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Original GTA Design Docs, Dated March 22nd 1995

Posted by Soulskill on from the there-will-be-no-floppy-version dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mike Dailly, part of the original GTA team at DMA Design, just posted scans of the original design documents for Grand Theft Auto, which were recently unearthed. It makes for interesting reading!" After following the link, hit the "Newer" button to scroll through the "Race'n'Chase" documents in order. It's interesting to see what concepts they felt the need to state explicitly back then. "If a player-controlled car has a serious crash, it will blow up after a short time. Hence, the player must get out of the car and find another one."

74 comments

  1. Dee Em See Ay by ElectroPrime · · Score: 0

    DMCA takedown notice in 3...

    1. Re:Dee Em See Ay by TheSpoom · · Score: 3

      Dude who posted them was from DMA Design, the original developers of GTA. They're now known as Rockstar North.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    2. Re:Dee Em See Ay by ledow · · Score: 1

      "DMA Design was founded in 1988 by David Jones, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond and Mike Dailly in Dundee, Scotland."

      Given that the last name on this list is the guy who posted it, you might be hard-pushed to keep him to an NDA from the company he founded.

      Sometimes, you know, people just put stuff online because they want to and are allowed to. Like sometimes they open-source their engines, or grant distribution permission for their old (emulated) titles, etc. I know if I ran a software company, I'd keep it in the news for a few years by just leaking out details of big-name projects I'd done in the past to keep the name alive and interest there.

      Hell, back when Bullfrog were making Syndicate they produced a series of articles for one of the computer magazines that used the Syndicate graphics and showed the code and techniques they'd used to move them around on an isometric grid. Nothing "secret" but they had snippets of actual game code in there and it was for a programming article on, basically, "how to make a game like Syndicate".

    3. Re:Dee Em See Ay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what if Steve Wozniak began publishing Apple's early documents...

    4. Re:Dee Em See Ay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what if Steve Wozniak began publishing Apple's early documents...

      Kinda like this...

    5. Re:Dee Em See Ay by biovoid · · Score: 1

      Hell, back when Bullfrog were making Syndicate they produced a series of articles for one of the computer magazines that used the Syndicate graphics and showed the code and techniques they'd used to move them around on an isometric grid. Nothing "secret" but they had snippets of actual game code in there and it was for a programming article on, basically, "how to make a game like Syndicate".

      I remember playing around with that! Do you know which magazine it was in? Edge?

  2. latest release... by underqualified · · Score: 0

    ...from them wikileaks cables?

  3. Ah, AAH, eeek, AHHH! by grizzifus · · Score: 3, Funny

    GOURANGA! :)

    1. Re:Ah, AAH, eeek, AHHH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really wish they hadn't taken this out of the newer GTAs. The excitement of finding a gouranga line and exploiting it perfectly to get the "GOURANGA" bonus is completely missing from the newer games. But then again, if I had to get out of the car to pick up the cash from the Gourangas, I wouldn't mess with it. ... I just read the Wikipedia article for Gouranga, and kind of understand why they were taken out.

    2. Re:Ah, AAH, eeek, AHHH! by K10W · · Score: 1

      I hear some Hare Krishnas were happy about it as people saw the word. Admittedly I suspect many would be upset but there are enough round my part of the world who spraypaint motorway bridges or grafitti/poster bins with it to convince me of the truth that some are more than happy for it to appear in the game as it gets the word seen. Personally I find the extremist breed of Krishnas to be cheapening their beliefs and values by writing it on bins and spamming it on walls without permission across a city. Thankfully they seem to grow up eventually.

  4. Paperwork by ledow · · Score: 1

    Seems a bit pointless to document what they have there.

    It's a *very* rough outline of a game, almost like saying "It's going to be like Game X but possibly better!". The only details are things like the pixel-size of a block and the map size in blocks which seem a bit odd to document that early - surely something you'd leave until later when you know how the engine reacts.

