What brainstorming/storyboard organizing techniques do you use for your games?

[Snake]

So Rincewind and I have been working on Leitor's edge for, what seems, a decade. And few of you may know, this game is my baby.

It's been through the paper-shredder and rewritten at least twice. We've finally got something solid it seems, and I am quite happy with what we've come up with (I'm enjoying it VERY much) as a final concept.

It's been very hard lately to come up with new ideas and things to connect all these little questions together and make the story seemless without the help of my partner. He is EXTREMELY busy so I've been working on the story almost entirely on my own. He's got the gusto, just no time. Me, I'm a stay-at-home dad, so I've got lots of time on my hands.

I have no problem with the beginning and the end of the story and I've got numorous "ideas" for stuff that happens throughout the course of the game. The biggest problem is filling in the gaps and all the little details.
I've told myself that I want the whole game to be down on  paper before I do anything in AGS. I'm not going to go through that again.

So, during the brainstorming process I usually just grab my notebook and start jotting down ideas whether or not I actually like them or not. MOST of the time this doesn't lead to anything since I draw a blank and I end up giving up - leaving only one or two things written down. I think this is because I have so many things floating around my head, I don't know where to begin. Sometimes I make brainstorming harder than it's supposed to be, since I think into an idea too hard - wanting details right away, therefore, not writing down the next idea since it is somehow connected to the first.

What I've recently discovered works really well for me.
I thought to myself, how about I have a character from the story answer these questions for me? So I grabbed my pen and the blank page in my notebook that I had been staring at for the last half an hour, and simply just STARTED WRITING.

I wrote an entire 5 and a half pages of what, turned out to be, an interview. Any topic about the story that I've been having trouble with, I wrote down in question form and had the character answer. I was so suprised at how much brainstorming this way had helped me. I had answers that I liked and even some new stuff that can undoubtedly be used.

Now, what are some things you do?

Are there any tutorials or printable templates that can organize your thoughts and parts of your story? I suppose I'm thinking something like that old room template someone made years ago. It was a sheet of paper that organized all the objects, characters, variables and actions that took place in that one room, along side of a box to draw the BG in.

Thanks in advance,


--Snake

[ShadeJackrabbit]

I usually use mind mapping software like FreeMind or XMind to start out really vague and break things down into more and more detailed thoughts. It can be very helpful to figure out things like inventory puzzles. (Item A is made from AA and AB, which are made from AAA, AAB, ABA, and ABB. Hey now we've got four items, huzzah!)

Story-lines I've always had problems with, but I found that yWriter had some nice organizational stuff for that, including character and item lists. I've found that time-lines are very helpful for stories, but I've never really found a program to do it and have to do it manually on paper or with tables/spreadsheets in Office.

For gameplay, GUIs, and environments, I always find quick sketches to be helpful. Basically I start really minimized and build on top of it, adding more details or buttons or whatever. Often paint programs (whichever one you like the most, my current favourites are Gimp 2.6 and Paint .NET) or pencil & paper help out here.

Mmm... and the last would be dialogue, I guess. This I often achieve by looking at what has to be said and then trying to say it (literally) in the manner of the character. Dialogue has always been one of my strong points though so I can't offer many tips, sorry.

Well, hope that helped. Best of luck on Leitor's Edge. (Which, by the way, looked like all kinds of awesome, the last time I saw it.)

[TandyLion]

When developing a 'world' or continuity, I found TreePad very helpful. Simple tree system. But very easy to organize, spell check, etc.

[Snake]

Thank you, Shade. I think I will give yWriter a go. I've downloaded it already but haven't had the time to start working with it.

Anyone else? It's funny... I never noticed that there are only 2 members of AGS

[ShadeJackrabbit]

Anyone else? It's funny... I never noticed that there are only 2 members of AGS

Yeah actually TandyLion and I own just thousands of e-mail accounts and have huge split-personality disorders. We manage to keep up with posts via tabbed browsing, and actually are 90% of the AGS community.

Or something.

