i'm so white and nerdy...
so at work, i'm reading software requirements and standards documents, which is a combination of extremely interesting, and extremely boring, but more importantly, is re-inspiring me to develop computer games. following requirements satisfaction schemes.
i've always had two games in mind that i'd love to do - one is effectively a first-person shooter based on Pern (of course!), and the other is more a 'series of puzzles/mysteries' game based on the Heralds of Valdemar. i've always figured that the second one would be harder, because the basis of the first one is a monte carlo sequence of threads falling, which the player responds to a bit like the old Galaga video game: scoot and shoot.
then you - well, i - got to thinking. i mean, you could add levels of reality: wind turbulance, visibility, rain/snow/ice or hot hot sun. maybe there would be a burrow sweep afterwards. you could have a training period, gain experience points by successfully burning thread from the sky, or lose it if the dragon gets hit badly and you need to 're-train' when he recovers to deal with the scar tissue. you could have the different colors of dragons taking care of different levels, with response times to the joystick or whatever based on dragon size (larger = slower), or maybe if you fly a lower level, part of the advancement package would include directing those above you.
and then it gets complicated. there's impression, and the Kit Ping gender-selection and inhibitor thing. maybe there's a couple different selectors, so you can play a girl who's riding a bronze or a brown. do you include mating flights, or not? maybe there's two versions of the game? i'm not much into politics or civilization simulation, but you could also do that - the setting up the weyr, organization thing... yeah. then you could come out with: Pern, the Re-Contact Period... Pern, the Epidemic... Pern Colonizes Other Worlds... Ultimate Warfare: Pern Dragons Vs Congress... ok, maybe not.
but i figure let's do things right with having a set of requirements. first, we need the highest set of requirements: customer requirements. the initial stuff that tells the programmers that people want things done.
here are my customer level requirements:
* I want a game where I, as the player, am flying a Pern-style dragon, flaming threads from the sky.
* I would like to have a chance to fly all the colors present in the books.
* There should be some kind of skill level advancement scheme, so I can have a sense of accomplishment when I play.
now i get to play mom the business owner and tell the engineers we've gotten this great opportunity and we should make it happen in 3 mos. this is where the fun begins, because dad and i all the engineers will look at me funny and immediately start spouting off issues with the contract and pointing out there's no way we can fulfill it in time with the resources we have.
because really, what do we know about this Pern? we need a research division to tell us about this planet and culture and this dragon thing. and also, what are the physics of this thread stuff - not to mention how a dragon could possibly fly, and what it will look like.
and how complicated is this advancement scheme? how true-to-life do you want the play to be, what kind of graphics, how about the storyline? if it's just 'scoot and shoot', that's gotta be boring, right? no? well, we need to reach out to the gaming masses to make sure we get a profit for our time.
about this time, mom the business owner asks, 'why are you making this so complicated?'
and dad and i the engineers reply, 'have you looked at CGI lately? no? check out HALO. do you know how much time it takes to come up with stuff like that? and they practically storyboard games like movies these days - we better get in touch with the customer and make sure we're giving him/her exactly what they want.
'and also, we're doing this to ISO industry standards, right? that means we're gonna need to safety check our software.'
'safety check? how could it possibly affect the player's safety?'
'well, it could require so much computational speed that an effort to run the game could generate so much heat on the chips that computer's fans can't get rid of it. then the chipset could fail, and if it's near a battery that's got an acid leak, this could be catastrophic for the laptop. it could blow up, in the process buckling the case and throwing the keyboard cover off and sending a surge down the cigarette-lighter-power-adapter it's plugged into. then the car's computer system overloads, and the driver loses control of the breaks and power steering, and runs into a soft cliff on a deserted mountainside highway. rocks fall, everybody dies. all because the game required too much power to run.'
'yeah. we should build this sucker to military standards.'
'oh,' mom the business owner says weakly.
this is when the HLPTS - high level purchaser technical specifications - get generated, and the fun really begins.
-bs
i've always had two games in mind that i'd love to do - one is effectively a first-person shooter based on Pern (of course!), and the other is more a 'series of puzzles/mysteries' game based on the Heralds of Valdemar. i've always figured that the second one would be harder, because the basis of the first one is a monte carlo sequence of threads falling, which the player responds to a bit like the old Galaga video game: scoot and shoot.
then you - well, i - got to thinking. i mean, you could add levels of reality: wind turbulance, visibility, rain/snow/ice or hot hot sun. maybe there would be a burrow sweep afterwards. you could have a training period, gain experience points by successfully burning thread from the sky, or lose it if the dragon gets hit badly and you need to 're-train' when he recovers to deal with the scar tissue. you could have the different colors of dragons taking care of different levels, with response times to the joystick or whatever based on dragon size (larger = slower), or maybe if you fly a lower level, part of the advancement package would include directing those above you.
and then it gets complicated. there's impression, and the Kit Ping gender-selection and inhibitor thing. maybe there's a couple different selectors, so you can play a girl who's riding a bronze or a brown. do you include mating flights, or not? maybe there's two versions of the game? i'm not much into politics or civilization simulation, but you could also do that - the setting up the weyr, organization thing... yeah. then you could come out with: Pern, the Re-Contact Period... Pern, the Epidemic... Pern Colonizes Other Worlds... Ultimate Warfare: Pern Dragons Vs Congress... ok, maybe not.
but i figure let's do things right with having a set of requirements. first, we need the highest set of requirements: customer requirements. the initial stuff that tells the programmers that people want things done.
here are my customer level requirements:
* I want a game where I, as the player, am flying a Pern-style dragon, flaming threads from the sky.
* I would like to have a chance to fly all the colors present in the books.
* There should be some kind of skill level advancement scheme, so I can have a sense of accomplishment when I play.
now i get to play mom the business owner and tell the engineers we've gotten this great opportunity and we should make it happen in 3 mos. this is where the fun begins, because dad and i all the engineers will look at me funny and immediately start spouting off issues with the contract and pointing out there's no way we can fulfill it in time with the resources we have.
because really, what do we know about this Pern? we need a research division to tell us about this planet and culture and this dragon thing. and also, what are the physics of this thread stuff - not to mention how a dragon could possibly fly, and what it will look like.
and how complicated is this advancement scheme? how true-to-life do you want the play to be, what kind of graphics, how about the storyline? if it's just 'scoot and shoot', that's gotta be boring, right? no? well, we need to reach out to the gaming masses to make sure we get a profit for our time.
about this time, mom the business owner asks, 'why are you making this so complicated?'
and dad and i the engineers reply, 'have you looked at CGI lately? no? check out HALO. do you know how much time it takes to come up with stuff like that? and they practically storyboard games like movies these days - we better get in touch with the customer and make sure we're giving him/her exactly what they want.
'and also, we're doing this to ISO industry standards, right? that means we're gonna need to safety check our software.'
'safety check? how could it possibly affect the player's safety?'
'well, it could require so much computational speed that an effort to run the game could generate so much heat on the chips that computer's fans can't get rid of it. then the chipset could fail, and if it's near a battery that's got an acid leak, this could be catastrophic for the laptop. it could blow up, in the process buckling the case and throwing the keyboard cover off and sending a surge down the cigarette-lighter-power-adapter it's plugged into. then the car's computer system overloads, and the driver loses control of the breaks and power steering, and runs into a soft cliff on a deserted mountainside highway. rocks fall, everybody dies. all because the game required too much power to run.'
'yeah. we should build this sucker to military standards.'
'oh,' mom the business owner says weakly.
this is when the HLPTS - high level purchaser technical specifications - get generated, and the fun really begins.
-bs