Part 3: Macro vs Micro Design
The Macro Design is the 2nd deliverable of Pre-Production. Splitting the design into two components, the Macro and the Micro, is the third keystone of Method.
- The Macro Design is completed by the end of Pre-Production.
- The Micro Design is created during Production.
This methodology is the result of one of the most dangerous myths in game development:
MYTH #7: DESIGN DOCUMENTS
"The more defined your initial vision, the better" Or restated: "I need a 100-page document describing my game"
You don’t need this document to start your game. You don't need this document ever. The single worst thing you can do at the start of Pre- Production is to sit down and write a 100-page design document.
Why no 100-Page design document?
It's a waste of resources
Even in the best of cases documents are a necessary evil, along with anything else which does not feed directly into the game or into the marketing effort. No matter how great it is, I guarantee you no player will ever enjoy your document.
It is deceptive
It gives the appearance of more knowledge than actually exists. Do you really know that your character is 2.5 meters tall? Do you really know that a castle will look good when built by your artists with your tools? And it is misleading, in that it perpetuates the myth that you can plan your game in detail before you even start making it!
It sets direction prior to verification of fundamentals
Let's say you've designed gameplay within your document, under the assumption that your player character has a simple punch move. Then during prototyping you discover a wonderful combo punch system that is completely new, intuitive and fun. Guess what all that gameplay you've designed for the single punch is now moot.
That being said, at the end of Pre-Production you should have a very nice five-page Macro Design document which completely encompasses what you need to enter full Production.
Macro Design
The Macro Design consists of:
- Five pages
- Character and moveset
- Exotic mechanics
- Level structure, size and count
- Level contents
- Overarching structure linear, hub
- Macro chart
Five Pages
It might sound pretty short for the Macro Design, but it's just enough to fill in where the prototype left off and to show the overall scope and organization of the game.
The contents of the five-page Macro Design are brief descriptions of the following:
Character and Moveset
This is the fundamentals of the gameplay, as verified by the prototype. Who is the character? What are the basic moves? The special moves? How far can the character jump? How high?
Exotic Mechanics
Does the character ride vehicles? Use gizmos? What are rough concepts for each of these objects?
Level Structure, Size and Count
What is in a level - is it an area, or a path? How large or long is a level? How many levels are there?
Level Contents
What is the player doing in the levels - a single mission? multiple missions? Walking down a path? If there are missions, how are they presented to the player?
Overarching Structure
How do the levels fit together? Is it a fundamentally linear progression like Crash 1, or a hub system like Crash 2 or Spyro the Dragon? How are bosses used in the game; are they in their own levels, or combined into regular levels?
Macro Chart
Finally, there is a Macro chart that shows what sort of gameplay goes where in the game. There are a lot of things implicit in the chart. A knowledge of the planned variety in the game, the scope of the game and its high-level structure. Every mechanic that you intend to use should be in this chart.
Example:
| Locale | Level Structure | Exotic Gameplay | Required for Level Entry | Received in Level | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jungle | 3-D | Egg | ||
| 2 | Volcano | 3-D | run from lava | Egg | |
| 3 | Snow | 2-D | ice (training) | Egg | |
| 4 | Desert | 3-D | motorcycle | 1 egg | Egg |
| 5 | Locale A | 2 eggs | Egg | ||
| 6 | Snow | 2-D | ice | 4 eggs | Key |
| 7 | Locale B | BOSS | Key | open hub 2 |
Here's a Macro Chart for a hypothetical game that is a cross between Crash and Spyro (for the sake of legibility, it only has information about the first seven levels). Each row describes one of these levels. The relevant information changes from game to game, but in this case, we need to know the locale of each level, whether it is a 3-D or 2-D level, what exotic gameplay it contains, what the player must have collected in order to enter the level, and finally, what objects can be collected in the level.
The first thing you should notice about the Chart is, it all fits on one page. If it's all on one page, you can see in a glance how your game "shapes up." Is all gameplay of a certain type bunched up near the beginning or near the end? Are abilities or moves introduced and trained in a smooth distribution? Do my barriers to level entry progress properly?
The second thing about the Chart is that when you make it, which is directly after delivery First Playable, it will have some unknowns in it. That's all right, as long as there are no dependencies on the unknown items. In this particular Macro Chart, the locales of levels 5 and 7 have not yet been determined.
Benefits of a Macro Design
- By knowing the scope of the game on a macro level, then you can accurately schedule the micro level, a.k.a. Production.
- The macro chart provides a tool for tracking progress in Production.
- A strong macro prevents feature-creep or feature-drop in the Production phase.
- Your level designers are given the opportunity to be creative, but their creativity is circumscribed by the intended ruleset of the game.
Macro Design Extras
A few things will admittedly take your Macro Design document beyond five pages. Those are:
- Brief Story
- Concept Art
- Acquired abilities or Inventory (holistic games only)
Story & Concept Art
You should count on having a pretty solid story idea which you don't intend to change, and enough conceptual art to frame your look just as the Macro Chart frames your gameplay.
Abilities & Inventory Dependencies
If later level construction depends heavily on abilities learned in earlier levels - for example, you learn a gliding mechanic, or how to use explosives - then the designers will need a lot of information in order to make levels or areas which correctly interrelate with each other. These documents may get very large indeed, and require a substantially greater amount of prototyping prior to First Playable.
Method, part 3: Macro Design vs Micro Design
Micro Design
The Micro Design consists of:
- Script
- Level maps
- Enemy descriptions, behaviors
- Puzzle descriptions
- Special gameplay descriptions
- And much more…
The day-to-day work of designers during Production will be working on specific levels. The design task is to take single lines from the Macro, and based on them, create true level maps, enemy descriptions and behaviors, puzzle descriptions, special gameplay descriptions, and all the detailed documentation required to implement a level.
Why not create Micro documentation before starting Production?
Your team will be waiting until you finish the Micro design. Since you know everything you need to know with your Macro Design, you can start building the game and write the Micro design as you go.
As you go through Production, you are still learning things. Certain techniques, cameras, gameplay types, which work better than others, etc. So long as you don't violate your Macro design, you can advance the state of the art for your game during Production without breaking the continuity or consistency of the experience.