Design and production of Frog's Princess

Kathy Smart

Master of Creative Arts specialising in Creative Writing
Advanced Diploma in Professional Game Design and Production

Image of Arts Council website with Commonwealth Government coat of arms titled A new National Cultural Policy with an inset saying, Your submission has been received. Thank you for your input.

Kathy made a 17-page public submission about videogames to affect the National Cultural Policy.

Kathy was profiled as an international Game Changer by gamesindustry.biz in the seventh and final episode, 16 December 2021.

Kathy was awarded a 2021 Rising Star Award in the Australian Game Developer Awards for the impact she made to the local industry in a relatively short space of time.

Kathy won the South Australian Women in Innovation Winnovation - Arts award in 2021.

Kathy is passionate about re-telling fairy tales to show children overcoming barriers to be the best they can be.

Writing

Frog's Princess by Joy Everafter is a middle-grade novel about a princess trying to save her kingdom when everybody around her thinks she is incapable, and a prince who doesn't believe he'll ever live up to his noble father. The novel has not been published but Joy Everafter has details about the novel and parent and teaching materials at joy-everafter.com/tween-books/frogs-princess.

Screen shot of welcome page - Joy Everafter website

Design

This is how you design an interactive storybook.

First, you start a Game Design Document (GDD).
Then you create a gameplay script. Kathy used FinalDraft which is fantastic.

Screen shot of a scene from Frog's Princess

You turn the script into a storyboard so you know the background, lighting, characters, animations, props, dialogue, SFX, looping SFX, music for every page, and VFX.

You know your storyboard is perfect. Here's what happens when you show a storyboard to an artist like Christy Butt.

Example of a storyboard for the above scene

You can now create a Master document with confidence. Be prepared to update this many, many times:

This is a series of headings in an Excel spreadsheet. Chapter, Scene, Page, Background, Extra View, Camera, Light, Second light, 3D props, VFX, Movement, Extended version, Dialogue number, Vocalisation, Volume, Ambience, SFX, Music, Dialogue File Name, Place, Action, Speaker, Dialogue, Animations

Note there is no column for UI. The User Interface is designed at the end when you know the final structure of your gameplay.

Production

You go through the Game Design Document (GDD) and make a list of assets - everything that will make up the game - character art, props, environmental art, programming systems, voices, sound effects, music, level design, User Interface (UI)
You estimate how long it will take to make those assets
You estimate how much everything will cost and you constantly revise your estimates
You create a Production Plan Document showing your milestones and what you have done to mitigate risk. It is all lies. If you wanted to mitigate risk, you would be working for the government
You do a budget
You make a business plan
You design a pitch
You seek finance. Many times
You engage staff whom you trust absolutely
You set up communications including regular goal assessment
You set up collaborative working structures like scene sharing sheets, bug reports, and source control
The art and sound assets are finished first, while the level designers and programmers tie everything together. Be ready to meet needs for revisions
You keep the GDD, Master Doc, Technical Design Document (TDD), and Art Bible, current
You set up external Quality Assurance (QA), first for qualitative QA, and later for bugs
You do the UI art last so it will reflect the final game

Then, hey, presto! You have a game.

Screen shot From Kathy Smart Game Designer website

Kathy's qualifications

Master of Creative Arts, Creative Writing, Flinders University, 2009
Advanced Diploma in Game Design and Production, Academy of Interactive Entertainment, 2016
Member of Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA)
Member of IGEA Inclusivity, Diversity, Equality and Accessibility Working Group
Moderator of Adelaide Game Developers discord
Host of Adelaide Game Developers website page
Member of SA Women in Games
Member of Australian Fairy Tale Society

Kathy's contact details

Designer website http://www.kathysmartgamedesigner.com/index.html
Author website https://joy-everafter.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KathySmartGameDesigner
LinkedIn https://au.linkedin.com/in/kathygamedesigner/
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com.au/joyeverafter716/
Twitter twitter.com/KathyGameDesign
Vimeo vimeo.com/joyeverafterstories
YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UCWG7RVh7CmYkzMnhAP-wT0g

Adam Klappers

Adam has come in at the end and marshalled our Citizens of Olden. They had been arrayed in rows but Adam placed them more naturally and brought out soldiers for crowd control. He has a real eye for level design. Here is the final page he did, where there are 478 soldiers and citizens!

Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development, Diploma of Screen and Media, Diploma of Digital and Interactive Games, COMPTIA A+ Certified IT Technician, currently earning Graduate Diploma in Management (Learning).

Email adamklappers85@gmail.com

Max Winzar

Our diners were all over the place and Max got the job of making them sit down and behave. There were 7 levels on some of the pages and different places the diners had to look. Despite the limited number of assets, Max made the dining scenes look natural. Very accurate work, Max!

Great Hall pictured side on with diners facing the middle of the hall where a frog is jumping high, soldiers have drawn swords, and a servant has just spilled a bowl of stew

The Great Hall, facing the front doors where HIlda is depositing a frog on a door handle, watched by soldiers and many diners

Diploma Of Screen and Media
Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development
currently earning Graduate Diploma in Management (Learning)

max.winzar@myself.com