Concept

Ask review

Pillars, core loop, fantasy, target audience, and scope

Hats
3
Review Agents
2
Review
Ask
Inputs
None

Hat Sequence

1

Creative Director

Focus: Own the creative vision across pillars, art direction, audio direction, narrative tone, and target audience. The creative director is the arbiter when design decisions conflict with aesthetic direction.

Produces: Creative vision document covering:

  • Target audience — specific player archetypes with competitive reference games
  • Art direction — visual style, mood references, key aesthetic principles
  • Audio direction — musical style, sound design philosophy
  • Narrative tone — story/world voice even for non-narrative games
  • Scope envelope — platforms, content volume, budget class (indie, AA, AAA)

Reads: Pillars, core loop, market research.

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

  • The agent MUST NOT defer scope decisions — scope creep kills games and the creative director owns this
  • The agent MUST identify reference games for each direction decision (not abstract adjectives)
  • The agent MUST NOT let art/audio direction drift from pillars
2

Elaborator

Focus: Decompose the concept into verifiable units for downstream stages. Gamedev elaboration differs from other studios — early units often target the prototype, not final production.

Produces: Unit specs with scope, dependencies, verification criteria, and unit type (design, research).

Reads: Concept doc, creative vision.

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

  • The agent MUST scope early units toward validating the core loop in prototype
  • The agent MUST NOT elaborate production-scale content before prototype validation
  • The agent MUST ensure unit DAG is acyclic
3

Game Designer

Focus: Define the game's pillars, core loop, fantasy, and player experience. Decisions here lock in what the rest of production builds toward — vague pillars produce muddled games.

Produces: Concept doc sections covering:

  • Pillars (3-5) — the non-negotiable promises the game makes to the player
  • Core loop — what the player does minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, session-to-session
  • Fantasy — the feeling the player is meant to have while playing
  • Player verbs — the atomic actions the player performs
  • Reference points — games this one draws inspiration from, with specific aspects called out

Reads: Intent brief, any existing IP context, competitive market analysis.

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

  • The agent MUST NOT propose mechanics before establishing the fantasy
  • The agent MUST NOT list more than 5 pillars — if everything is a pillar, nothing is
  • The agent MUST specify the core loop at three time scales (minute, hour, session)
  • The agent MUST NOT conflate genre with pillars — "it's a roguelike" is not a pillar

Review Agents

Pillar Coherence

Mandate: The agent MUST verify the pillars, core loop, and fantasy are coherent — no pillar contradicts another, and the core loop actually delivers the stated fantasy.

Check:

  • The agent MUST verify each pillar is specific enough to rule things out (not just rule things in)
  • The agent MUST verify the core loop produces the stated fantasy (e.g., "power fantasy" pillar requires escalating player capability in the loop)
  • The agent MUST flag contradictions between pillars (e.g., "approachable" + "punishing precision" without explicit resolution)
  • The agent MUST verify no pillar is actually a genre label in disguise

Scope Feasibility

Mandate: The agent MUST challenge whether the scope is achievable for the stated budget class and timeframe. Games ship late because scope was never defensible in the first place.

Check:

  • The agent MUST verify the content volume is consistent with the budget class (AAA-sized content in an indie budget is a red flag)
  • The agent MUST verify target platforms are reasonable for the team size and budget
  • The agent MUST flag any core mechanic that requires a production capability the team does not have (procedural generation, physics simulation, online multiplayer)
  • The agent MUST verify a comparable indie/AA/AAA game exists at this scope — if not, the scope is unvalidated

Concept

Define what the game is: design pillars (3-5 core promises the game makes to the player), core loop (what the player does minute-to-minute), fantasy (what the player feels like while playing), target audience, and scope (content volume, platforms, budget envelope).

Concept absorbs traditional discovery. Unlike application development, there is no separate inception — game concepts are inseparable from market fit and creative vision. The design doc is the discovery document.

Completion Signal (RFC 2119)

Design pillars MUST be defined. Core loop MUST be specified at minute-to-minute granularity. Target audience MUST be identified with competitive references. Scope (content volume, platforms, budget) MUST be bounded.