Si Donbavand – Development Director @ wrkflw

Today’s guest lecture was delivered by Si Donbavand, Development Director at wrkflw. Si started the lecture by introducing himself and the experiences that got him into the games industry and also throughout his career. In 1996, due to Si’s interest in the games industry and video games he decided in his spare time he would create multiple mods for the game Doom, which were recognised by multiple game developers as creative and this would lead him on to being recruited into Psygnosis. Throughout Si’s career he has worked in many job roles for example, working for AAA companies such as EA and also Sony.

The main focus of Si’s lecture was set into a category called ‘3 is the Magic Number’. This described 3 main focuses that a student like myself should take in while studying for a Games Industry job role. The 3 main points that Si was referring to were: 1. Portfolio 2. No such thing as a bad Idea 3. Prototyping game ideas

The information that Si shared was extremely helpful from an Artist’s point of view as some of the pointers mentioned can be applied to my work and portfolio to help allow me stand out from the crowd of other artists applying for the same job. The third section of the lecture was entirely dedicated to learning how to prototype your game and also to take your time when this step occurs. Si described that it is extremely important to take your time with Prototyping your game as this could define whether the game is successful or not due to the amount of time put into prototyping. With this information I decided to do a lot more research within the importance of prototyping a game and the steps to take when it comes to taking this massive leap in game development. This lead to find an article located on a popular website called Gamasutra.com which described ‘The Importance of Rapid, Iterative, Prototyping’. The importance of Prototyping is essential within creating a video game, it is described as: “the act of creating an original model as a foundation for the end product, is an essential and efficient part of the game design process”. The article describes the prototyping to be cut into two different stages, First stage and also Second stage. Within the first stage it is advised to stay flexible in all stages, whilst brainstorming around 80% of the ideas for the game. There are multiple different ways of prototyping but it is extremely popular to start by using paper, this allows rough sketches of the design to be thrown about which help the process along further. It is advised that in the middle of the two stages of prototyping your game it is valuable for you to create a little mock-up which can be evaluated by testers which will allow them to give feedback on what they think could be changed, what works and what doesn't. Next is the second stage of prototyping, this is where you gather all the feedback received from the testers and start to implement into the design and creation process. It is described to always have a playable build, as it’s very important to be able to play and test the features you are working on. The article also reminds the user to remain flexible throughout this process as anything can change.

References: The Studio Liverpool, (2014), Si Donbavand [ONLINE]. Available at: http://thestudio.northernschoolstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/06/si-donbavand.jpg [Accessed 06 March 15]. Gamasutra: Shelly Warmuth's Blog - The Importance of Rapid, Iterative, Prototyping. 2015. Gamasutra: Shelly Warmuth's Blog - The Importance of Rapid, Iterative, Prototyping. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ShellyWarmuth/20101213/88622/The_Importance_of_Rapid_Iterative_Prototyping.php. [Accessed 06 March 2015]. Gamasutra - The Art & Business of Making Games. 2015. Gamasutra - The Art & Business of Making Games. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.gamasutra.com/. [Accessed 06 March 2015].