Workflow and motivation, tips & tricks

[tamatic]

"Just do it"-The Dig

This thread for users/creators who want to discuss workflow and motivation related issues. Perhaps people can provide some insight in how -and why- they structure their time while working on a game. And how they keep it interesting to themselves: more particularly relating to personal home brew projects.

To shed some light on things like:
-How intuitive or planned is your process, and why?
-Is there any order of priorities that seem to work for you best?
-Are there any helpfull tricks you use, in this regard, to keeping yourself passionate about your own projects?
-What does your planning consist of? Maps, storyboards, ect?
-... anything you might think useful to the discussion.

Of course I am aware that these these things will vary from person to person- aswell project to project.  But I figure it would be helpful and interesting to discuss regardless. Since it seems all too common for creators to be plagued by procrastination and perfectionism. Getting lost in details and losing sight of things. So please feel free to share your ideas, methods and experiences! Or even just sum up all the projects that didnt see daylight. :-P


"You can always make a game better and never release it, but you can make a good game when you know when to say stop."- Frederick Raynal

I know there are other workflow related threads out there, but didnt find a more general thread to discuss these matters.

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OP starts off:
I never made a storyboard in my life. And deadlines usualy only rise when working with others. Any homebrew, full-blown game ideas -that require oversight- seem too ambitious to bring to an end (so far). So my interest is in the experiences of generalists who have commited to make a game from scratch by themself.
But apart from that I like to contribute to the discussion too. And rather than a concrete workflow tip share a view/trick that implies its own method.  A simple yet freeing idea that came up talking earlier with a friend. Namely that making a game could be viewed as merely an exercise in telling stories based on a much bigger world. This sounds all fair and obvious perhaps. To view a game as means to an end seems an nearly inescapable perspective after thinking about it. But sometimes its good to be reminded of those simple things. And this one in particular gives room to breathe to those who seek a compulsory space for creativity to thrive.

[MurrayL]

My development process is very freeform (much to the annoyance of anyone attempting to manage it). For the last couple of games, Dave and I have written the overall game structure out on paper before we open up AGS. Generally, this means at least broad strokes of story chunks and puzzles. This can take up to a week, as long as I already have a fairly good vision for what the game is about. I don't tend to worry too much about specifics at this early stage, and often leave things out with just a note to myself (e.g. 'add a puzzle here').

The important first thing for me is to get the locations and characters clear in my head. Once I've got that holistic sense of the game, I can drill down into the details. It can be tempting to just jump in with a brilliant idea for a puzzle or a scene, but it means I've lost focus before I've even started. The real disadvantage to this approach is that it makes time estimates a complete nightmare. I can guesstimate how long a part of the game will take to make, but only by extrapolating from past experience. We overshot tens of early deadlines on Astroloco for this very reason, but I seem to have gotten a lot better at making realistic estimates. Advice for newbies/people who have this problem? Always overestimate how long something will take to implement. 200% is a good margin for error, unless you're also relying on new art assets which add even more time.

Where do I start? I've yet to make an adventure game where I didn't start at the beginning, and work linearly through the story to the end. It (generally) keeps things nice and simple, but has the disadvantage that it's easy to get into a rut, where I'm stuck on one particular scene.

I'm a big fan of 'finite state machine' type setups for controlling the story sequence. Nothing too complex; it means reading through my notes and writing down all the 'story points' along with how I plan on storing them in-game. This mostly just amounts to a few global integers/booleans, and a text file with each state listed. I could do that with enums, I guess, but I don't really see the need.

My approach to dialogue and general 'flow' of scenes in the game is very fluid - I rarely have any pre-written script for the characters. A notable exception to this being scrawled notes in the margins if I thought of a particularly good line/exchange during the paper planning stage. An unintended side-effect of this approach is that the characters have a natural development arc through the story - I often don't have a real sense of a character until I've nearly finished the game. It's just like getting to know a new person, and I learn about them by writing their dialogue. Once I've done enough, a good character practically writes themselves. It can mean that I have to go back and re-write early dialogue to reflect later personality developments, but this is quite rare.

One of the things I love about AGS development is how easy it is to add in new scenes. If I have a flash of inspiration and come up with a brilliant idea for a cutscene, I can usually have it implemented within an hour. I think it gives the game a much more interesting, fresh, 'ad libbed' dynamic.

