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The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

nickbentleygames.wordpress.com

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Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#31

Post by xigency »

erik wrote: post #4

I assumed this was about video game design, and it took me a minute to catch on that it was board games. Phase two of this approach, developing 10 prototypes over the course of 6 to 12 months, sounds incredibly labor intensive. Perhaps prototyping board games is easier than prototyping video games. But this seems like it would be a difficult phase to get through, either as a side project, or doing it commercially ful…

Not really, or it shouldn't be. If you have a few hours to spare each day on this hobby and you sit down each day and make a video game that you want to make, in very short time you might have five or ten different games that you've come up with, especially if you're impatient or have a number of different ideas.

You have to consider that a prototype can be very, very rough. If it takes 12 months to make a prototype of a video game, then that's the wrong way to go about making a prototype. This is assuming that the core premise of the game doesn't involve inventing something impossible or solving the halting problem. Even if it involved something tough, you would just have to "fake it" until you figure out what you want to make, anyway.

You should also pick a platform that lets you do things easily, and limit the time you spend. If what motivates you about a game idea is the art and you spend most of your time designing characters or worlds, then after a while you have to treat that as your prototype or put in the minimal effort to combine them, instead of making cut-scenes and making a Final Fantasy game from everything.

The audience for the prototype isn't the final audience either. Maybe it can be friends if they're uncritical but you should really just make it for yourself if you're still in the picking an idea phase.

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#32

Post by kneeko »

hellbanner wrote: post #18
sleepychu wrote: post #2

Interesting read and approach, though you'd have to be pretty committed to pursue it in the 10 stage. It's interesting that he talks about software, I've thought a couple of times if it's possible to produce generic board game design software but I'm still not sure.

http://www.peachpit.com/store/game-mechanics-advanced-game-d... has an online editor for storing values in containers, then with rules for moving those values eg. every turn, +1 food every turn, 50% chance of .. etc it's pretty detailed, worth looking into

Agreed, it's an excellent book. The Machinations tool is available here: http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#33

Post by tmaly »

This had me thinking how could I apply this to features of my side project.

I am not sure if I can. The first thing that came to mind was a set of micro services that provide some feature. These micro services would be composed into a UI using some type of bandit algorithm

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#34

Post by vvanders »

trop wrote: post #7

This has some relation to the "Disney Method" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_method ) where one delays self-criticism until after one has engineered out the problem, and delays engineering things out until one has dreamed up ideas. Of course the Disney Method is cyclical, and requires returning to the dreaming-up state and on from there. This also reminds me of how 35mm street/photojournalists work (see, for…

Yeah, photography has all sorts of parallels. Most people are shocked to find out that shooting ~1-2k images on an outing is normal.

95% of the time I won't know if a shot is "worthwhile" until after I cull/process but it's all about setting up environments that promote the chance of that happening.

Major respect for the people who used to do it in Film, much more discipline and technique required back then.

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#35

Post by hammock »

vvanders wrote: post #34
trop wrote: post #7

This has some relation to the "Disney Method" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_method ) where one delays self-criticism until after one has engineered out the problem, and delays engineering things out until one has dreamed up ideas. Of course the Disney Method is cyclical, and requires returning to the dreaming-up state and on from there. This also reminds me of how 35mm street/photojournalists work (see, for…

Yeah, photography has all sorts of parallels. Most people are shocked to find out that shooting ~1-2k images on an outing is normal. 95% of the time I won't know if a shot is "worthwhile" until after I cull/process but it's all about setting up environments that promote the chance of that happening. Major respect for the people who used to do it in Film, much more discipline and technique required back then.

How does this work for video though? I remember reading somewhere there is about 3 hours of film shot for every hour of final product. That's more than some might think but not close to 100:1

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#36

Post by ecdavis »

hammock wrote: post #35
vvanders wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, photography has all sorts of parallels. Most people are shocked to find out that shooting ~1-2k images on an outing is normal. 95% of the time I won't know if a shot is "worthwhile" until after I cull/process but it's all about setting up environments that promote the chance of that happening. Major respect for the people who used to do it in Film, much more discipline and technique required back then.

How does this work for video though? I remember reading somewhere there is about 3 hours of film shot for every hour of final product. That's more than some might think but not close to 100:1

There is significantly more planning behind video than most still photography. Scenes are story-boarded, shots are carefully set up, lighting is adjusted, etc.

