It is necessary for the designer to consider the cost of their MDP in total, including all of the materials and other resources necessary to complete the project. In the case of designing a gamemode, this mostly concerns the software or game content that will be needed to see the MDP to its completion. Below is a table listing the resources needed for the MDP, their importance and their costs, with a total at the bottom.
Note the reasoning behind the cost of each item. Items listed as (GNU GPL) are software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, usually version 2. This means that they are free of cost and the source code is available to be modified. The Hammer editor, marked as (Source SDK) is included free of charge with any paid game that runs on the Source engine, which I already own.
| Resource | Importance | Cost Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Source code editor: Notepad++ | To be able to create the source code for the gamemode | 0 (GNU GPL) |
| Source control system: git | To manage the version control of the gamemode's code base, to be able to easily revert changes and not overwrite old versions of the software. | 0 (GNU GPL) |
| Garry's Mod | Vitally important since the game is being modified as the MDP | 0 ($10 but already owned) |
| Counter-Strike: Source | To utilise a wider range of stock resources to include in the gamemode. In particular, the materials, models and to a lesser extent audio files would be useful. | $0/$20 ($20 but this came as a Christmas gift) |
| Raster graphics editor: Gimp 2.8 | To be able to create new textures and materials for the gamemode. | 0 (GNU GPL) |
| Vector graphics editor: Inkscape | For creating geometric graphic elements to be rendered at high resolutions in raster graphics. | 0 (GNU GPL) |
| Source Map editor: Hammer | Used to create a map (game level) for the MDP that caters to the specific design of the gamemode. | 0 (Source SDK) |
| Totals: | 7 items | $0 |