When coming up for ideas for a new game it can be quite hard to create something that is unique and original. Not many game designers have achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success with new ideas, because of this, the managers tend to be wary of new concepts and propositions. Even though this may be the case and many will actually go into production, there might be some ideas within that which may be used in other parts of development. What may be easier to do is working with an existing Intellectual Property (IP), the game can use a previous existing idea. IP rights can cover sports to comics, films to games. This in itself brings up the topic of transmedia where stories are transferred over different types of media. If you are to use a similar themed game you must make sure there are enough differences between them in order to avoid copyright infringement. There is no reason why you cannot make a better game using a similar theme, you just need to be careful of the details.
There are many roles which are needed in order to create a game, each role lasting a different amount of time throughout the whole process to one another.
Designers - tend to work through the whole project, most of their work at the beginning and then coming to and end near the game launch. Their job is to come up with the concept, story, gameworld and mechanics.
Art and animation staff - this ranges from 2D drawings of the designers ideas, right up to the 3D models and the animation. For the art staff, they start from the very beginning up until the game testing, whereas for the animation staff they come in a bit later and most of their work takes place in the concept development and game development section.
Sound and music engineers - sound can really drive a game and influence the emotion a player has so it's a really important aspect.
Programmers - they create the code for the engine that delivers the actual game. The main two roles are engineers and programmers but this can then be further subdivided into other relevant roles.
Testing - Quality Assurance professionals and game testers make sure the game works and meets the required specifications. They will try and find any glitches or loopholes, anything that shouldn't be there and this will normally happen as soon as game development starts in order to correct any mistakes.
Managers - There is an overall head of development who oversees the whole project, making sure everything is to schedule. They also usually have the head of each department beneath them, all the roles being filled by experienced staff.
Sometimes before starting the design process it may be a good idea to answer a few questions, these can help in developing and also solidifying your idea.
Describe your game - it should be a short paragraph outlining the game, who the target audience is, any unique features and an idea of what will happen.
Summarising the story - this should capture the essence of the story itself and is different from actually describing the game.
What platform - there are many different types of platform a game can be distributed on, however some platforms may determine certain aspects to be considered, some games may not work well on certain platforms .
Genre - this is a quick and easy way to categorise the game, by doing this it gives a basic outline to what your game should be about
Target Audience - depending on who it is aimed at, the story, objects that are used, gameplay etc will differ.
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