Your decision-making process on your game is flawed without proper constraints.

Your choices are based on gut feelings, team efforts are not aligned, and it’s as if everyone is working on a different game. Setting up Department Rules gives you a clear structure to work with. Your micro-decision-making is strengthened, every decision brings toward your Game Direction, and the team acts as a whole entity.

This week, I’ll show you what Department Tools are and how they enhance your Game Design process.

Department Rules make the team focus on what’s best for the game experience.

‍

We’re going to discover:

• What Are Department Rules
• A Real Example

Without further ado, let’s jump right in.

What Are Department Rules

Department Rules are not part of the Game Direction but are based on Game Pillars.

You have much more freedom when defining them since you don’t have to meet the 3 Pillar characteristics. Also, there’s no standard magic number nor specific range that applies to all cases. It varies depending on the game you’re making.

By defining Department Rules, you’re making your Game Pillars converge toward a specific kind of game. So you know that if you go against a Department Rule, you also go against your Game Direction.

For this reason, department Leads must continuously check if the team follows them and update them if they need improvement.

And this brings us to an important point.

‍

Department Rules put constraints on the game content.

Where Game Pillars describe emotions and sensations, Department Rules concretely define what you can and can’t do in the development process. You set the generic constraints your game has to meet to generate the Target Game Experience described by your Game Pillars.

They’re called Department Rules because they relate to the 6 major Game Design branches. Each design department has its own rules that not only the members need to consider. They also apply to anyone within the team who interfaces with that department.

So, let’s say an artist has to make a decision that influences narrative and level design. He must always keep in mind both narrative and level Department Rules to avoid derailing from the Game Direction.

But how do you actually define these rules?

‍

Department Rules emerge during Pre-Production iteration.

The primary purpose of Department Rules is to manage micro-decision-making. And they also emerge from it!

When you start Pre-Production with your Game Direction set, you need to start iterating on the game. The iteration process will be driven by discovering what game you can design to generate your Target Game Experience. So, your Game Pillars will give you the direction of your exploration efforts. As you move on with your game iterations, you need to define some strict rules about the type and structure of your game content. Doing it will secure all future efforts on that content being coherent and in the same direction.

These are the Department Rules. Of course, unlike Game Pillars, you’ll change them many times before reaching the definitive set.

And that’s okay; they are an outcome of iteration, after all.

Now let’s take a look at an example of level design Department Rules.

A Real Example

God of War’s Level Design Rules are the closest thing to the concept of Department Rules.

As you can see, these rules are entirely different from the God of War Game Pillars we’ve seen in the relative episode. They’re much more specific on the game content, and they define the what and the how of it.

They’re not perfect, though. The first is redundant, and the second is pretty obvious in level design work. However, they give you clear constraints content-wise if you need to work on a God of War level. This means that every level produced in the game will be 100% coherent.

Without them, level design work will be much harder and confusing.

Department Rules are the developer instruction manual for your game.

‍

Key Takeaways:

• Department Rules are not part of the Game Direction but are based on Game Pillars.
• Department Rules put constraints on the game content.
• Department Rules emerge during Pre-Production iteration.