    It looks like they already knew what they were working towards and this was just a formal document that doesn't lock down very much or actually describe what choices were made or why. Although there are a few "surprises" like they envisaged a school crossing with children on it (yeah, that would go down well when you can run them all over), or various race modes, or being able to control external cars with a mouse, and having a 2D-SimCity-like view for slow computers, none of that really comes to fruition and was obviously rejected almost immediately after this document was written.

    About the only interesting thing is the timeline (which kinda leaves a lot of games in the modern era in the dust), really.

    Come on. The game is nearly 20 years old now. And there were tons of games in that kind of era. Surely *one* of them must have some interesting documentation available somewhere. This just reads like: "We're already writing this game but management wants us to follow this formal process - let's just make stuff up and pretend we were aiming for this design already".

    1. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This document is a "spec" not a design. Still interesting to read though.

    2. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Although there are a few "surprises" like they envisaged a school crossing with children on it (yeah, that would go down well when you can run them all over)

      Why would this be a "surprise"? It's in the game. Anyone who's played the original GTA doubtless has fond memories of GOURANGA!, which is to say, running over an entire line of schoolchildren out on a field trip. You get a hefty point bonus for it.

    3. Re:Paperwork by Flibberdy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would this be a "surprise"? It's in the game. Anyone who's played the original GTA doubtless has fond memories of GOURANGA!, which is to say, running over an entire line of schoolchildren out on a field trip. You get a hefty point bonus for it.

      I think you'll find that the Gouranga bonus was for driving over a line of Hare Krishnas.. hence the word "Gouranga", which is a popular Hare Krishna chant

    4. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They weren't schoolchildren in our version? They were Hari Krishna.

    5. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They were a Hare Krishna troupe, not schoolchildren. Hence why it was a "gouranga" bonus.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouranga

    6. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, basically: It's not interesting for me, so everyone must feel the same!

    7. Re:Paperwork by Anrego · · Score: 1

      Guess it depends on approach.

      I actually find when building a spec for something complex (and that's really what this is, a spec, not a design) it is sometimes helpful to write out the obvious stuff. I'll do this in meetings as well sometimes... put the basic things we all know on the whiteboard. It seems to have a centering effect. People can go off tangants, and having a "this is the basics of what we're trying to do" document can serve to bring people down to reality and help determine if ideas fit the overall project.

      But as you said, this could also just be a case of needing _something_ on paper to check a checkbox somewhere for the money folk.

    8. Re:Paperwork by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      it's the kind of document you make up to get funding and then never show to anyone.

      and the references to actual sizes and such, it sounds like it was written after coding the initial engine. and really the game is such that it was probably just written straight, the most important thing being the graphics engine which actually was pretty neat and supported vesa2.0 modes and probably used some tricks to make it fast, too.

      what sucks about gta1 and all gta's after that is that the action is focused only around the player. it was pretty obvious in lan gaming gta1.

      so.. anyone bored enough to make a single a4 detailing everything there is in gta1? it's possible, no need to use even a small font if you use few diagrams to explain the very easy "3d" in it, it would also explain why there's no rotation(makes drawing the buildings simpler).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    9. Re:Paperwork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't make design docs like these anymore.

      I'm guessing you've seen the design docs for all the new games these days - Go from A to B shoot guys.

      Race 'n Chase is not this. It is much more deep than that. These documents show what could've been more.

    10. Re:Paperwork by guruevi · · Score: 1

      What strikes me is that even though it's a very rough project proposal that even then they were already looking for optimizations to get more done in less space as well as specify a game editor.

      "Rotation can be done in software, this means we only have to store 3 frames per car (for the up/down rotation)", "Store 2 byte pointer for each block (landscape) instead of 5 faces & type", "The whole level should fit in memory (which comes out to be 1MB)".

      These days they create a bunch of unnecessary graphics and seem to load them all into memory even if the level doesn't need them.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    11. Re:Paperwork by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 0

      Ah, so you are "celebate", not a virgin, right?

