For instance, concept art designers probably won’t help draft the business plan, unless the project has a small core team. Yet concept designers may benefit from being aware of the design treatment or business plan in structuring their designs for both the development team and for external marketing. For all project components, Video Game Design Pro’s wizards are particularly useful because they require users to explicitly state what items will do and where they belong.

 

The software is presented in an accessible and easy to use format. I would have preferred an easy means for changing the help text from Comic Sans, and a different starting font. An easy method for changing the font may be available, but my help files did not load in the evaluation version. On my Comic Sans bias, I teach my students not to use Comic Sans since it is so overused and so often badly used, so the font choice presents a minor problem for me. Overall though, Video Game Design Pro is exceptionally accessible and well organized. Because I haven’t used it in a production environment, I’m not aware of any problems with stability, file corruption, or any bugs in general. Video Game Design Pro does allow users to export files, so back-up files would be available..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Text Box: more Text Box: Instructors could use Video Game Design Pro to require students to walk through the different aspects of game design and then the steps within the design process. Not all designers will need to know the business side of design, but doing so would mean that the designers would have a better understanding of the business needs and constraints on a particular project. Further, designers would then be better able to approximate their own positions within the development team to aid in development, and even to argue for more money if their positions are more integral to the game’s development than they realized. Video Game Design Pro would be useful for cross-disciplinary student projects drawing team members from various majors for particular game development components. Because of Video Game Design Pro’s inclusive approach to game development, it could also be used in writing classes to help teach script writing, dialogue writing, business plan writing, and more.

9/30/2006