I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping 'to-do' lists. I use the built-in Windows 'sticky notes' application for this, and have the notes stuck on my other monitor, but you could just as easily use notepad. I keep separate lists of differing priorities ('high priority', 'minor' and 'wishlist') indicated by the bullet type (!, #, and *).
If I think of something that needs adding, I'll whack it onto the list and re-sort things if I need to juggle priorities. It makes sure I've always got a clear picture of what needs to be done.
For definite, though, the time it really saves my bacon is when I'm testing the game. It's pretty rare for me to test a new part of the game and not spot at least half a dozen things that need tweaking. With the sticky note open, I can jot them down really quickly and carry on testing, then fix it all in one go when I'm done.

[tamatic]

My development process(...) sticky note open, I can jot them down really quickly and carry on testing, then fix it all in one go when I'm done.

Thank you so much! That kind of breakdown is indeed something that fits this thread. I hope people didn't get intimidated by it, hehe. Small ideas also should fit in here.
It might even be nice if people showcased their little notes and such as addition.
I am glad for your fast and interesting response.
Hmm, I don't take apart my own process often... blame it on magical thinking but sometimes thinking spoils things: over-analyzing and what not. But it might not be a bad aim in the long run.
Thanks agian.

[Squinky]

I sketch in a sketch book everyday, and write down little bits of inspiration whenever I can. I can typically comb through that for idea sparks when I need to.

I recently started work on a game, I haven't made one in a long time so I'll mention how I organize all my thoughts nowadays.

1. I make a word doc, and have a linear progression through the game. I start by writing an outline, and go from there. Adding things like possible interesting areas or characters I'd like to fit in. As you can imagine this is an ever changing thing so I write a lot of things that I am unsure of in another color.

2. Draw background sketches and maps to see how it all ties together. This typically leads me to review my previous step as I think of new things. I have a big cork board in my work area so I hang up current concept art there. I also draw characters and try to add in some memorable character at this point.

3. I also keep a word file with a to do list, and a list of character animations required.

4. I like to make my game in chunks, finishing part one before part two. I add dialog and descriptions on the go. Whenever I try to plan it out it feels canned. I test it as I go as well.

So, thats it.

[Baron]

I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping 'to-do' lists.

+1

Nothing is better at fighting procrastination than seeing exactly what you need to be working on written out in front of you just as you sit down.

[AnalogGuy]

Not sure if this is offtopic or not but I would like to say this.

When I am thinking about "what is creativity". The best explanation I have heard is that it's basically a "controlled chaos". I heard a story about a man who got something like head injury which resulted very bizarre feature: He can't be without painting everything. He's got the very urgent need to paint everything he imagines. The trouble is that he had already painted his house from floor to roof! The man himself described his state like:

"Imagine that your brain is producing a billion bubbles, like soap bubbles... then each bubble bursts into another billion of smaller bubbles! My head is exploding from images!"

The problem was that everything was pure random. There were no any consistences whatsoever of his creations and yet he had to paint every single bubble!

So in a nutshell, the creativity is being able to have all of these bubbles (chaos) in your mind but yet to be able to somewhat control them and bring some kind of consistent. 


The memory of human is very fragmented. It's very similar to internet: Each site contains links, and each link bring you another links... just like the bubbles. When you think about something, the images can bring you another ones, be it memories or imagination. Anyone could try it. I am using this method for quite many things. First do some sort of brainstrom with exceptional freedom and note down everything you can imagine and after that, try to bring the consistence for everything... put a string into all things and tie up for something what we can call as a "plot". 

When I am composing music, it's even harder because I improvise and do everything in live, which means I must do the brainstorming and plotline executing at the very same time! 

[MurrayL]

...

I absolutely agree. In my experience, creativity works exactly like any other part of the body - it gets stronger the more you use it.

When I first started out trying to do game design, it was so hard because I would struggle to think of anything even resembling an idea for a game. It turns out the problem wasn't that I didn't have any ideas - it was that I had too many! There were literally tens of ideas bouncing around inside my head all the time, and they were stopping me from thinking clearly. I would never bother to expand upon them because they were such tiny, 'stupid' ideas that I didn't see the point. Nevertheless, there they were - getting in the way of new ideas.

The solution was to buy a notebook and just start writing them down. It didn't matter if it was the tiniest idea or a whole plot - I had to start pulling them out and putting them onto paper.

These days I usually have two or three notebooks on the go simultaneously, and I fill them fairly quickly. Even if an idea seems pretty useless when it first comes out, writing it down frees some space in my head for something new. Also, on several occasions I've been looking for something special to add to a specific design, and I remember that I already came up with it several months ago - I just have to flick through a notebook and there it is.

If you spend all your time thinking hard to find 'that perfect game', you'll never find it. It's much better to deal with what you think of as it comes, and the perfect game will come out of its own accord eventually (even if it has to be pieced together out of parts).