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  5. As a video games lawyer... by CyberK · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm disappointed that the words "Murder Simulator" aren't in there anywhere.

    1. Re:As a video games lawyer... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      That's because ambulances would always come and revive "corpses" eventually. ~

  6. GTA docs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope no body shoots them a DMCA takedown... would be wasting their time anyways. Just in case though, I downloaded it. :D

    Can't believe I'm up at 6 AM for this.

  7. most nonclear 'headline' in history? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Bogus Claim: Japan Earthquake Won't Trigger a California Quake" news.yahoo.com etc... (3 days running, story doesn't help at all.)

    is that a double juxtaposition? are they typing too fast, are we reading too slow? intentionally unsettling? phewwww

    could be that the truth is such a short story, that we wouldn't need constant media attention, if we knew what it was, or why it's always missing?

    as the softwars, & the holycost, are ending, some of the uninfactdead penguinistas are looking good as potential jurors of the newclear powered kode, so that's good.

  8. Is there any easy way to download this? by SendBot · · Score: 2

    I've never found a quick way to download flickr sets. Closest I've come are old apps that have had api access blocked off. It's such a hassle to manually pick the high-res images and download them all to the same folder. Short of writing my own program to do it, does anyone have a good way to get all these images?

    1. Re:Is there any easy way to download this? by Bowdie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I used an app called "downloadr" a while back. Seemed to work pretty well. Don't have a link to it here, but a quick google should find it.

      hth

      --
      yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
    2. Re:Is there any easy way to download this? by SendBot · · Score: 1

      hey that worked great! TYVM!

    3. Re:Is there any easy way to download this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's such a hassle to manually pick the high-res images and download them all to the same folder.

      On the other hand it's only 12 pages ;)

    4. Re:Is there any easy way to download this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just wrote my own program.

  9. There's a missing page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The one about fucking hookers and killing children.

    1. Re:There's a missing page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      search.yahoo.com/sex money infant murder

      you're welcome?

    2. Re:There's a missing page by slim · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't think the hooker gimmick came in until GTA 3, which was almost a completely different kind of game. I was never offended by the part where you could take a hooker to a quiet place, whereupon your bank balance would fall a bit, your car would rock around a bit, then she'd get out of the car and walk off.

      What was more unpleasant was that you could then beat her up, to get your money back plus a bit more. Yet, having included the (implied) car sex part, how could they avoid this without breaking the sandbox element? You have an attack button. You have a weapon in your hand. The only thing they could do would be to create classes of NPC who were magically immune to your attacks, which would really break immersion.

      The defence I can offer is that the game doesn't require you to kill prostitutes. It doesn't really reward it (the money they drop is hardly significant). It must give you the ability to do so in order that the world is consistent. If you choose to do it, that reflects more on you than on the game designer.

      I don't recall any child murder from GTA3 onwards. GTA 1/2 may have had children, but since they were tiny cartoony sprites, it's a fairly different prospect.

      Mind you, I don't really see why murdering adults is less objectionable than murdering children.

    3. Re:There's a missing page by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      I've played a fair bit of GTA in my time, and other than news reports, the thought of murdering hookers in GTA never crossed my mind. I wonder how this even started? It reminds me of all the news reports lately of over-the-counter convenience store drugs that I never new existed. The news is informing us what they are called, how to use them, and where to buy them. Seems rather odd to me.

    4. Re:There's a missing page by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I've played a fair bit of GTA in my time, and other than news reports, the thought of murdering hookers in GTA never crossed my mind.

      Again, it's a logical extension of the sandbox concept - if you give an NPC money for some service, and then kill them, you should be able to get the money that. This was fairly prominent in past sandbox games, too - e.g. in Fallout, merchants in first two towns could become useless fairly early, and killing them was a quick way to get your money back for higher-end stuff (of course, you could do even better by killing them as soon as you meet them and taking all their gear for free).

