This is a work in progress and may be submitted as a journal paper in the future.
Only for use by the game classes at Old Dominion, North Dakota, and Southern Illinois.
Do not quote, do not reference.
--Serryth 18:41, 26 March 2008 (CDT)
[Disclaimers: This design strategy is written specifically as an instructional design approach to story-based game development. There is much reference to the Neverwinter Nights (NWN) because this document was a result of our experience in NWN modding. You may need to mod(ify) the process to suit your need should you desire to work with other games that allow modding.]
The game development process can be very different depending on what resources are available to you and what position you are in. If you are the boss of a game company and have just landed a large contract to make StarCraft 3.0, you will have no problem getting what you want because you will be able to hire any number of 3D modelers, graphic artists and programmers you need to create the game.
However, if you are the boss of a small game company planning on creating your first game with a low-cost game engine, or a game-modder trying to create a game mod using a commercial off-the-shelf games (as in our case), then you will very likely be limited by the game resources you have at your disposal. This is why it is extremely important for you to always be mindful about what’s available in the objects library of the game engine you are currently using.
In our case, the game development platform chosen is a commercial off-the-shelf game called Neverwinter Nights (NWN). The game came with a game development kit (GDK) called, Aurora Toolset. Anyone who had purchased NWN may use the GDK freely to create new game modules that are playable on a PC preinstalled with NWN. [A full description of the copyright information may be found here.]
This strategy guide will show you how to create serious games with Information Trails design framework (Loh, 2007). The Information Trails infrastructure allows you to collect data based on game-appropriate learning objectives, so you can perform user-performance (assessment) analysis with serious games.
Continue to » Stage 1: Analysis