To me, technical design is a matter of laying out exactly how a set of features are going to come together in a game to create an experience greater than the sum of the individual parts.
You can read more about my game development trials and experiments here
I’ve used Adobe Illustrator for graphic design and animation long before I ever designed games. I originally started doing complex technical diagrams in Illustrator not because it was the best tool for the job but it was one I was familiar with. As my skills in game design and graphic design improved and converged, I eventually developed my unique style of technical design that's showcased here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AbDI9l_8IwLyK5Be5fjxTfPPc7MFIsav/view?usp=sharing
This diagram Scrolls, try it out!
This is one of my favorite pieces for being a convergence of visual art and technical design, formatted to be digestible at a glance while also containing many specific details when read thoroughly. I made this because I wanted to express the ideas in a game like this before I had the knowledge to actually program it. I could have started making this game piecemeal, system by system without a clearly laid out scheme to follow, but the end product would have only represented my current development abilities and not the experience I envisioned.
I decided it was better to keep this idea as a well formatted and meticulously laid plan for the day when I do have the tools to make it. While I have yet to attempt to develop this game, the 'technical comic' I made for it shows how my brain works around ideas and how the layered mechanics are intended to form a complete experience. This piece is a unique look into how I design games and represents many years of my evolving techniques and skills.
[Download PDF version](file://%7B%22source%22%3A%22attachment%3Ab892dd48-1ffa-4e2e-b363-aef666f681ec%3AReplicaCorp.pdf%22%2C%22permissionRecord%22%3A%7B%22table%22%3A%22block%22%2C%22id%22%3A%222a8ed983-6be8-8009-ad9e-eae21b510e5e%22%2C%22spaceId%22%3A%2227fed983-6be8-8119-8aae-000392b8fdf0%22%7D%7D)
I worked on Planet Cygnus as a technical designer, programmer and UI artist on this small team with 5 other members in our final year of college.
Early on on development we created a gameplay mock up that showed how the game would look in a working state. it describes the actions users would take and things they would see while playing. This was an opportunity to draw up a multitude of ideas the team had and see how it looked when put together.