[Ponch]

I usually sketch the story out as a free form comic strip on a legal pad with lots of notes scribbled in the margins. After that, I work out the dialog of the cut scenes in a format very much like a movie script. Lastly, the details of the puzzles get worked out on scraps of paper. Then I sit down with all three sets of ideas and begin the arduous process of trying to get AGS to "make my game." (It always ends in tears, of course).

- Ponch

[SpacePirateCaine]

For my own story work, I don't really have much by way of a special program I use to organize my notes. A lot of it is developed free-form, though this isn't to say that I don't organize things at all. When developing a plot, I like to think of it cinematically - an opening, an ending, and a middle part - and generally I like to start with the ending so that I know what elements need to be present during the course of the game in order for it to crescendo to the point that I intend.

Because of the linear nature of Adventure games, it's not extremely hard to go that route - Monkey Island could've been written as a screenplay, and it still would've worked. So generally I build a story from the edges inward. For me, it's extremely important to know the characterization and motivations of each, individual character that will be in the story, and how they react to one another. I do most of this in my head, but I can certainly see the benefit of creating flow charts, though they tend to get a little complicated if there's a lot of people and complicated interactions.

Aside from the beginning/end and important characters, I try to work out a handful of key events during the game that should lead to the penultimate event. They can be relatively simple things, depending on the complexity of the game, but once I have those in there, I like to keep them 'floating', which gives the semblance of non-linearity. After that, it's a matter of working out smaller events surrounding each key event, which can be tied in with each other to create more complexity as necessary.

I'm sure a lot of this could be worked out through event tree charts.

As far as dialogue is concerned, I generally make things up on the fly. There are a lot of important topics that need to be covered in the game, which are governed by the individual events, so I'll often consider what the characters involved in an event would have to say about what's going on, and work around it that way (Which is another reason why I put a high stress on individual character personality and so on at the beginning of the writing process).

[Revan]

Well.. as I have tried many times to get a game out, the closest I came was a game about 40% done.. (With no sound)

The planning stage consists of me coming up with a basic idea, then fleshing it out with my friend (Who I guess you could call my co-writer)...

We usually start off with the story, then get names etc (all written down in a note pad) I then start sketching a character and a couple of ideas for puzzles. Then I get to making the bg's (but end up trying to perfect the style of art I want, or a characters animation, or a bg layout. And loose interest as no real progression seems to be made.)

My current project (Which Im not discussing yet lol) was thought up by my friend and we are curently making that happen. I wanted to try a couple of things that I thought would be cool and inivitive. Went to try them out in AGS (Re-downloaded it as I has deleated it months ago) Then found out Woah!! Its all changed lol.. soo now the planning has stopped so I can get use to the new AGS lol 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I usually sketch the story out as a free form comic strip on a legal pad with lots of notes scribbled in the margins.

I used to do this, but I'd always get frustrated by how long it took and just went back to pixelling character concepts while I worked out the basic story in my head.  This is the method I use now, and I quite like it because the creation process for characters (for me, at least) is the funnest part of the process and where I work out their personalities and quirks.  For instance, the only things I knew before I started drawing Limey Lizard were that the game would be futuristic and he was a lowly sewage worker.  As I began to draw him, however, he took on a personality of his own with a broad pot belly and distinctly reptilian features, which helped him to become the laziest lizard in space.

[Ponch]

I usually sketch the story out as a free form comic strip on a legal pad with lots of notes scribbled in the margins.

I used to do this, but I'd always get frustrated by how long it took and just went back to pixelling character concepts while I worked out the basic story in my head....

I spent most of the 90s doing commercial art, and the pressure of making a deadline to make a living helped me to become a fast artist. The "comic strip phase" of pre-production is (for me) the fastest part of the entire game making process.

Plus, I get to refine the character designs as I doodle them over and over again. Also (and this part is key), most of the supporting characters in my story are women. And I like to draw boobies. So this way, I get to draw them a lot.

I stand by my method

- Ponch

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Can't fault the Boob Method.

[Takyon]

Usually I go over things in my head for a round a week and let it develop in my mind before commiting it to paper or typing anything up. I also find playing other adventure games helps give me more ideas and helps me think what I want and what I don't want for my game.

I also use yWriter it's quite good once you've learnt how to use it.