Help:Contents/Development Rules & Guidelines
This is a sub-page of Help:Contents.
TCRF's development pages document the course of a game's development, and highlight the many changes a title goes through from the time of its conception until its retail release. We strive to be a reliable resource in this regard, providing factual, non-speculative, and well-sourced information that doesn't stray unannounced into rumour or fan speculation.
Development articles cover assets not from game builds or media coverage. These assets can originate from old floppy disk backups, for example.
- Games With Development Pages: These games have existing development pages for you to add to.
- Development Content to Expand: This page features a list of information, categorized by game, that has yet to be added to a development page. Some games listed here don't have development pages yet.
Contents
Page Setup
- Development pages don't require bobs or title screen images. These are already covered on the main page for the game in question.
- Start your article with a {{development}} tag and a general summarizing description of the source of the materials to be added.
- Decide on an organizational structure for your page.
- Example 1: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Development Page - Organized by Category
- Example 2: Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire Development Page - Organized Chronologically
- Example 3: Sunsoft Dev Disks Page - Organized by Disk
- Make the last section of the article a reference section.
What information can I add?
Except for the rules about what to add and what to avoid that are specific to Development pages, TCRF's regular rules and guidelines also apply. Don't forget to read them, too!
Add This Stuff
Leaked internal material about a game.
- Example: Confidential material released on Internet by third-parties in various places (example), even in the case the upload was accidental (example).
- Note: Leaks follow also their own set of rules, be sure to read them before documenting them.
- Exception: Everything not related to any game in particular that falls outside the scope of the wiki.
Internal material about a game released legally by its developers or by other people.
- Example: A developer releasing the source code of their game on Internet (example).
- Exception: Everything else that falls outside the scope of the wiki.
Content that is not present in released versions of the game.
- Example: Characters, levels, items, objects, cutscenes, audio, text, textures, menus, control schemes, and aspects of gameplay that were later deleted or changed.
- Exception: If they come from compiled builds it's Proto material, regardless if they came alongside Development one (example). In this case you are looking at the wrong set of rules.
Evidence of debug functions removed from the released versions of the game.
- Example: Debug menus, debug functions, level selects.
- Exception: If they come from compiled builds it's Proto material, regardless if they came alongside Development one (example). In this case you are looking at the wrong set of rules.
Information about the various changes a game went through during its development.
- Example: Information sourced from interviews with the game's developers.
- Exception: Such kind of information alone without the actual developers' untouched raw internal files that were actually used during the game's development is Prerelease material instead, in this case you are looking at the wrong set of rules.
Don't Add This Stuff
Development articles on newly-released games that don't have a mainspace article yet.
- Until a game is hacked, there's no way to know if material shown in development files are still in the final game's files. This information determines whether content is documented on a Development page, or the main article for a game.
- Example: If Game Name doesn't exist on the wiki, Development:Game Name shouldn't either.
- Exception: Old games that have been found to have no content worthy for mainspace articles.
Content still present in leaked and playable or released versions of the game.
- This information is already documented on Prototype pages and main articles. This includes every kind of development leftovers that were left by the developers in them (like a Windows executable left inside a GameCube game, a cutscene editor that runs under Windows left inside a non-Windows game and assorted development material left inside the final version of a game).
Multimedia released by developers or other members of the staff on their social media and other places.
- Example: Images/audio/videos published on their personal website or Twitter profile, without the actual untouched raw files that were used during the game's development. Such kind of stuff is Prerelease material instead, in this case you are looking at the wrong set of rules.
Prototypes of various kind, in both compiled and uncompiled form.
- In this case they belong to the Proto namespace. For uncompiled prototypes, the bare minimum modifications needed to make it compile are allowed but still belong to the Proto namespace.
- Exception: Stuff found exclusively in their source code or their raw internal assets found outside them, incomplete prototypes' source code, and barebones prototypes that need an extensive repair from Development material to fully work (example), where doing so makes them something very different than their original form. The latter doesn't apply to corrupted prototypes that have been restored in a working state for having been modified just for the bare minimum to make work what is still available (example).
- Also, both alternate compiles of the final version of a game found in Development material regardless of their state (example) excluding preliminary derivative versions like localization prototypes (example), and custom user-made builds using the Development material as reference still belong to the Development namespace, as are not prototypes.
Who owns the information?
Please see the Ownership of Information page.
