HowTo: Creating A Proposal

Technical¶

When requesting a Project. It requires a small, but detailed information.
Placing that information in a detailed & structured way will reduce errors & speed up the process.

The Information Required is:

Project Name: <Project Name>
Manager Name: <UserName> & <Real Name>

The Person designated as Manager, will then Add Developers & Other Roles required.

The Idea¶

The most important part of any Project is an structured Idea.
Having an already structured Idea before the creation of a Project will encourage & inspire Members to join and assist. The more information about the project. The better chance of success.

Having the idea of wanting to create the Best FPS ever. Does not mean it's structured. In fact it will probably be rejected.

What You Should Have¶

Before requesting the creation of a project. You should pretty much have a Design Document & probably a Technical Document. From the 1st year of CGT/CGD, you should already have a good understanding on how to effectively start creating the Foundations.

If you want to learn more about writing an effective Game Design Document I recommend checking out: http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html
More importantly Chapter 5.

kit89.

Replies

RE: HowTo: Creating A Proposal - Added by Derek Stobbs 422 days ago

While I can't agree with everything Ross has said above, I do agree that it is important to have a solid idea.

What I disagree with is the need for a Design Doc & Technical Doc before you request the creation of a project. This may be appropriate in some cases, but not a one-size-fits all solution. I would say the minmum you should have would be a project brief (described further down). It might be that you want to start the project, get others involved, then collaborate on the design of the project i.e. to decide between you what should be in the Design & Technical Docs.

So, what do I mean by a project brief?

Basically, a one or two page description of what the project would be about, including some details of game and technical design (a mini game/technical design doc). Things that should be included in the project brief:

Project name (e.g. Horace goes to University)

Project unix name [short name with no spaces] (e.g. horace6)

Project Manager (e.g. Your Name - projects should have a manager assigned before they move from idea to proposal stage)

Short description (e.g. Horace returns in a Bak 2 skool style game)

Longer description (one or two (or more) paragraphs about the game/project idea, including style of gameplay, 2D/3D, control system etc.)

Target platforms (e.g. Windows and linux)

Proposed toolchain (e.g. using c++ and freeglut, with other APIs tbc)

Source Control Management (e.g. CVS / SVN / Git)

This list isn't exhaustive and you can include other details. Note the last point is about Source Control Management (SCM). If you don't know what SCM is then you're not ready to propose a project.