What is the equivalent of a functional specification for games?

Question

I work in a company that writes software for commercial use, usually in style sistema. To specify the software we use several documents among them:

• Functional Specification
• MER (Database Modeling)
• Flows of BPMN activity
• Technical Specification
• Coding standards and standards for design
• Use cases (This we do not use much, but also have had contact)

My question is in the area of games. For software in the style sistema I think it is quite acceptable to use this type of documentation, but I do not see them being very useful in the specification of a game. What techniques/documents are used to describe a game? There are formal tools to make it clear the goal to be achieved?

Answer 1

I don’t have much experience in games, certainly other users can provide more valuable perspectives, but in the few that made the most important diagram was the State diagram.

In a game with many variables and where many things can happen, as in any complex business rule, it is necessary to delimit very well which actions can be performed at a given time and what the consequences of each action.

See, the game may be in a state E. A deed A makes the game change to the state E', but an action B would make the game switch to the state E''.

Of course you will not have a global diagram with all states of the Game but one per changeable element. The character can have the states saudável,ferido, cansado. A weapon may have the state carregada, precisa recarregar, sem balas.

It is important to organize well the elements of the Game and define its states or end up with a tangle of IFs and confusing logics that always end in unexpected results.

Regarding the rules of the Game, each type will require specific documentation, according to the rules that guide it. In an RPG game, for example, you will probably use and adapt the rules of a traditional RPG, while in a sports game you can use and adapt the rules of the sport in question.

Answer 2

Like everything in software engineering the answer is depends on rs

No silver bullet, as you said Brooks, then there is no "equivalences", why these practices/documents you quoted are not exclusive to "systems".

In addition, a game is also a software. So, what prevents a game from adopting one or more of these practices? Absolutely nothing.

You cited various practices at different levels of abstraction, which makes the question very broad and makes it difficult to answer "exact". Also, why is it not useful to have a game technical specification? And why not coding standards and standards for design? Again, nothing prevents the application of one or N ES practices in game development.

Specifically as to your question:

What is equivalent to a functional specification for games?

Nothing prevents use cases, user stories, business models with their rules, etc.. However, due to some specificities, it may take a lot of work to document only with practices better known by the market "conventional".

In the case of games there are also widely accepted practices. An example:

• Game Design Document: with GDD it is possible to represent various aspects of a game as technical (class and components, for example), graphic design and also functional, such as game history (how to achieve goals, for example), your characters, etc. There is a lot of reference and examples about GDD on the web, maybe it helps you.

Another consideration of another question:

There are formal tools to make it clear the goal to be achieved?

Well, you can put any practice in a formal method in ES. If it is always functional and is necessary, there are already another five hundred.

Finishing and remembering, there are no rigid standards in ES, you can adapt existing practices, compose your own mindset, evolve according to your needs and always go beyond =)