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You could also try to take a look at this

http://www.adventure-treff.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7=13574

Just plain old PowerPoint. But OpenOffice Impress could do the job too - although Visio might be the best (which I don't have)

So you're working more puzzle driven than story driven?

@ProgZmax: LCP mixed with adventure aspects would be very cool indeed. Do you also use this cute cut-in-half house view?

In that definition of the term of course

Monkey Island e.g. leaves it up to you in which order you solve the three trials. But in the end you need to get off of Mêlée Islandâ,,¢.

So with non-linearity I sort of mean parallel puzzles.

Happy Birthday, Kastchey!! 

Hey,
after reading Ghost's article about puzzle creation, I started to ask myself, how to make their design less confusing and more structured. Unfortunately most amateur games I've played recently are quite linear and the puzzles don't rely on each other.
And I also cought myself, making pretty linear puzzles myself. So why is that and how could it be changed...?

When designing software, you usually use some sort of diagrams (preferably UML charts) to visualize complex situations - isn't making a puzzle a complex thing too?

So I came up with a new diagram type, some kind of adventure UML

It consists of an overview -  a simplified flow chart:


and a detailed view per puzzle

yes, this puzzle isn't too complex

Here are the stereotype for the problems


and here are the solutions



I've done some puzzles with this method and I'm really starting to like it, since you can easily check if you're too linear or using one and the same stereotype over and over again.

What do you think? Maybe you guys are having an even better method to plan your puzzles...?



Btw: the probs and solutions are based on this article
http://einfall.blogspot.com/2006/04/adventure-game-design-patterns.html

http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net/

But I prefer something like Pixelmator, Photoshop or Gimp with a hard 1px pencil.

Monkey Island: Special Edition has been released 
8,99 euro on steam!

Whooooohooooo!

source(german): http://www.computerbase.de/news/software/spiele/adventures/2009/juli/the_secret_monkey_island_special_edition/

Hehe, this flyer is only for this place and maybe for the webby. I've only made it, so you can guess what happens in the middle panel

Yay, downloading

edit:
...and played. Well that was more like an art experience than a game, but a very lovely one.

Story and atmosphere are great, too bad that it' already over again.

Thanks for the double bottom. I hope I'm not doing it that often.
@Angel Dust: I'm sorry, of course I've meant don't hesitate.

Anyway based on the last post, here's a cheesy flyer to catch your interest

Cool, I've always loved those games on the neo geo

I hope it's playable on my old machine...

wooooo
indeed a really nice gui!

Angel Dust!

Well, it's good to see you back, even if it's just for the moment. By the way, your account hasn't been locked yet. So if you like to leave a message there as well, don't bother

*cough* I've messed up left and right in the before 1.4.
You should be fine, if you just flip left and right.

If it doesn't help, could you give me some more details?

Alright, I hope I've got it now.




The lower row is being used as particles, the upper row is for the GUI.

In other words you have to recognize the sprites from the lower row and click on the related icon from the upper row.

I think, this is a good compromise between symbols and shapes
Also I'm afraid using patterns won't work, because they're harder to spot in backgrounds.

I have exactly the same problem. I thought it was because of my crappy
Celeron-M 1000 MHz

So yes, nearly every 5th time, my two soundfiles start out of sync.

Hehe, according to wikipedia, we have 5 different terms for all kinds of color seeing variations in german. Saying colorblind is just the most common, thus inaccurate term


One more thing I'm curious about: have you ever encountered a completely unplayable game so far?

(btw. I'll give those shapes a try)

Thanks everyone for participating so far.
What I've learned so far is, that colorblindness can differ a lot - so I guess the safest way is to also use some sort of shapes.

Here's the next try, what's the easier on the eyes (apart, from those sprite being very small) ?




@Mods: 100 % accuracy

Hehe, funny that you've been thinking at Loomâ,,¢, as I'm actually making a Loomâ,,¢ like interface

edit: how could I have forgotten the â,,¢.. tss