Wireframing for Game Design

Dave and Ralph over at The Tap Lab created an awesome game called TapCity and gave a great presentation about it at Mobile Monday Boston #momobo.  They also talked game startups at Boston Indies. But before building TapCity they built a binder called BigCity. This binder is a 'wire frame' of the game. The intention was to be able to sit down with the binder, and like a choose your own adventure game, play TapCity.  Of course like all projects, the scope had to be reduced to get things moving.  Unfortunately BigCity did not turn into a playable iOS prototype. Despite not being what they dreamed, BigCity is a tremendous resources and is worth learning from.

This post has some rather large graphics in it.  More after the break...

Failure is always an option.

The Zorts Project is most likely going to fail.  TapDave asked me a direct question about the future of the project, and point blank the answer was "I am planning on the project failing".   The reason behind that is the project may come to a point where we stop working on it.  That does not mean that we have failed.  Quit the opposite actually.  Learning something is never a true failure.

What are we learning from the ZoRTS Project?

• Basic project management is important
• Deadlines are important
• Feedback is important
• Having a rough idea of the game you are making is important (some kind of Game Design Document)
• Most important of all, none of these things need to be perfect, they just need to be present.

There is, of course, another school of thought that only when you embrace that something could fail are you actually prepared from something great to happen.  Failure could even be the very thing that drives the economy!  What are your stories of success through failure?  Share in the comments!

Finals are done!

The final final was taken last night!  It feels really good to get that done.  As a (relatively) free man it is time to start looking for a job, and working more on the ZoRTS project, which by extension means this blog.  It is time to take the advice of Markco (err Chris) and go through and cross link all my old blog posts.  Hopefully that way someone other than myself will actually read this!

Coming up in the near future: More Networking.  TapDave pointed me to TheRubyRiot.  A networking event for startups, people looking for employers and perhaps, a person like myself, learning about the business of computer games.  Time to dive in and see what happens.

Networking Round 2

Todays round of networking quickly follows yesterdays.  Had an amazing chat with Dave Bisceglia CEO of The Tap Lab.  And I forgot to ask him how to pronounce his name!  Damn.  We chatted about games, games, QR codes, Retail Impulse Purchasing, funding startups, being a start up, our favorite professor at BU... John Meyer ("..." used to emphasize that John Meyer is not our favorite professor at BU).  We talked about the Zorts project and why it is not a company.  Very positive chat and I think a future freind.  It was exactly the kind of conversation I was looking for, both 'nuts and bolts' and dreams of what gaming can be.  My lunch with Chris produced a lot more actionable items for the Zorts Project, but then Chris is an amazing project manager so that's to be expected.  Dave is a CEO who is dealing with funding issues, venture capital companies, finding users...  Two very different conversations, but two very good ones to have.