PM1. Understand pre and post production processes.
The production phase of development is where the real fun begins. Essentially at this point, this where the team does what the step is on the tin, and that is produce. 3D Modellers will start to make their final models, programmers will start to refine scripts to make them near perfect and animators will begin to refine animations.
During this stage it might also make sense for the team to put together some promotional materials to begin marketing the game and also look at playtesting the game as well. Playtesting is a crucial part during this stage as when the games fundamentals are in place, it gives people the chance to find bugs and errors early on and also provide some feedback on the gameplay so the developers can improve the product.
This stage of development differs from pre-production because this is where you take the ideas and make them a reality, the schedule is getting tighter and the workload will be heavier.
It is also important to note that producers play a vital part at this stage, the producers role is plan and schedule everyone else’s jobs on the team to ensure that deadlines are met and that the workflow goes as smoothly as possible, as an example, A 3D Artist would need to complete a model to pass onto the animator so that it is game ready within a certain length of time.
Post-Production is the final stage of production, this is where the game is near ready and the developers are ready to launch alpha and beta versions of their game before the game goes gold. The typical tasks at this stage of development may include but not limited to:
- Localisation – The process where you make sure your game is ready for individual markets / countries.
- Optimistion – The process to make sure the game runs well on particular hardware, useful for finding recommended minimum specs.
- PEGI – The process of getting your game rated in terms of age.
- Patches / DLC – The Process of fixing or adding content after launch
- Polish – Making the sure the game feels and looks great before publishing.
- Trailer Production / Interviews / Events – Generally used as typical marketing materials and opportunities.
- Bugs – A chance to find bugs so that the finished product is of high quality.
Certification is the process that happens when a developer looks to publish their game onto certain platforms, before they can be certified, the publishers must follow a checklist or set of rules to make sure they meet the platforms requirements, in a way this is a form of quality control.
Before any of this happens, there will be a stage where the developers launch an alpha and a beta. The Alpha is typically used to get peoples reactions from the game, to see how they feel about the game and see whether it is worth pursuing or changing anything, normally this part isn’t feature complete.
The Beta part is more feature complete and asset complete, it typically happens before the game is about to be released. This is where they are trying to get feedback from the game in terms of bugs and exploits that they can fix before release. Beta in todays world, is just a posher word for a demo.
A Master is the final version of the game pre-DLC or patches. This is the version that should be submitted for certification and that the game is ready to be published and pressed to disc.
JORDAN | GLITCH ARCADE 