CIS 300: Introduction to Computer Game Design

Communications Lab 8
Postmortems

Due: Nothing to turn in. Do the readings before class on Friday, April 25th.

Postmortems

A postmortem is very special type of document (or presentation) produced by a game developer once the game is completed. It is a reflective document in which the game developer talks about what they wanted to do versus what they actually achieved. While they often stress what the development team did right, there is also a lot of emphasis on what they did wrong.

For the last communication lab, we will discuss postmortems as a group, with an eye towards what you are expected to do for your final presentation. There are several postmortems linked below, which you should read before coming to class the day of the communication lab. As you read the postmortems, ask yourself the following questions.

  • Who is the audience of a postmortem?
  • What is the value to reading a postmortem?
  • What is the value to writing a postmortem?
  • What types of things do all postmortems (that you have read) have in common?
  • What are some proper ways to structure a postmortem to make them easier to follow?

The Readings

For class, we have chosen six postmortems for you to read. They are all pretty short, and so it should not take much of your time to read them. However, we expect you to put some thought into them while you read them, particular with regards to the questions that we have asked above.

All of these readings can be found at Gamasutra. Gamasutra is an excellent resource for game postmortems. It is second only to GameDeveloper Magazine, but it has the added bonus that it is not behind a pay wall. It is also good because it contains a nice mix of postmortems from both independent and big budget games. We have chosen three of each below.

Big Budget Games

Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights Client/Server
Neverwinter Nights promised to finally bring the Dungeons & Dragons experience to the computer. While it was a successful game, it did not quite live up to that promise. These postmortems contain two different perspectives of the game development experience.
Deus Ex
Deus Ex was a ground breaking game that combined first person shooters with role-playing elements. It was recently selected Best Game of All Time in a 2007 readers poll for the UK magazine PC Zone. Warren Spector's p postmortem for this game is pretty extensive.

Indie Games

Total Pro Golf 2
This recent independent title is unusual in that the developer relied on a lot of community support to develop the game.
Rocketbowl
This independent game was the 2005 winner for Technical Excellence at the Independent Games Festival.
Oasis
Oasis was the winner of the IGF's 2004 Game of the Year and Innovation in Game Design awards in the web/downloadable category. It has also been used as a case study in past semesters of CIS 300.