{"id":553,"date":"2011-04-20T20:05:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T19:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/?p=553"},"modified":"2015-04-04T21:47:14","modified_gmt":"2015-04-04T21:47:14","slug":"never-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/never-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Never released game design and prototype #1 : Museum Director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Last week-end, I ditched a prototype of a game because it was not as\u00a0fun as I thought. It gave me the idea to blog about some of the game design documents and prototypes I made that were never released.\u00a0It can really be interesting, because:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If everyone agrees that <strong>the design sucks<\/strong>: I&#8217;ll definitely stop thinking about it and I&#8217;ll be glad that I moved on to other projects.<\/li>\n<li>If some players or game designers have ideas to <strong>save the prototype<\/strong> and make it into a game: I&#8217;ll be happy hear it and may eventually work on this project again&#8230; and why not release it.<\/li>\n<li>If the description of my project gives ideas to game designers and they get inspired to <strong>create an original game<\/strong> from it: I&#8217;ll be very happy that my failed game designs helped\/inspired fellow developers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, in this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/tag\/prototype\/\">series of posts<\/a>, I will not talk about\u00a0all\u00a0the cancelled projects. I will just choose the most interesting ideas\/prototypes in random order.<\/p>\n<h3>Process when Designing\/Prototyping<\/h3>\n<p>Everytime I have a <em>valid<\/em> idea that I really want to implement, I create a new folder in my &#8220;gamedev&#8221; directory, using a number. I started last weekend &#8220;<em>Project 16<\/em>&#8220;, therefore, it&#8217;s easy to know how many ideas I gave up (or paused) from the released games. Here is the list of my <em>released <\/em>projets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First released game &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/shapy-deluxe\">Shapy<\/a>&#8221; (PC) is &#8220;<em>Project 3<\/em>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Second game &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/around-the-world\">Around the World<\/a>&#8221; (PC\/Mac) is &#8220;<em>Project 4<\/em>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Third game &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/spring-up\">Spring Up!<\/a>&#8221; (PC\/Mac) is &#8220;<em>Project 6<\/em>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Fourth game (flash game hidden on sister site) &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.yourmacgames.com\/futoshiki\">Futoshiki<\/a>&#8221; is &#8220;<em>Project 7<\/em>&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>Fifth game &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/spring-up-harmony\">Spring Up Harmony<\/a>&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/spring-up-harmony-x360\">X360<\/a>\/PC) is &#8220;<em>Project 12<\/em>&#8220;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I cancelled at least 10 projects. In fact there is more because I sometimes use a quickly ditched project as the starting point for another.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project 8 : Design<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first one I chose to talk about is &#8220;<em>Project 8<\/em>&#8220;, codenamed &#8220;<em>Museum Director<\/em>&#8220;. This is probably the cancelled project that I spent the most time working on.<\/p>\n<p>The idea came from Patrick Curry&#8217;s Game Idea #35 (you can see my comment back in 2008!) [I removed the link because Google flagged the site. The url was www.patrickcurry.com\/thoughts\/?p=51]. It is basically a &#8220;Sim Museum&#8221;. In addition to Patrick&#8217;s idea, the game design was mostly inspired from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Theme_Park_(video_game)\">Theme Park<\/a> (I loved this game when I was a kid!). <em>Museum Director<\/em> was planned for PC and Mac (using the same game engine than <em>Around the World<\/em> and <em>Spring Up!<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>I usually don&#8217;t write &#8220;real&#8221; game design documents (GDD) as I am the only person using it. Instead, I tend to take some notes in a <a href=\"http:\/\/docs.google.com\">Google Docs<\/a> or a .txt file. However, looking back in my Design folder of Museum Director, I found a 10 pages design document (I did not remember I wrote all that). This confirms that I spent a lot of time on this &#8220;unfinished project&#8221;. Unfortunately, the game design document is in French so the raw version won&#8217;t be very useful to my readers. Some sections on the document should also be in a technical design document (TDD) instead. Here is a quick &#8220;best of&#8221; in English of the game design ideas. I kept the original randomness of my GDD, as I usually just write interesting ideas in the order they&#8217;re coming in my mind. You can see how I <em>transformed and mixed<\/em> Patrick&#8217;s idea with Theme Park:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>In the museum, there are three sections of &#8220;art works&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>Art (paintings, sculptures&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>Natural history (dynosaurs, fossils, rocks&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>Science (experiments, atoms, chemistry&#8230;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Here are the items and global museum parameters available\n<ul>\n<li>Tickets price (or free)<\/li>\n<li>Stock management (maps, bar, food, souvenirs, t-shirts&#8230;): buy price can vary<\/li>\n<li>Assurance of art items<\/li>\n<li>Rules (can use camera inside museum? free entry?)<\/li>\n<li>Advertising (local\/national newspapers, TV, flyers, radio, ad on a specific art item or for the whole museum&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>Air conditionner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Goal of the game: to have a high &#8220;museum grade&#8221;, based on:\n<ul>\n<li>Global reputation<\/li>\n<li>Cultural evaluation<\/li>\n<li>Art maintenance<\/li>\n<li>Quality of art items<\/li>\n<li>Quantity of visitors<\/li>\n<li>Organisation of the items inside the museum (don&#8217;t mix everything randomly)<\/li>\n<li>Security (of visitors and art)<\/li>\n<li>Cleanliness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Visitors have different characteristics (walking speed, likeliness of each art type&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>There are some VIPs (politics, rich people) (idea taken from Theme Hospital)<\/li>\n<li>Visitors have various needs: (hungry\/thirsty\/toilet, leaving the museum (when inside for a long time or unhappy&#8230;), buying things (when very happy), need more money (can withdraw cash inside the museum), want to see a specific item, wandering around randomly&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>How to earn money for the museum:\n<ul>\n<li>Entrance fees<\/li>\n<li>Sales of food\/drinks\/souvenirs<\/li>\n<li>Allocation<\/li>\n<li>Donations<\/li>\n<li>Selling or renting art items to other museums<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Art can be stolen inside the museum. Player can buy CCTV and hire security agents<\/li>\n<li>Employees (paid (high quality) orvolunteer (low quality))\n<ul>\n<li>Archeologists\/scientists\u00a0(through a research program) to discover new items<\/li>\n<li>Ticket clerks<\/li>\n<li>Security agents<\/li>\n<li>Art specialists (to take care of items)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>There is a world map with famous cities where you buy your location for the museum with a limited size (number of tiles).