DESIGN DIARY - 11.28.00

Rendezvous

"In the old days of the Star Wars CCG, the Art Director would pull images from the movie and compile the 'Bible.' Those were the images that Product Development could use for its next set of cards, and the design work had to accommodate that."

Tom is telling me about the collaboration between the Art Department and Product Development for putting gameplay and visuals together.
But I'm not listening.
I'm looking at the new version of the Jedi Knights playmat, newly revamped by Ed Gartin. It looks good. Really good.
[I would taunt Chuck about it if he were around; but he's in the playtest room, playing the new Lord of the Rings boardgame with designers Tom Braunlich and Rollie Tesh.]

Tom mumbles something about pulling my arms out of their sockets at the next "Gaming Night at the Kallenbachs." That somehow brings me back to reality.

"As I was saying, that's how it used to be done in the old days."
So the meeting ground, the rendezvous point between Product Development and the Art Department was the Art Department. Art was driving the gameplay: even though the game designers could create what they wanted, they had to engineer their final gameplay tweaks so that the function of a card would match its image.

"Over the following few years, a transition took place, where both gameplay and art drove the design of new expansion sets," continues Tom.
He stops and looks at me sideways to see if I'm listening. I'm dutifully taking notes, with pencil in hand and my arms firmly attached to their sockets.

"And then we got to Death Star II, which was the first set to be completely designed before we even started looking at film pulls. We would then select the images ourselves and hand them to the Art Department, who would maybe reject a picture or two and work their magic on the rest of our selections." So the point of connection between PD and Art had progressively shifted from Art to PD.

Is the process different for Jedi Knights?
[Of course I know it is different, but I had to formally ask the question in order to give this entry a suitable structure. A structure I just dented with this very comment, but that's all part of the fun. More on this topic in the "Making of the Diary" Diary entry, which I'll write the morning the designers say they'll use me as a hood ornament if I dare show up once more by their desks.
It might be sooner than you think.]

"For Jedi Knights," Tom patiently continues, "the Art Department was given basic guidelines when they set out to build their extensive 3D model library. Then they defined the characters, objects and sets they could provide for us, and we started requesting images - based on our gameplay - that matched Art's resources."
For instance, Tom might ask for two stormtroopers on a Tatooine sand dune, two Rebel troopers aboard Tantive IV and one droid in the Death Star detention block, because he knows that all of those characters and sets have been digitally modeled. Then it's up to the Art Department to construct the requested images with the available models, using the point of view they think will work best and letting their artistic skills take over.
Greedo's Blaster is a good example. Tom knew weapons were available and so he said he needed Greedo's Blaster Pistol for the card named, well, Greedo's Blaster Pistol. Art decided to present the scene from a quasi-Han point of view, with the smuggler's boot extending on the table right in front of the virtual spectator. The end result looks great. Tom just wanted a blaster pistol. But he loves the image too.

In other words, the image/gameplay chemistry for Jedi Knights takes place at a point that is truly balanced between the two realms. Product Development is guided in its design process by the Art Department's list of available models, while the images that the Art Department puts together and polishes are those required for the gameplay designed by Product Development.

A poet might whisper "full circle" and let his readers draw their own introspective conclusions.
I just look at the Jedi Knights playmat and think that it, in itself, is a stunning meeting point between Art and PD.

Francis K. Lalumiere
The Juggler