Dogma 95 for game developers
There is a known filmmakers manifest called Dogma 95, which was proclaimed to make movies more authentic, simple and devoid of unnecessary visual and audial effects, stage props and camera tricks. The movies that are made following this manifest are very minimalistic, focusing on dramatic action and the natural filming locations. The manifest consists of 10 rueles. Because mechanically mapping these rules to the game development field makes little sense, I've made some changes to adopt the Dogma-95 to the gamedev and keep the spirit of the original.
I don't necessarily agree with all of the rules, and definetely would not be making a game where I try to follow all of them, though it would be an interesting exercise. The idea of adapting the rules of Dogma 95 was an interesting exercise itself.
- The game should be assembled from the ready-made free models, textures, photos, sounds found on the internet or CDs. If you don't have them, use primitives: cubes, squares, etc.
- The music should be obviously computer-produced: chiptunes, tracker music, midi files or no music at all. Live instruments or songs are forbidden.
- Camera should be static or follow the player. Cut-scenes, slide-shows or other interludes are forbidden.
- Gameplay scene should be visible with ambient lighting. Only functional light is allowed - such as torches, flashlights.
- Full screen effects and filters are forbidden.
- Gameplay shouldn't contain fake action, such as QTE, multuple choices without choice, unusable items, etc.
- The narrative is created by player's actions, not by text. Ideally the game should be beatable without any text or HUD.
- Ingame purchases, ads and casino mechanics, such as gacha, are forbidden.
- The game should be considered finished on release and should be playable without any updates or internet connection. Games as service are forbidden.
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Studio title or logo and developers name should not be present in the game. You should credit asset creators in a separate file.
The original manifest consisted of 10 rules, but I may add the 11th:
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Any AI-generated content or AI-generated code should not be used in the game.
Some of you would argue that I need to add rule number 12, about game being free and open source. While it would make a nice nuber (12 looks better than 11), being open-source doesn't make the game pure and authentic. Also an open-source game would be easy to change, deviating from the original author's idea and interfering with rule 9.