My time in the Introductory (now called Essentials) Game Design course at CG Spectrum gave me important experience for high-level Game Design. This focused on making a strong Pitch Deck and high-level Game Design Document (GDD) for a desired game concept.

My concept came from a gameplay mode known as "Titan" mode from Battlefield 2142, a now much forgotten multiplayer-only game from 2006. Since I'm unable to truly play and experience this anymore, my only thought was to recreate it so I could. Additionally, I didn't want to rely on a multiplayer experience to be able to play it, which led me to the other early Battlefield 2 title and it's "HotSwap" mechanic, which is a very strong mechanic for allowing a single player to experience an enormous battle.

While it's a very easy trap to try and take some AAA games and force their mechanics and systems together, I still wanted to pursue this project to learn a solid Game Design experience with concepts that are pretty feasible and beneficial to explore in Unreal Engine.

Pitch Decks are fun to make, especially as you get to be more visual with them such as with mood or visual examples to communicate your point. 

• It had certainly been quite some time since I had made a presentation-style document, so I went through many iterations of this.

• Since I now had access to the Game Design community at CG Spectrum, I made it a point to myself to utilize it. I frequently shared my progress to get feedback from other students and mentors, learning a whole bunch about what an effective use of communication in a Pitch Deck was.

• I've learned much since this class, and would enjoy taking another shot improving this Pitch Deck even more.

• After watching Stone Librande's discussion on One-Page Design documents (https://youtu.be/GXmsxYm0Mk0?si=jdIVE-Yvg9qDAVl9), I made my own attempt at a One-Page Design.

• In this One-Page Design document, I communicate the ship-boarding phase (Phase 2 of a  play session) and what kind of interior play space the players on both sides can expect to experience.

• I focused on having various types of visual references(real-world, AI-generated, art sites) to communicate as much without text.

• I used this opportunity to learn a vector art program, Inkscape, which very quickly showed me how much effort is needed to make something like an isometric floor plan.

• I come from a background in technical writing and document control, so I felt pretty at home with making the Game Design Document. It's even more enjoyable when you get to add just a bit more visual flare to emphasize the genre or mood of the game (such as with the page background I made myself in Inkscape).

• It's difficult to avoid walls of text at times, so I try to keep text in bullet points (something I learned from collaborative projects) to make it easier on the reader to engage with.

• Providing good diagrams and visual references helps, but has it's own difficulties when using them in a page-based document.

• My experience with Game Design documentation has encouraged me to keep looking for different ways to accomplish it. Being in the digital age of paperwork, I often find it's beneficial to include more animated resources (such as GIFs) and links to supporting materials, despite the issues this creates if one hopes to print out the documentation.