From a brick to a cube

Before production comes…pre-production! Indeed, once one has the idea for a game, the concept, you can’t just get building.

Nope, the “thinker”, in our case, Kevin, has to first refine the project to make it fun for the players and convince people to collaborate in its development.

In the beginning we had to learn to get to know each other better.

We are all game designers or artists and have the skills we learned at Isart Digital in common. But this doesn’t suffice to make a finished product; there are other steps such as programming, communication, and sound effects…

The first collective decision that we took was assigning roles including the project leader. We distributed these along the lines of our desires and abilities. Some people are more talented when it comes to programming, others sound effects etc. We also had to decide on deadlines. See the description of our team for more details concerning our separate roles.

Pimp My Cube Props

Once these things are done, pre-production can finally begin. For me, this seemed like a debate on Capitol Hill but more intense. Everyone except the project initiator starts to build on the project, make it their own and make it better.

This phase is difficult enough for the initiator because the team begins to question some of his choices. However, it can also open his mind to ideas about the gameplay that had not yet occurred to him.

We had frequent meetings to brainstorm where the goal was to come up with the best possible game for the player, not an easy task!

Chance has no place in this process. We studied the market, examined what worked elsewhere…or what didn’t. We then top it with our own creativity and new combinations of ideas.

Pimp My Cube Skins Cube

The project leader needs to maintain his long-term vision throughout all these early phases. With the proposal of each new idea he needs to be able to guess more or less:

If it is technically feasible

How much time and personnel it will mobilize

If it improves upon the concept

If the cost is justified

Because of these factors we decided on a fairly simple concept: to make a platform/puzzle game that would alternate between action and deliberation with a cube that moves thanks to different colors.

From there, we tried to come up with lots of different situations and capabilities for the cube in order to make the game more fun and give it some variety. We came up with a few dozen ideas. Nevertheless, we had to keep in mind that our end product would stay a prototype and that we wouldn’t be able to do it all.

Then comes the selection of propositions. What will we keep or add and why?

And, as project leader I was particularly fussy about the last point. As long as there is no argument and discussion the answer was always no.

The following is from the points of view of other team members: 

Nax:

The pre-production is an interesting phase because of the sacrifices that it implies, and the context of group reflection behind them.

Many elements that were too ambitious could have proved too expensive for a student project.

This is when we had to have a long talk about our priorities, what to agree to and incorporate, what to keep in the back of our minds, and what to shelve.

This step then let us get a more precise feeling for the full extent of the work ahead and the amount of energy drinks needed to keep the team going, and base decisions around the behavior and abilities of each member of the team.

ANECDOTE: Our first presentation was more refined and comprised less features than the one Kevin displayed in his presentation of the concept. But the project became more realistic less ambitious and everything was actually working.

Pimp My Cube Ambiance

Kevin:

Research about the gaming universe was one of the hardest parts. Our avatar had to be cube shaped to go with the gameplay. However, creating a detailed universe centered around cubes is not an easy task. Luckily, Julien and Jennifer were able to think up a great on that you will discover very soon.

Remember that we are participating to a competition on LeMonde.fr and we need your support!

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