Arcade Berg Game Designer

29Apr/103

Teh importance of spelling

Posted by Arcade

This might seem like an obvious thing, but here's a tip when developing games:

CHECK YOUR SPELLING!

Depending on the environment you work in, different amounts of text input is needed to make things work. For the designer it can be none existing because everything is drag 'n drop, or it can be mid-range and requires you to enter some asset names and stuff or it can be "extreme" and require you to do actual text scriping/coding.

Pretty much regardless of the environment, and regardless of your position, you should try and make sure to spell things correctly, and at very least, always spell it the same way.

If members of the development team are required to write the same thing as someone else it's an must that they use the same system, which is preferably correctly spelled English.

If there are problems with having the entire team spell things the same way, you can lose countless time on trouble shooting why things aren't working.

It's spelled platform, not plattform. If you're gonna write plattform, at least do it all the time. And make sure not to be sloppy and write plattfrom. If you're unsure if it's spelled movable or moveable, look it up or chose one and stick by it.

As I said, it may sound obvious but then prove it by never making that misstake and you'll make the world a better place.

Thanks in advance.

Bet I have several spelling errors in this post...

9Nov/092

Different kinds of documentation

Posted by Arcade

Okay, enough game design for today.

I was thinking that I've been trying several different kinds of documentation. The classical "document", wiki and even Power Point to name a few.

If I have to chose a "favorite" I'd say it's the good ol' document, even though I could tell you enough stories about how they're not great untill your hair turns grey, if it isn't already. (I don't know how old you are or what color your hair is. And if you're bald, I don't mean to offend you.)

It's common for people to say that the best kind of documentation depends a lot on the team. The size, the people, etc. I absolutely agree with that, but I also start to think more and more that I depends even more on what kind of game it is.

Maybe something as "straight forward" as a Four of a kind puzzle game works great with a regular document, while a complex Role Playing Game might work better with a Wiki.

Unfortunately I don't know what kind of game works best with what kind of writing.

What kind of documentation do you prefer to read, to write or to work with?