Studio 6 | Exploring Playability

Summary
In 'Level Design for Games', Chapter 1, Phil Co describes the process of designing and implementing a game. This process is split up into two categories: preproduction and production. The former involves hiring a team, brainstorming and planning out the game whilst the latter consists largely of implementation, but also revising and building on the original plans and reimplementing in an iterative fashion. Phil Co largely focuses on the team members involved, specifically highlighting the structure and hierarchy of the team, but also gives solid examples of the content that needs to be created.

During the preproduction stage, Phil Co advocates that both a 'high concept' -- a creative description of the concept -- and a more detailed design document are created. For the design document, he suggests using diagrams to model the menu, world and level design.

He also writes about the concept of the 'asset pipeline' which describes "the rules and standards by which all content is created and brought into the game", i.e. the method of importing assets into the game engine.

Although he defines many team leaders and sub-team leaders, Phil Co advocates that each team should work closely with each other and communication is vital.

Similarities
Phil Co's idea of the "high concept" maps directly onto Bethke's initial definition of the game concept; they both set the mood and aim to give an overview of the gameplay style. Both recommend that a detailed list of assets is created for inclusion in the design document. Both also recommend that the shell menus are described in detail.

Differences
Phil Co's text focuses a lot more on the team members involved, whereas Bethke barely mentions it. Instead, Bethke goes into a great deal more detail about the design document and lays his text out into comprehensive sections, also talking a lot more about story. Bethke also focuses more on user-interaction with the game.

Whereas Bethke focuses primarily on the design document, Phil Co provides a wider view of the process of creating a game.