Trying to get started

[Uhfgood]

Basically i'm planning an old school agi-esque game (it's not going to strictly keep to agi, custom 16 color palette being one difference), and I'm sort of having trouble getting started.  I have a couple of approaches I want to try.

A) try to build the game as quickly as possible, doing thumbnails/scribbles/whatever
B) try to get some existing photo references to build something similar to what I'm going to do in the finished version
C) try to rip some graphics of similar games (which may entail a little extra work making it fit for my game) to my finished game
D) any combination of the above

The goal is not to release a version that has these things, but rather build a prototype until I can get to properly making art/sound/music.

What are your thoughts?

[Babar]

You probably know of this already, but this link might be of some use to you:

HOW TO MAKE NICE AGI-ROOMS FROM PHOTOS
It also has some great links at the end of the article you can check out.

[Uhfgood]

I think I've seen it, but thanks.

Anyone else, your thoughts on which method to choose or a combination thereof?

[Hernald]

Firstly, I think you are right to prototype, few people will turn out a viable program of this type at their first stab.
The question is what you are trying to find out with your prototype. Are you looking to get a grasp of your programming language, to see if your story and puzzles work or to see if your ideas about the graphics will be effective, or a combination of these.
There are things you will learn even with a few rough sketches done by yourself that you wont find out by using photos (except as reference.) Personally I dislike the idea of ripping of other peoples' artwork for a game, and I 'm not sure it sits well here when you ask people for critiques.
My vote is for quick sketches.

[hedgefield]

I'd advise you to start by building a barebones version of the game first, using placeholders and sketches. This will allow you to quickly test if a puzzle works and is fun, and you can get a basic playthrough of your entire game up and running very quickly. Then afterwards all you have to do is fill it up with graphics and animations. This approach also makes making changes to the design easier, as you won't have to redraw an entire room or all the walkcycles if you decide to change something.

[Uhfgood]

Also as this is sort of like an agi-style game, I wanted to go through some of what the original game designers did, and although I don't have hardware limitations I wonder if there is some method they used that I could go through.  Anyone know of any history of sierra as in how they made their games?

For instance I suppose I could do stuff on paper?  Well actually an analog to this would be using my graphics tablet in lieu of paper.  And making sure the actual final graphics weren't built off the sketches other than for reference.  Any ideas in this department?

[Khris]

Here are tons of Interviews with Al Lowe: http://www.allowe.com/AL/interviews.htm
Just look at the older ones; there's bound to be something in there about his design/prototyping process.

[Uhfgood]

I didn't see any in there that were old enough.

[m0ds]

Option A It seems more logical to me to build the game, then worry about adding the right graphics afterwards.