When you look at video that was not carefully planned the ratio of hours shot to hours used goes way up. The Blair Witch Project had a ratio of about 12:1 and while the video from that film was effective it was hardly outstanding from an artistic point of view. Shot-on-location documentaries like Happy People or Welcome to Leith have similar ratios. Even though they're carefully shot, the ad-hoc nature of collecting footage for a film like that makes it necessary to amass a huge amount.

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#37

Post by trop »

caseysoftware wrote: post #21
trop wrote: post #7

This has some relation to the "Disney Method" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_method ) where one delays self-criticism until after one has engineered out the problem, and delays engineering things out until one has dreamed up ideas. Of course the Disney Method is cyclical, and requires returning to the dreaming-up state and on from there. This also reminds me of how 35mm street/photojournalists work (see, for…

> A fiction writer I met teaches her students to make three passes at their work. As I recall, she described the first being for ideas, the second for intentions, the third is to make it read as inevitable. That's really intriguing. Do you have any more info or background on this?

It was a conversation at a party, and I fear I've even forgotten the author/teacher's name. She used the three "i"'s as a mnemonic. Thinking about it, I wonder if the sequence was actually "incident", "intent", then "inevitable".

The scheme is to write down what happened in the first pass. Then the second pass is to make things follow -- fix plot holes, clarify motivation, iron out chronology, etc. The third, "inevitable", pass is, of course, key. It is to hide the seams, to make the story/book appear as if it came whole cloth.

One (counter) example would be Faulkner's first novel, "Soldiers' Pay". In it you can see the hand of the author, self-conscious characterizations and manipulation of scene. It's educational to read, as it clarifies his technique in a way that his accomplished and inevitable-seeming books obscure.

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#38

Post by Someone »

ecdavis wrote: post #36
hammock wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this work for video though? I remember reading somewhere there is about 3 hours of film shot for every hour of final product. That's more than some might think but not close to 100:1

There is significantly more planning behind video than most still photography. Scenes are story-boarded, shots are carefully set up, lighting is adjusted, etc. When you look at video that was not carefully planned the ratio of hours shot to hours used goes way up. The Blair Witch Project had a ratio of about 12:1 and while the video from that film was effective it was hardly outstanding from an artistic point of view…

And of course, there are outliers. Stanley Kubrick did both insane amounts of planning _and_ an insane number of shots. Eyes Wide Shut, at 2 hours, 39 minutes, took 400 days of filming (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120663/trivia). I guess that gets you over the 100:1 ratio.

On the sitcom front, there is Fawlty Towers, where they six spent weeks writing and up to 25 hours of editing on each _episode_ (http://www.tv.com/shows/fawlty-towers/)

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#39

Post by hammock »

Someone wrote: post #38
ecdavis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is significantly more planning behind video than most still photography. Scenes are story-boarded, shots are carefully set up, lighting is adjusted, etc. When you look at video that was not carefully planned the ratio of hours shot to hours used goes way up. The Blair Witch Project had a ratio of about 12:1 and while the video from that film was effective it was hardly outstanding from an artistic point of view…

And of course, there are outliers. Stanley Kubrick did both insane amounts of planning _and_ an insane number of shots. Eyes Wide Shut, at 2 hours, 39 minutes, took 400 days of filming ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120663/trivia ). I guess that gets you over the 100:1 ratio. On the sitcom front, there is Fawlty Towers, where they six spent weeks writing and up to 25 hours of editing on each _episode_ ( http://www.tv…

I dont know what TV editing workflow is like, but 25h doesn't seem outrageous to me. I would budget 2h of edit/mix per song when producing an album. I'm sure there are many who spend way more than that.

Re: The 100:10:1 method – the heart of my game design process

#40

Post by nbaksalyar »

rektide wrote: post #27

I love Fogus's take on 100:10:1. As opposed to this highly linear ever-winnowing flow, Fogus uses 100:10:1 as a way to keep a list of spitballed ideas, a list of things he might want to work on that all have sincere promise, and one thing picked to focus on. Instead of being process driven, focusing on getting one thing done well, Fogus lets himself switch among his 10 picked items. The 10 is a way to swap out when i…

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