GDC 2006 talk by Valve Software developers Brian Jacobson and David Speyrer.
Audio taken and slighlty remastered from GDC Vault : www.gdcvault.com/play/1013237...
I made some efforts to synchronize the slides with the talk.
Description from GDC Vault:
Valve used a method of decentralized design, the Cabal process, to create HALF-LIFE. For HALF-LIFE 2, owing to the larger scope and scale of the project, they changed that process into an even more decentralized method employing three nearly-independent design teams (each responsible for roughly a third of the game), an art team, a sound team, and a story/acting team. This process introduced some interesting challenges: How to manage and reduce the cost of interdependencies among the six teams? How to allow each team to apply important constraints to the design? How to create a consistent design of high quality? The talk covers the answers to these questions and how Valve made this unique design process work.
All rights reserved.