      But sandbox was not prominent outside of RPGs, and those themselves tended to be more obscure than action games when it comes to sensationalist headlines - dunno why, really; I mean, in Fallout you could actually kill children, and they had all the same death animations as adults - head and limbs being torn off from a close-up burst or shotgun blast, gibbing by explosions, burning complete with screams, dissolving into mushy paste (from a plasma gun hit) etc. You'd think someone would pick that up long before GTA.

    5. Re:There's a missing page by K10W · · Score: 1

      Admittedly I've done much worse to the small beggar child in Deus Ex when it first came out and that looked much better than GTA ever did. As for morrowind and the like my crimes were much greater than I ever managed in GTA including exterminating towns but I think these things are overdone and sensationalised as in RL I'd always act the opposite, I'm a pacifist for one and jumped in on many fights to split them up including getting some heavy kickings whilst doing so but not retaliating so that isn't synonymous with coward btw. GTA 1 and 2 were only so successful due to Max Clifford hyping it so much. Yeah it was playable but appeared to be another clone similar to many other Atari ST games and 386 pc games I had before GTA came out much later, memory ain't what it used ot be but Hill street blues comes to mind which looked virtually the same and had similar dynamics for the out of car bits.

  10. rockPaperShotgun by bguiz · · Score: 3, Informative
    I think this link is worth appending to the submission:

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/22/dailly-news-gtas-original-design-document/

    (it is also linked in the comments of the currently linked article)

  11. still such things; riffraff, canon fodder, clones? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    more than ever. after they (by no choice of their own) clean up their language (tone as well), & cinematic attitudes, they'll be welcome at the play-dates. the missing pages are being re-produced all over the world, as we fail to communicate, right now.

  12. GTA IV Docs ? by ATH500 · · Score: 1

    Imagine what GTA IV Docs would look like now with all the interactions possible in the game... It's amazing to see how much the complexity of the game evolved.

    1. Re:GTA IV Docs ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I mean, all those games for windows features, man, I tell you!

  13. Fuckface by Legion303 · · Score: 1

    Original article instead of some idiot's shitty photo blog: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/22/dailly-news-gtas-original-design-document/

  14. MOD PARENT DOWN by Legion303 · · Score: 1

    Ha ha! As it happens, I am the idiot. I didn't realize the flickr link belonged to the originator of the docs.

    1. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No problem.

  15. PDF Version by Viperpete · · Score: 1

    From comments of original article:

    kregg says:
    March 22, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    Just for those who don’t like or have trouble browsing through the images, I’ve made a PDF Version of the high-resolution image documents for convenience. All pages are in the right order.

    Also, I don’t own any rights to these images, these still are of Copyright to Mike Dailly, I’ve just put the images together in a PDF format for easy reading.

    --
    loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
  16. From his website! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.javalemmings.com/miked/programming.htm

    links to GTA and Lemmings docs...

    1. Re:From his website! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actualy it includes the prototype code...Pascall..

      to make it run download dosbox and mount the folder...

      3D graphics in 94!

    2. Re:From his website! by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 1

      http://www.javalemmings.com/miked/programming.htm

      links to GTA and Lemmings docs...

      Actualy it includes the prototype code...Pascall..

      to make it run download dosbox and mount the folder...

      3D graphics in 94!

      Was going to post this myself. Hopefully someone will mod-up P and GP.

      --
      +0 Meh
    3. Re:From his website! by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Any idea how to get those prototypes running on a modern Windows computer?
      Vista basically says it's not an x86 executable.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    4. Re:From his website! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any idea how to get those prototypes running on a modern Windows computer?
      Vista basically says it's not an x86 executable.

      Buy yourself a brain, I'm sure you'll manage to run the programs with it.

  17. Oh the violent horror! by snap2grid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess it's predicable that some people are focused on the whole "murder simulator" thing, which can't seemingly be separated from GTA. Since I was at DMA at the time (I'm mentioned in the first paragraph on pg 4), I can tell you that nothing like that was in our minds. What no-one seems to get - or remember - is that GTA was in large part a pisstake. We deliberately made the graphics bright and garish. We deliberately added humour. We didn't take it too seriously. If anyone still has the paper map that came with it (you didn't all pirate it surely?) just take a look at the adverts around the side. (I'm paraphrasing but... "Enjoy a meal while our technicians accelerate particles to the speed of light." - An advert for a combined cafe and particle accelerator!) GTA was a cartoon.

