Like other software, games follow Brooks’ law. Fred Brooks postulated Brooks’ law as the mythical man-month in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering.  In the book, Brooks details the problems with software project management. Specifically Brook’s law explains, “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” Game development follows Brooks’ law, and the best way to prevent the problems that require projects to add people late in the cycle is to plan ahead. Far too often with any large project, important components are forgotten or neglected. The Corpament’s Video Game Design Pro presents a convenient means for pre-planning and continued planning during a project.

 

Because my background is in academia, my primary interest in Video Game Design Pro is its completeness. Game design encompasses various discrete, but interrelated components and students/designers need an overall sense of this organization. Video Game Design Pro is essentially an annotated content management system. The content management system is useful, particularly given the many components listed, but the annotations are especially helpful. At the primary level, and this is editable, Video Game Design Pro contains:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: more

Initial Review of The Corpament’s Video Game Design Pro

9/30/2006

Text Box: Enemies
Weapons
Items
Abilities
Vehicles
Script
Scoring
Puzzles/Mini-games
Bonuses
Cheat Codes
Sound Bible
Story Bible
Art Bible
Design Treatment 
Technical Design Document
Design Notes

Cover
Table of Contents

Version History

Game Overview

Gameplay Mechanics

Camera

Controls

Saving and Loading

Interface

Menu and Screen Description

Game World

Levels

Game Progression

Characters

Non-player Characters

Future Features