
The Cabal: Valve’s Design Process For Creating Half-Life - pchristensen
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991210/birdwell_pfv.htm
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joshsharp
Though I'm not and never will be a game developer, I'm quite enjoying the
recent influx of game-related stories here on HN. Very interesting to see the
process, which is so very removed from web development.

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snprbob86
_We eventually got into the habit of placing a number of unrelated
requirements into each area then doing our best to come up with a rational way
to fit them together. Often, by the end of the session we would find that the
initial idea wasn’t nearly as interesting as all the pieces we built around
it, and the structure we had designed to explain it actually worked better
without that initial idea._

This is so very true! As weird as it sounds, creativity thrives on
constraints.

Think about all the wildly imaginative classic games. How many design
decisions were made because of the NES' dedicated tile-engine hardware? How
many clever enemy variants were derived from methodical planning around
limited ROM memory?

Your brain simply can't processes the entire spectrum of all possible
thoughts. Pick some arbitrary constraints and you're suddenly much more
productive of great ideas.

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arohner
There are a lot of good ideas here for any large scale creative outfit, not
just games.

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sparky
Agreed, there are analogs to everything mentioned here that are applicable to
{hardware,software} engineering teams as well. One gem:

 _In order for highly hierarchical organizations to be effective, they require
one person who understands everyone else’s work at least as well as the
individuals doing the work, and other people who are willing to be
subordinates yet are still good enough to actually implement the design. Given
the complexity of most top game titles, this just isn’t practical — if you
were good enough to do the job, why would you want to be a flunky? On the
other hand, completely unstructured organizations suffer from lack of
information and control — if everyone just does their own thing, the odds that
it’ll all fit together in the end are somewhere around zero._

I'd go so far as to say this applies to organizations that are not so
hierarchical too. A breadth of talent is necessary to get any large-scale
project done, but having single points of knowledge, so to speak, is bad for
two reasons; there is the ever-present hit-by-a-bus problem, and people
without anybody to bounce ideas off of are unhappy and/or unproductive.

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thwarted
Over all I agree, but I have a problem with the term "flunky" in that
paragraph. Flunkies aren't subordinates, they're slaves; I'm not sure why any
lead would want flunkies on their team. A sous-chef shouldn't be a flunky, and
what Brooks called "the co-pilot" in TMMM shouldn't be a flunky either. People
in these roles should be able to operate somewhat autonomously, and be trusted
to do so, under the direction of the lead. These roles are often sought after.
It's the difference between lieutenants and grunts. The former are expected to
think on their feet, while the grunts are expected to blindly execute.

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samlittlewood
Whilst I am out of gaming now, It does look as if Valve are truly enjoying
their work in a way that no other established outfit is.

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eru
id seemed to be happy, too.

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DannoHung
Does anyone know if the Cabal is still practiced at Valve? I know they've
become a much bigger company with a larger scope since then.

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samlittlewood
From the article:

 _For current projects, such as Team Fortress 2, the Cabal groups are made up
of 12 or more people, and rarely fewer than eight._

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pchristensen
This article was from 1999, so it's not clear what the current practice is.

