The proper way to document a computer game

About Using text plus images to guide a player new to an offline game.

Parent ► Principle of massive information exchange

Notion Time and honored → The proper way? → Guidance overview → Construction

→ Beyond a tutorial clip and game advise → Wayback feature → Practical matters

Time and honored Computer game programmers are on something - ego.

The originally extensive black and white game manuals were actually read cover to cover by some of us despite the rumor to the contrary.

Apparently writing game play guides is a form of game programmer punishment.

Web postings about game playing seem to be written by ten year olds - for ten year olds?

The proper way? Games are played in color - shouldn't game guides be in color?



I've created single file just to figure out how to play the Civilization game stage.

The offline game, Spore, has game stages: Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization and Space.

Each game stage has a honeymoon, game increasing difficulty thresholds and the transition to the next game stage.

The illustrated guidance (left image) file's construction was interrupted by a corrupted CD so there is no content covering the transition to the Space stage.

Guidance overview Better to see an obstacle coming-down-the-pike than out-of-the-blue.

<span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">The images serve to show the consequences of playing a Cell stage and Creature stage of the same Spore game.

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">The game stage records show the transition and out of the two game stages.

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">Game difficulty increases, as expected, in moving up to the next stage of game play -Cell to Creature to Tribal to Civilization.

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">A common game documentation (intentional?) oversight is not to adequately explain the game's (above images show a bit of it) lay-of-the-land apparently because game developers seem to think that blind experimentation on how-to-play-the-game is the most enjoyable way that a player can play the game. <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">Even Hasbro's Civilization II suffers from this game design mindset - Hasbro spent a great deal of time providing ways of seeing the-game-situation from many perspectives but omitted critical information during certain points of the game.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">The game design switch to 3D emulation encouraged a tendancy to hide game information from the player Vs introducing more complex levels-of-game-play.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">Construction Mimicking game development strategy in explaining the game to player(s)

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">The image on the left is a preview version of an augscend management file in a rapport (i.e. augscend content overview) file bundle - the other files in the lead to (game stage) pillar(s).

<p style="text-align: LEFT;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">That is, the game developer has to:

<p style="text-align: LEFT;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">(1) Convince you to buy the game

<p style="text-align: LEFT;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">(2) Assist you in playing the game and guide you in ways that you can provide / review (other player's) feed back about the game.

<p style="text-align: LEFT;">The game developer <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">may provide a web forum for the BUT it is also  <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">reasonable that  <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">player(s) can desire digested content from the  <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">web forum as well. <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">The above threshold images only point to general events that occur when a player plays in a particular game stage - as the typical forum content shows: Game proficiency requires effort.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(44,44,44);">An augscend is just another form of publishing.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(44,44,44);">The process of constructing the game as a product generates plenty of content which can be restructed as electronic files forming the augscend provided for customer use.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(44,44,44);">Real open source game development support would greatly improve game quality.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">Beyond a tutorial clip and game advise Game programmers are lazy and uncreative. <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;">The images are what a player sees at the very beginning of the Civilization game stage.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US">Leftmost: city without any buildings.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">The mini-map shows the tiny world in which this game stage is played. The start of the game stage begins the stage's honeymoon - the brief time to prepare before the game tests-your-game-playing mettle. <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">The Space stage has world(s).

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(44,44,44);">The game honeymoon (above images) is the God of game strategy, watching from on-high, and the piddling game player extending the initially provided game resources in preparation of the game challenges not far-in-the-wings.



<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">There is plenty of information about game resources and initial playing strategy that the game developer should be providing the player new to this game stage.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">My -<span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">Civilization stage game play strategy file shows what game players are not receiving as game documentation.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">Once again: Game programmers are lazy - there is ample evidence that game programmers don't use coffee to keep going.. <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">I suspect that current game programmer(s) are so enamored with adding game gimmicks that there there is little thought about appropriate (game play depth) ways to introduce difficulty.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">That is, make the game harder by hiding information - a properly designed game really doesn't need a cheat mode - something even Hasbro is guilty.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">Wayback feature Are computer games to be fun OR game programmer politic?

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(44,44,44);">Why does final game success require witnessing game developer self admiration?

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">Game programmers seem to enjoy punishing players for making mistakes - The I am God and you are a puny mortal syndrome.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">The original Civilization versions allowed 'Wayback' - replaying (multiple game saves) to an earlier part of game AND undoing some play choices that evolved-badly.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">    Waybacking (Descending save name order) helps a player develop better playing strategy.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">    How is it fun to have to restart from scratch if you made some bad play choices?

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">That game God is on the lookout to zap the player if there is an opportunity - why isn't that game playing knowledge made available to the player if the player wants the information?

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">   Its true, isn't it? - Game programmers are lazy. Practical matters Managerial concerns about image inventory, re-use and revision.<span style="color:rgb(44,44,44);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;">Doing text plus image content is not just finding / creating an image and plugging it into an electronic file - an image tells a story and the surrounding text points out what story the image is telling the person reviewing the electronic file.

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;">My <span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">-Civilization stage game play strategy (guide) file flows:

<p align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0in;"><span style="font-size:medium;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">Transitions: Earlier game stage(s)

<p style="text-align: LEFT; margin-bottom:0in">Honeymoon: Starting game → The Honeymoon

<p style="text-align: LEFT; margin-bottom:0in">Action: Claim geyser(s) → Buy land vehicle → Course correction

<p style="text-align: LEFT; margin-bottom:0in">→ Land vehicle actions → Remedy nation → Consolidate

<p style="text-align: LEFT; margin-bottom:0in">→ Claiming sea spice geysers → The world

<p style="text-align: LEFT; margin-bottom:0in;">The 'Civ strategy' pivot (sub-folder to the Spore pillar) folder uses 'Page' sub-folder(s) to hold (some images used more than once) the jpeg images inserted into the guide file.

<p style="margin-left:0.11in;margin-bottom:0in">The -Civilization stage screen images file shows the name and order of the images that are imbedded within the guide file.

<p align="LEFT" style="margin-left:0.11in;margin-bottom:0in;">The idea is to use existing information about the guide file to assist its construction and possible future revisions to the guide file.

<p style="margin-left:0.11in;margin-bottom:0in;">Most of the images used by this article came from the 'Civ strategy' pivot sub-folder.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">The augscende that the -Individual to individual electronic communication article discusses is a series of augscend(s) so many images are re-used when convenient.

<p style="margin-left:0.11in;margin-bottom:0in">Welcome → Nugget → Rookie → Galactica → Agenda augscend(s)

<p style="margin-left:0.2in;margin-bottom:0in">Are managed by the -Insertion points & -Descriptions files because all inserted images (web download files kept differently) are kept in the (ascending) -Images folder, some images are parents to other images and each augscend Inside file lists the images used.