Well the final presentation to SCEE and the GITG panel was given on Wednesday 22th and luckily, due to an afternoon appointment, Catalyst were able to go first. I had rehearsed the presentation several times and had decided to do the whole presentation on the PS3. This enabled me to show the slides, images and the ripomatic movie all on a HUGE HD screen and controlled using the PS3 pad. My script was prepared and printed and ready to go. I know the argument of should you read from a script to present or memorise your presentation will always rage but through numerous presentations I feel more comfortable with my script printed in front of me. I’ve seen too many speakers lose it during presentations and stage fright and winging it are no way of providing confidence. The mocked up PS3 screen shots worked well and the ‘photo gameplay talkthrough’ did exactly what it needed to do. The feedback from the panel was positive and also provided some new areas of consideration. Overall I was pleased with the final presentation and hoped the panel thought it was polished and professional. Besides the nerves that are always there for these type of presentations, I really enjoyed it and felt happy that I had conveyed what we want to do with our game. The project as a whole has been enlightening and it has been great to see things from the other side of the fence and being able to explain something simply is actually harder than you think. It doesn’t matter how many time you do something, you can always learn more and improve.

I appreciate that I haven’t mentioned the name, type or style of game I’ve been working on and this might frustrate some readers, as my comments without being put into context may appear very vague and pointless. However IP protection is something I feel strongly about and without signed publishing agreements, it’s really the only thing a developer has.

Now it’s just a case of watching my inbox to see what the final decision on moving forward will be…..

Cheers,

Ivan

This last week has been sent getting everything together for Production Review meeting #2. The near final edit of the ripomatic movie came in and the post production done on it by the editor is fantastic. I’m really pleased with it. Hopefully the movie shows the intended direction of the gameplay, I’m sure the X-factor panel will let me know tomorrow if it doesn’t ) I’ve got the presentation and the rip movie all working on the PS3 now as well. Had a good response from the proposed development teams and have sent the concept document out to 3 of them. Anyway time to get into costume………..

Laters,

Ivan

Busy few weeks since the last blog. Juggling a full-time workload and completing work on this project has meant many a late night – and to tell you the truth I’ve actually missed them. I never realised that a late night glass of merlot could prove so inspirational J The ripomatic is coming along nicely and I’m really pleased with the first pass edit. The company that are doing the movie for me are doing a first-class job, the edits and gameplay shots work really well and their choice of music complements the footage. From a production admin side of things, first drafts of the following documents were completed -

· Budget proposal and associated breakdown

· Resource plan and schedule

· Pitch presentation and presentation overview

Not very exciting stuff but essential in order to provide an overview of what the goals and outcomes for pre-production would be.

Cheers,

Ivan

The last week was sent preparing deliverables for the first GITC Executive Production meeting. This was a one-hour meeting, at which the current status of the project was discussed, milestones checked, questions and issues discussed and goals for the next Executive Production meeting confirmed. This was a really interesting meeting and I really enjoyed it. The first draft of the COD is complete and I’m fairly happy with it. One thing that came out of the production meeting was that this document probably needs to be a lot tighter and focused. It currently contains images of inspiration and tone, however without a detailed explanation to go with them, these visuals raised many questions and confused the direction of the game. Other outcomes I took from the production meeting were -

• To consider reducing the number of themes and just have 1 overall theme to act as a wrapper for the 10 levels.
• The need for a ‘gameplay’ movie were the action in-game and the player’s inputs and shown simultaneously.
• The game’s viewpoint still needs further investigation, as do the style of play and the game’s name.
• More of a Marketing point of view is required and less of a Producer’s vision of he thinks is right [although everyone in games knows the Producer is always right] )

Laters

Ivan

Hello,

Work began this month on putting together the first draft of the concept overview document [COD], it’s been a while since I actually created one of these. I must have read nearly a hundred of these but only actually written about four of them. In writing a COD, the process helps raise many design issues. Things that you think you had sorted and are well design appear loose and poorly thought through once you put it into words. The game idea requires different themes and locations for each game level. I wanted to decide on the final 10 themes and create moodboards for each theme. Careful consideration was needed in choosing these themes as I wanted them to appeal to a wide mass-market audience. A quick focus-group around the office, along with a few raised eyebrows, confirmed that a few of the suggested themes were to specialised and required a re-think. It still makes me laugh that what you think has a broad appeal, has a completely different meaning to other people. The lesson here is put your ideas to people that know nothing about games [game industry marketing people included here J] and gauge their reactions. Ask these people, would you play a game based on X or Y?

I contacted a few video companies that are capable of creating a ripomatic movie for me. Of the ones I contacted, two are available and have the bandwidth, the third unfortunately are too busy. Before providing these video companies with the brief for creating the movie, I needed to get them covered with a NDA. Once I received the executed legal paperwork, I’ll send them the brief and wait on their feedback and costings. From a development point of view, a list of potential developers was drawn up with 7 teams making the short-list. A scope of work list required was also created covering motion library requirements, physics, audio specifications, renderer pipeline and graphical feature set.

Overall pleased with the progress this month but would really like to devote every hour of evey day to this project. The stop-start nature of doing this project coupled with a full-time day job can be frustrating at times. Oh well better to be too busy than watching daytime TV and playing pitch and putt.

Laters,

Ivan

Howdo,

I really enjoyed attending the GITG 2-day workshop. It was well run, well organised, correctly thought out and they even provided chocolate. Just fewer than 20 people attended from a variety of backgrounds, some gaming some not. It was really refreshing to see the ideas of the teams from outside the typical gaming industry. Their original thinking, drive and enthusiasm took me back 20 years to a time before publisher rejections, too many night shifts and missed milestones )

The structure of the workshop worked well, with the first exercise being to develop a concept for an already released game and then pitching it as a PSN title. The group was divided into 3 groups and then given time to formulate their idea for selling this game. This exercise showed just how much work was needed to take a game’s pitch presentation to the next level. The key findings from this exercise were.

· Understand the market

· Understand the people that will buy your game

· Explain what are you pitching for

The next session was given by SCEE and focused on the ‘X’ process. Although I’d seen this presentation on several occasions it still strikes me how effective, yet simple, this approach is. It was great to get a refresher course on it. The two practical breakout sessions covered which games had the best X statement and also which X statements fulfilled the slogan v function balance.

The third and final session of the day saw a presentation on ‘Audience Research.’ The presentation was a series of thoughts that kicked off a discussion on designing games for sociality.

The second day opened with a brief discussion on what people thought of the previous day – all positive. This discussion was followed by a presentation on ‘developing prototypes’ and covered topics such as user testing, digital design software and building a community for continued exposure. After a short break, there was another presentation entitled ‘Life’s a Pitch.’ This open and honest presentation showed the do’s and don’ts of presenting, my personal favourite being – death to powerpoint. Then, after lunch, it was on to the main event with all the companies pitching their game ideas to the panel. There were 9 pitch presentations and what I really liked about this was the fact that you had to pitch to everyone, not just the panel. This was really useful to see what worked and in one particular case, what didn’t.

So now on to the next stage of development……………..

Our goals for the end of March are to,

· Further develop our idea into a high-level concept overview

· Create a Ripomatic movie that shows the look& feel of the game

· Outsource the playable demo development work

· Provide full costings and a schedule for full production

Stay tuned for more updates as they happen.

Laters,

Ivan