Silent Hill is as much an experience as a game. The plot is good but also just the atmosphere is so amazing.

[stray]

I actually like the MGS stories, but Kojima can be pretty bizarre (relatively speaking...for action oriented stuff). I'm a little burned out now on the MGS series, but I don't mind the cutscenes and long dialogue. When he gets it right, he gets it really right..So I feel obligated to sift through and pay attention. He's also another one who can make boss fights feel epic.

Speaking of MGS, they've just announced a film in the works (live action). Link

[eldaec]

A lot of the cool kids favour this approach even on serious software these days.

So long as you are disciplined in your approach, object oriented design methodologies and a development process based on prototyping and refining can work great.

It can also be an almighty clusterfuck ofc. Like most things in life, it's all about having the right team.