    1. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Goldsmith · · Score: 1

      I loved the first two GTAs (the top down, sprite graphics, cartoonish feel). The humor in those games was definitely noticeable. I have a copy (not pirated) around here somewhere. By far, the absolute best thing about those games was the multiplayer. My brother and I spent a lot of time doing stupid stuff in those games.

      It was a mistake to go toward more realism and no multiplayer in GTA 3 (or whatever it ended up being called when it rebooted in 3D).

    2. Re:Oh the violent horror! by failedlogic · · Score: 1

      I didn't really like GTA 3 but I've got to say the GTA 3 talk radio is probably some of the funniest material I've ever had in a game and it adds a cool feeling to the game.

    3. Re:Oh the violent horror! by kliklik · · Score: 1

      Having played Miami Chase on Amiga before GTA on PC I always thought that it was greatly influenced by it to say the least. Were you guys even aware of Miami Chase?

      --
      guru in training
    4. Re:Oh the violent horror! by snap2grid · · Score: 1

      I can't speak for everyone, but I hadn't heard anyone mention it. I'm pretty sure that the graphics engine (Mike's "Legovision" as we called it) predated any idea as to what we'd use it for.

    5. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Raenex · · Score: 1

      I guess it's predicable that some people are focused on the whole "murder simulator" thing, which can't seemingly be separated from GTA. Since I was at DMA at the time (I'm mentioned in the first paragraph on pg 4), I can tell you that nothing like that was in our minds. What no-one seems to get - or remember - is that GTA was in large part a pisstake.

      I never played the first two games, so maybe it isn't true for those, but the first time I played GTA3 I was just in awe of the realistic feel of the city. I remember car surfing just to take in the scenery and layout of the city.

      I also remember the first time I used the sniper, and the perverse pleasure I got from popping somebody's head off from afar while blood spouted of their neck. Yeah, don't call the Feds, you guys know you did it too.

      I remember the first time I drove in the game I actually tried to follow traffic laws, and then the liberating feeling of learning to cut across property in insane fashion. I remember getting urges, after playing the game for a while, to do the same while driving in real life.

      In the end, it's still just a game, but it was my first experience with a game where the world had a realistic feel to it.

    6. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Anrego · · Score: 1

      Can totally relate to this.

      I used to just drive around GTA: Vice City and listen to the various radio stations, that sunset effect that is so annoying when on a mission is actually quite spectacular when just cruising around.

      The earlier versions of GTA (before GTA3) have a kind of nostalgic charm but the immersive quality of the later games is beautiful.

      GTA San Andreas I didn’t really get into, but that was more story than game play. Just couldn’t relate to the gangster thing.

    7. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And here i thought the sign song "Kiiiill Frenzy!!" accouncement was there to accentuate the horror of it all.

    8. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the kind of stuff I LOVED in the first game that was really missing in later ones, I didn't really like 3/ vice city/ or 4. (2 was ok but 1 still is best)

      I loved the "electrocution" animation when you took a walk on the train tracks too :)

      Only things 3 and 4 had going for them were the commercials and the radio.

    9. Re:Oh the violent horror! by Warwick+Allison · · Score: 1

      Indeed, early in the game, I'd sometimes just keep cruising to hear the end of a segment rather than actually start a mission. Other driving games make getting to the mission a boring chore, or add an unrealistic quick jump mechanic. Rockstar got it right (not so much in later editions).

  18. Multiplayer only on GTA 1! by ciantic · · Score: 2

    5.4 Players - "... will be playable by multiple players across a network ..."

    Yet somehow this guideline was forgotten in later versions of GTA.

