Conclusion

Game development is a complex, difficult, risky undertaking. You can best reduce the complexity and risk at any given point in your project by having a solid team, a clear and compelling concept, and by following an effective development process. The stages discussed in this chapter—concept, pre-production, production, and post-production—should help you understand how a game project progresses and how to allocate your time and activities.

In addition to parceling out your time and focus while developing your game, these stages highlight the reality that in any complex game project there are many different areas of expertise that are required to bring the game to a strong finish—game design, programming, art, sound, QA, and production among them. Convergent iterative development that makes the best use of each of these domains will result in the best, fastest finish for your project.

Another way of saying this is in this formula I wrote up several years ago when trying to explain the different skills needed to complete a game project:

• An idea is not a design.

• A design is not a demo.

• A demo is not a program.

• A program is not a product.

• A product is not a business.

• A business is not profits.

• And profits are not happiness.

It's tempting to jump from the beginning to the end—from an idea to profits and happiness—in one fell swoop. But the reality is that you have to go through each part of the process, each of the stages of development, to get to the goal at the end.