Experiences with Making Games

[shbaz]

Actually, working from the end isn't a very good idea in some cases, because it makes the game very linear. Non-linear games that have more than one ending (or have just one, it doesnt matter) are veery hard to do this way, and normal games would turn out more linear than they already are because of the very straight line goinf from end to start.

My explanation was kind of simplified from what I really do. I would write an explanation for how I'm doing the game I'm currently working on, but it's an RPG so the process is a lot different. Here's how I would design an adventure game.

1. Figure out where I want the story to take place (big city, suburb, neighborhood, all in one house, etc) Write down what the general feeling is around this place is (lively, dreary, what are the people like? Are there lots of people?). What does this place look like?

2. Who is my main character going to be? What is his/her personality like? What does he/she look like and what age?

3. Who else might be involved here? Where will they spend their time and what kind of personalities do they have?

4. Based on this setting and characters, what kind of interesting thing could go wrong here that would allow an adventure to take place? Who or what causes it to go wrong, and how could the character solve this problem?

5. Think of as many other ways to alter the storyline and fit in a puzzle by making it difficult to get certain essential items, etc. hopefully making it more interesting to play. General adventure game stuff. You can also fit in mini games at this point.

It wouldn't really be so hard to do this in a nonlinear fashion, you'd just have to come up with multiple endings in step four, and then find where the decision point is (where something is done to choose between ending 1, 2, 3...)

[James Kay]

The bigger your game will be, the more the need to be obsessively organised. As in the example above, if your game has multiple endings, you will need to draw it out in a flowchart so as not to lose track, whereas in a simple, linear game you probably won't have to.
Try to work out as much as you can on paper before making any art or code. Get a feeling for the project, scope and feasability.  If at this point you decide it won't work, you won't have wasted too much of your time.

My biggest tip for any creative type activity is: keep a notepad handy at all times!!! Ideas come at the weirdest moments and you will never remember them properly if you don't jot them down. Many great ideas have been forgotten simply by not writing them down immediately.

[shbaz]

Heh, or you can call your voicemail and look like a weirdo, like me. I usually don't have that problem because everything comes when I'm sleep deprived.

[Tarison]

My biggest tip for any creative type activity is: keep a notepad handy at all times!!! Ideas come at the weirdest moments and you will never remember them properly if you don't jot them down. Many great ideas have been forgotten simply by not writing them down immediately.

Since '97, I've had a writing pad with me almost every day. I used to do a lot of writing, then game-planning, and then writing. I know exactly what you mean by this, and yeah, it's a great piece of advice

[Ginny]

Yep, thats great advice, I always carry some paper or a notebook and a pen with me everywhere, even when I think i wont be able to write for some reason (darkness, etc).

I suppose what should be considered is that games can be made in many different ways and methods. The only rule is that almost always (even this has some flexibility) you need to design the setting and character first. In games with more than one setting, that is they move forward in location, i think it's enough to first design just the first setting and then move forward. Contrasts between location moods or backgrounds are nice to have, especcially to give a message about the character or the game/story.
Anyway, after this, going straight from the end, something we know needs to be the conclusion, could work aswell, while thinking what caused something and why.
Another way is to first have an undetailed story flow without any detail on the character or setting, and fill those in afterwards, once the story/plot is finished.
Yet another way would be to first design interesting locations, characters, etc, and then link them with a story.

I am personally eager to try out a method which would in theory allow a lot of designer sympathizing towards the player. You could build the story bit by bit from the begining, statring with the begining status quo and moving on to a certain conflisct or problem that occurs/is caused by an NPC or the protagonist, and then put yourself "into the players shoes", so to speak, and imagine an area populated with certain logical items, people, concepts, etc, and how one could use it in imaginitive ways to solve a problem.
Now that I think about it, is a game possible without a conflict, or something going wrong/being wrong? Will a game about a perfectly happy person, who decides to walk 100 km to the next town, for no particular reason, be interesting? Of course for it to be not just an interactive story in which you need to click to progress, there need to be puzzles and obstacles, or meaningfull choices along the way which present conflict. But does the actual story require something being wrong or messed up? Hmm, I think it's just the wording that bugs me, of course the story needs a challenge, a goal, a problem, except it doesn't have to be something going wrong.

Anyway, thats about all my thoughts for now. Discussions like these really give me a lot to think about. Btw, I find a lot of my ideas come when I'm sleep deprived too, in the middle of the night or just the next day after very little sleep. Sortof like insomniactic ideas, heh.
There was one night on which I was sitting with lots of artciles on game design, and writing everything that came to mind (and there was a whole lot of it). "I'll just read a few more lines" became "I'll just finish these four articles..." I went to sleep at 5 in the morning.

P.s. Anyone know where people study game design, anywhere? I know there are people studying it, but dunno where.

[shbaz]

I can't think of a game I really liked that didn't have some sort of problem to solve or get away from. That's a good note to make when designing a game. I have a hard time thinking of games you could make without problems.. the closest I can come up with is if you were trying to achieve something (like become a rock star, famous actor). In a way, that's still a problem though, since you don't start out that way. If you were going to walk to the next town, you would need to create problems on the way or there would be nothing to the game but walking.

[Scummbuddy]

I am very greatful for the idea given to work backwards, yeah the thought occured to me, but I guess I didn't realize the potential til I read it here. Maybe this will help with the writers block I have. I have the beginning and the ending, but not the middle.

Thanks.

I'm sure many olbies here have seen these ideas on game design and distribution that I have assimilated from various places, but I'll show it again for the new peeps.  Its a short list, but in my opinion, very good. I'll probably add the idea that if you get stuck, work backwards.

www.freewebs.com/lucasstyle/games.htm