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The document also contains the list of every item available in the game as well as stats available to the player but it&#8217;s not really interesting here. I can really see Theme Park&#8217;s inspiration when I read the document a few years later.<\/p>\n<h3>Prototype<\/h3>\n<p>It took me some time to find a working version of the game :), but I eventually could run it and take some screenshots. The art assets are coming from other games (the visitors are from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/games\/virtual-villagers-new-believers\">virtual villagers<\/a> for instance),\u00a0Google Image, or I made it myself (you can see the ugly shops made with paint.NET ;)) :<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/museum_director_1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-562\" title=\"museum_director_1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/museum_director_1-300x225.png\" alt=\"museum_director_1\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/museum_director_2.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-561\" title=\"museum_director_2\" src=\"http:\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/museum_director_2-300x225.png\" alt=\"museum_director_2\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>You might be able to see from the screenshots that many features were implemented such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Isometric tiled engine with camera translation<\/li>\n<li>Interactive Minimap<\/li>\n<li>Choosing, moving, rotating and dropping items with a working GUI<\/li>\n<li>Path finding of the visitors<\/li>\n<li>Visitors waiting in lane (ala Theme Park)<\/li>\n<li>AI of visitors walking in the museum, looking at art, buying stuff, using toilets and leaving the museum.<\/li>\n<li>Saving\/Loading of the game<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It still very sandbox-like.<\/p>\n<h3>Why I never released it<\/h3>\n<p>Here are the reasons why I stopped working on this project and the mistakes I made:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Despise the original museum &#8220;theme&#8221;, there is a <strong>lack of originality<\/strong> in the gameplay, I was too much copying Theme Park.<\/li>\n<li>This game would require a <strong>lot of money in art assets<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>I realized that this kind of game is <strong>very difficult to tune <\/strong>properly. The technical part was quite easy to do but it&#8217;s hard to have an interesting gameplay.<\/li>\n<li>I <strong>stopped the project way too late<\/strong>. I looked into my source control software history (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.perforce.com\">perforce<\/a>) to see that I worked on the game for more than 3 months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In comparison, I spent less than a month on &#8220;Project 15&#8221;, stopped last week. And Project 15 was already playable but the game itself is also much less complex. Anyway, I&#8217;m getting better at moving on early when something is not working, that&#8217;s good \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>Obviously, even if it can be difficult, it&#8217;s good to stop working on a game when you realize it&#8217;s not <em>that<\/em> good. Just backup the game, and keep it somewhere just in case a killer idea can revive it.\u00a0I now try to concentrate exclusively on gameplay from the beginning of the\u00a0development\u00a0and avoid any technical features if it&#8217;s not required. That way, I can find out quickly if it&#8217;s fun or not.<\/p>\n<p>Feel free to tell me what you think about <em>Museum Director<\/em> and to share your &#8220;failed game designs&#8221; in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>Follow me on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/Frozax\">twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Frozax-Games\/93984111894\">facebook<\/a> to know when I post other unreleased designs. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update: see also<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/never-released-game-design-prototype-2-dj-machine\/\">Never released game design and prototype #2 : DJ Machine<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/twitter?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frozax.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F04%2Fnever-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director%2F&amp;linkname=Never%20released%20game%20design%20and%20prototype%20%231%20%3A%20Museum%20Director\" title=\"Twitter\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frozax.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F04%2Fnever-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director%2F&amp;linkname=Never%20released%20game%20design%20and%20prototype%20%231%20%3A%20Museum%20Director\" title=\"Facebook\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a class=\"a2a_button_google_plus\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/google_plus?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frozax.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F04%2Fnever-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director%2F&amp;linkname=Never%20released%20game%20design%20and%20prototype%20%231%20%3A%20Museum%20Director\" title=\"Google+\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a class=\"a2a_button_reddit\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/reddit?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frozax.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F04%2Fnever-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director%2F&amp;linkname=Never%20released%20game%20design%20and%20prototype%20%231%20%3A%20Museum%20Director\" title=\"Reddit\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nwpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week-end, I ditched a prototype of a game because it was not as\u00a0fun as I thought. It gave me the idea to blog about some of the game design documents and prototypes I made that were never released.\u00a0It can really be interesting, because: If everyone agrees that the design sucks: I&#8217;ll definitely stop thinking&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/never-released-game-design-prototype-museum-director\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Never released game design and prototype #1 : Museum Director<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,10],"tags":[70,96,115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1697,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frozax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}