Finished

I have finished the design document. I ended up leaving it until a couple of days before the deadline to write and so it has ended up a little undetailed. I did research the game quite well, but still I find the game to be mediocre, at best. This is partly due to me getting used to self motivated working and partly due to my recently aquired knowledge of games theory through games studies. Writing my essay for contextual studies gave me a flurry of different ideas for games I could create that are unique and original and addictive, but it was already too late.
I have however learnt my own way of working and motivating myself through this. In my case, short term goals are useless. By this, I mean a "To Do" list for each day, or even each week. This is what I did for the majority of this term for all the project and for one reason or another I did not complete the goals I had set myself. Surprisingly, I found that the best way to get work done, especially work like the game design document, is to just to sit down and start typing, or drawing. I will then continue, endlessly, until for whatever reason, disturbed. Goals imply that I should stop after a specified task. If I do not have goals, I do not stop. This is very good to know for the next term and project.

Something I am happy with is that my writing style has improved noticably, to me anyway, over the course of the term. This, I think, shows in my design document. I think I express my ideas clearly enough, just not in enough detail.
The design of the game is Ok, but unoriginal and uninspired. I could have developed the Taking a Walk mini game in much more detail that could have made a much more prominent part of the game by adding ways to train and improve for it in the pet mode. I could have made the progress in the mini game effect the pet mode with rewards and bizarre surprises and interactions. I would like to have created a more developed and inutitive personality system with decent logic and explainations behind it. But I think I just wasn't focused or passionate about this particular idea.

The artwork is another thing that annoyed me. I feel like I should have filled pages upon pages of animal and artist studies. But I only managed to fill a couple of pages with studies. As a result, my art suffered. My art, I think suffered more from the small amount of time I ended up leaving myself to do it in.

I think what I have learned for future projects, from all of the above, can be expressed in two sentences. Be passionate about the idea. Don't make short term goals, just work.