    1. Re:Multiplayer only on GTA 1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5.4 Players - "... will be playable by multiple players across a network ..."

      Yet somehow this guideline was forgotten in later versions of GTA.

      That's probably because GTA had the worst multiplayer I've ever seen: Went out of sync after about five minutes and from then on everyone was playing a totally different game with the enemies walking into walls. Was great fun the first time when we were all arguing who just shot whom.

    2. Re:Multiplayer only on GTA 1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5.4 Players - "... will be playable by multiple players across a network ..."

      Yet somehow this guideline was forgotten in later versions of GTA.

      GTA4 has multiplayer

  19. Huh? by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 1

    It's interesting to see what concepts they felt the need to state explicitly back then. "If a player-controlled car has a serious crash, it will blow up after a short time. Hence, the player must get out of the car and find another one."

    I'm not so sure why this example is especially interesting. Why would you not explicitly state that a player-controlled car would blow up soon after a serious crash, and that the player would have to get out and find another car? This was in a design document, was it not? That's exactly the sort of thing a design doc should have.

    Oh, wait. Perhaps the submitter is not a programmer? That would explain the "developers should just know what I want; I should not have to explicitly state it" attitude. :-P

    --
    Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah that comment really threw me off too. That's a critical detail that if not documented, could have ended up any number of ways.

    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being in Engineering I was also confused. When it comes to design documentation you have to state EVERYTHING explicitly or some idiot down the line will eventually not realize that hole requires a bolt and it will be left out.

    3. Re:Huh? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      The funny thing is that I don't recall cars blowing up sometime after a crash in the first GTA. You'd slowly damage the car as you hit things, which was reflected in its look (though that was not reliable, as some car models could be mangled pretty bad while still having decent "health") and engine sound (which was very reliable). Ultimately if the next bump would reduce health to zero, the car exploded there. But if you survived the bump, it wouldn't explode later, and the cars didn't start burning (and then eventually exploding) as they do in GTA3+.

    4. Re:Huh? by Warwick+Allison · · Score: 1

      No, these days, the car physics built into the GPU ensures the car explodes in a completely realistic way, based on long running crash test models (even if the Mythbusters never manage it). No programming is required. Programmers had it tough back then, but now it's very easy, so all the big bucks is in coming up with ideas. The programming step can be done by monkeys, and often is with good enough designers like Will Wright.

  20. It's not a game design, it's a game concept. by Zandamesh · · Score: 1

    A game concept is a document conveys the idea of the game, a general overview of the game. Generally handed to producers before it is decided before the game gets a green light. A game design document on the other hand details _everything_ in the game, without leaving holes, the design document would have quite a bit more pages than 11.

    --
    Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
    1. Re:It's not a game design, it's a game concept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why?

      Many early games were just a few dudes in a room making a cool game. "Hey lets add this" "good idea" 2 hours later "hmm thats not as cool as it was a few hours ago take it out" "yeah your right". Things happened pretty quick and loose on some of those earlier platforms. Take some of the earlier advent games they could add a joke in as fast as they could type it. There was no artwork, actors, studio time, or committee to get something in. You just typed it in and the little blobs would sort of move around acting like they say it.

      It was about the time of 'interactive movies' started popping up that you started seeing 200 page 10 wall design documents. As a company matures and starts making money they realize they need to nail the process down a bit or they will sink or swim quick.

  21. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  22. I laughed when I read this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Section 6.4.3 Pedestrians
    Pedestrians will be wandering about all of the time. They can be run over by cars...
    Types of pedestrians could include:
      - schoolchildren & lillipop lady
      - dogs

  23. That's what design documents are for. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    It's interesting to see what concepts they felt the need to state explicitly back then. "If a player-controlled car has a serious crash, it will blow up after a short time. Hence, the player must get out of the car and find another one."

    That's what design documents are for in the first place. Finding an explicit description of how a major part of the game is supposed to work in design documents is roughly as surprising (and interesting) as finding bread being used to make your sandwich.