Advice from OROW / MAGS participants(or any who has made a game in a short time)

[Privateer Puddin']

Hello fellow AGSers, next week I'll be taking part in a 'One Game, One Week' game jam thingy at my university and thought I'd get any handy tips from anyone who has made an adventure game in a short time.

We'll be given three random wikipedia articles from which we'll pick one to make the game from so not going to do anything in advance, other than having AGS ready to go

GO!

[Ryan Timothy B]

Well I've never actually completely a MAGS or OROW game within the time limit, but I've certainly came close a few times.

My biggest problem is not having the storyline concrete before starting the production of the game.
You must have the story, characters and plot all pretty much figured out before you start.
Other than that, that's all I can suggest.

[OneDollar]

Hah, I just started a mini series on my blog about how I went about making my last MAGS game.

Best advice I can offer is to know your limits and work to them. The very first thing you need to do is work out exactly what you want to put in the game, what that means in terms of art/coding/testing etc and how much time that will take. Then draw up a plan of how long to spend on each part (preferably with some spare time just in case) and stick to it! Worst thing you can do is change your mind in the middle of the project.

Sounds fun, good luck!

[Vince Twelve]

Think small!  Getting too ambitious will guarantee that you will fail.  

Find ways to cut corners but do so with style.  For example, with Anna, I'm not much of an artist, so to save time, I traced the main character over someone else's 3d render and made all the rest of the graphics in greyscale using extensive copy/pasting.  

Focus on one or two unique things to make the game great, because you don't have time to throw too many WhizBangWow things in there.  For Anna, I was mostly concentrating on the pseudo-3d presentation with keyboard control.  The story is kind of pasted in (but wound up working out really well which surprised me at the end of the week) and the puzzles are super cliche, but that's all that I had time to come up with in the small period of time.  The game succeeds, I think, on it's atmosphere and immersion, which are instilled largely by the pseudo-3d and direct control that were the focus of my development.

[MrColossal]

If you're planning an adventure game I would write out a linear timeline of puzzles and then start making art.

If you're going to iterate on something fun and new to do with adventure games I would get that concepted first before you have anything else started. Nothing worse than having people start down a path and then have to be derailed and started over [are you working alone?]

When I took part in the weekend long Global Game Jam we had a very simple idea that for some reason took forever to get working. It was mostly gravity, collision and insta-kill zones but it wasn't working correctly until a few hours before the deadline and then it was a mad dash to get all the levels in and we couldn't and only one level got in and people were angry and it was still broken by the time we had to submit...

I think game exercises like this are best kept to stating and then solving one idea the best you can. If your one idea is to make a vanilla adventure game in 1 week I would write the puzzle flow first while writing a story to go along with it. Then start on the art [1 bg, walkcycle is what I would get done first so the cycle was done and an art style is assigned] and then implement art and engineering at the same time.

If you want to add something new I would pick one thing and strip it down to it's core "fun"ness and only do that, if it was something like platforming in an adventure game I wouldn't add projectiles or enemies.

Personally,
Eric

[Privateer Puddin']

Thanks for the advice so far everyone, just replying to this question.. kinda

[are you working alone?]

I'm.. not sure? I got one of my lecturers, who is organising it, to allow me to enter as a one man team, not because I don't want to work with anyone, just because it's only open to university staff and students and I don't know anyone who'd be interested in making an adventure game. So, I thought i'd be on my own but when talking about it with my lecturer, he suggested i'd have some team mates, but wouldn't tell me any more and i'd have to wait to the day to find out.

[zabnat]

Since you're gonna make a too ambitious project anyway, try to plan it so, that it won't suffer much if you need to cut some things when you realise you don't have enough time. Those things needed to be cut to meet the deadline are not the optional stuff you were going to do "if you had time", but some pretty important stuff. I don't know if this is a good advice, but it's kind of what I've done myself.

[TheJBurger]

First, I'd say think small. Know what you can achieve in one week, and set challenging, yet achievable goals.

Usually you'd want some kind of interesting idea, or unique game mechanic that will set the game apart, since people will only be playing this game for a short amount of time(?).

When development starts, you'd want to implement the hardest, central game idea first to make sure that a working prototype is possible before getting bogged down by all the art assets and resources. Once you're sure that this idea is worth cultivating and developing and is FUN, then you should make the rest of the game.

I'd recommend working with placeholders and then building the game from start-->finish to make sure it's all intact, and then go back over it to iron out the rough spots and make it fully playable.

That's just my advice! Good luck!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

As someone who has gotten quite used to developing games in a short time, I can tell you the easiest way to go about it is to pick a topic that you can start off with guns-blazing.  High energy is key to getting through a short development cycle, so make sure it's an idea you're really excited about.  Step two is to take your idea and cut it at least in half, because chances are it's already too big for one week of effort.  Consider the minimum number of characters and rooms you need and focus on those first.  With HBB, I decided to stick with a simple art style that was easy to churn out backgrounds and sprites with, and I got much further with the game than I would have if I'd went with hi-res, so resolution and details are just as important as the size of the game because both alter development speed.  In short:

1.  High energy topic.
2.  Narrow scope to minimize rooms and characters.
3.  Pick a realistic resolution and detail level for the time allowed.

[Layabout]

Since it looks like you might be faced with having to be in a team, do not despair. You'd be quite suprised at how easy it is for other team members to follow your 'vision'. Last week at uni we were tasked with coming up with a game concept to present this week. Since we have to talk about it in depth, it would have been easy to just do another FPS or RTS. Being ballsy, I suggested we do a 2D sidescroller art-wank game. Explaining my concept for the idea and my fellow team members were quite enthusiastic about the whole thing, all coming up with ideas even if it was an area that they were unfamiliar with.

[Radiant]

We'll be given three random wikipedia articles from which we'll pick one to make the game from so not going to do anything in advance, other than having AGS ready to go

Heh. I hope they have a better randomizer than Wikipedia's Special:Randompage button, because otherwise you're likely to end up with spam, or a tiny article on something trivial, or a village with 10 inhabitants

Anyway, I find that the trick to MAGS is to write down a design, and then cut away everything that isn't necessary, because you won't have time for that. Reduce the amount of rooms by half. Drop those two chararacters that don't do much. And so forth. K.I.S.S.