Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Muz]

Well, you always need something in your head. Preferably the thing you're working on right now

But dealing with design is sort of dealing with formulas. When you're a kid and doing something simple like calculating 1223*30, you could do it all in your head. Once you're start working on things like 10^(122/20), it gives you a headache. You could probably do each bit separately, but you're likely to make more mistakes. And get a headache, which is what you really don't want.

Also, once you go further into game design, you're going to get a lot of ideas. Later on, you're going to forget why you do something. Say, you found an exploit where the players can create lots of knights quickly. Your fix is to force the player to make stables before they can make knights. A few weeks later, you think that making stables interferes with the flow of the game. Your design docs doesn't say anything about the use of stables, so you remove them. Much later on, you find out that people are breaking your game by rushing knights.

So, the more ideas you have, the better it is to write them down anywhere.

[codezero]

So, the more ideas you have, the better it is to write them down anywhere.

Here's the perfect solution, write 'em down, in code. I guess that's what i was getting at, writing it uncodified is 2nd best.

But i know what you mean by shit slipping past and changing the whole feel, and pre-design would catch a lot of it. I guess it's all one and the same ideally..

[Muz]

Oh yeah, to the OP, here's something you'd definitely want to read. It's got way more valuable information than some guys on a forum could say

[LegoLord]

Thanks guys - particularly for that link.  I think I've got enough stuff to get going in the right direction.  I've just gotten started with a design document, and my ideas are getting a little clearer as I go with it.  The plot is a bit more defined, for one.  Meaning I actually have the beginnings of one now

And I'm having trouble finding info on gemstones and gemstone myth/mysticism type stuff.

[codezero]

You could try to see if there's any spiritual gatherings in your area soon, usually is in a big city. I just looked up "gems spiritual" and came up with a few links

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.sacredgems.com/mall-healinggemstones.htm

http://healing.about.com/od/gemstonesaz/A_to_Z_Gemstones.htm

http://www.sobrietystones.com/resources/GemBook/gemstones_meanings.htm

All boloney probably, with no concurrence, might be worthwhile looking at whether they were used at all in history, thiss link is great:

http://www.langantiques.com/university/index.php/A_Brief_History_of_Gem_Writings

Following is a link to Pliny the Elder's 'Natural History', but on the previous link there are all sorts of references to different 'lapidaries', which means, as far as I can tell, books on minerology.
http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137&query=toc:head%3D%232562

[jplur]

I'm a fan of not having a design document.  Maybe that's why my game is still in the alpha version.   Writing down the plot and the mechanics seems like a good way to solidify an idea.  Also if you are wanting to test game mechanics use a spreadsheet for checking out equations and whatnot.  Nice way to see how fights/character levels would work out.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread. However, a lot of it depends on your being able to make the game you're designing...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's a lot going on there, so let me explain:
- People with core development skills, ideas, and no GDD might make their dream game, but it's unlikely (or it won't get finished, or it will suck, or...).
- People with core development skills, ideas, and a GDD are significantly more likely to make their dream games work.
- Nobody who doesn't have any core development skills makes their dream game.

Right now, it sounds like you have ideas, and are working on a GDD, but don't have core development skills yet. The GDD helps, but it's not enough. You need to have skills to be able to make your game. An idea alone, even with a GDD, is not enough.

You might think that you can just get other people to make your game for you. Or at least hope that's the case. From a physical standpoint, you'd be right. From a practical standpoint, it won't happen. If your vision is to have a studio make your game, I would suggest reading this killjoy article from last week's Escapist: Why Your Game Idea Sucks. (Edit: I should note the preceding article is poorly titled, and the point is not to dismiss your idea, but to emphasize the futility of pitching an idea to a development studio, no matter how brilliant you think it is.) Then listen to Electric Funstuff's The Next Big Thing for a musical horror story on why you probably wouldn't get the game you have in mind anyway. Similar principles apply to cobbling together an Indie team if you don't have skills to contribute yourself; you won't be able to find sufficiently skilled and committed talent, if you're able to find any at all, and they won't accept your directions either way if you aren't part of the active team. A GDD won't change that.

I mention only coders and artists in my diagram, but you can bring pure designer skills to the table and still be in the blue circle. However, while maintaining a GDD is a big part of a designer's job, that won't get a game made. You need to be an implementation guy, not just an ideas guy. Maybe you can build the game in Game Maker or RPGMaker. Maybe you can make mods for the Unreal engine or the Source engine. The basic idea is that you need to be able to build your game, given the right tools. You'll need only minimal coding/scripting and they'll provide some art assets for you. But you have to be able to at least do that, or your idea will inevitably suffer in video game purgatory, and never get made.

I don't want to dissuade you. Anyone can make video games. But you must do a lot of game making yourself. There's no real way to make your idea happen on other people's skills alone. If you don't have the skills yet, you need to learn them and use them.

[Alexhans]

Posting to check this out later.

[LegoLord]

Yeah, I don't know much about programming, but at least I can draw.  Aside from the GDD, I've also been working on concept art, touching some of it up in photoshop.  So I could at least be part of a team.

I have looked a little bit into a game or RPG maker; that might could work.

[Muz]

Heh, yeah, as someone in the industry once said, "Ideas are cheap. Implementation is difficult to find." If you could prove that you're willing to do what you're trying to do, it really helps

Also, if you're anything like me, your first game is going to be a little overambitious. It's a common mistake. But it teaches you what works and what doesn't - I'd suggest you keep it down to the basics first. Don't put stuff like damage and HP or any other "solid stats" in your GDD. Those will change once you have formulas and other units. It's better to put "Damage: High" than "Damage: 30".

[Outcast Orange]

Just get a compiler (visual studio or code-blocks)
and read through a few tutorials.
None of them do a really good job of explaining,
but if you combine the knowledge and experience gained by three or four of them, you can do what you want.

Write yourself something motivational to get you started each day, (or whenever you read it)
I have a file, which contains:

-A list of anime, and which episode of each I am on
-Manga, same as above
-Let's Plays
-Machinima series
-Games that looked interesting, but I don't have the time for
And at the very bottom, at this very moment, I have this:

Time to make the world!
Pressure and gravity will open up lots of possibilities.

I swear to you (I am completely serious):

Three months ago, I had never programed a game in C++ in my life.
The log said something along these lines:

It's time to learn C++.
Then we can do anything!

Now look what I can do!
A month ago, I didn't even know when or how to use an array,
and now my current project utilizes five of them!
I had never used a "for loop" before this!
You can learn anything, really. Just give it a try.

[Muz]

Sorry to say this, but I don't think that C++ is the best way. C++ is one of the best for full games. That's a fact. If you plan to become a programmer, it's also a great way to start, also when you consider the fact that most designers are hired as either artists or programmers.

But if you're prototyping, which is what game designers would want to do, modding another game or learning a quick game-making tool (like AGS, RPGM, Construct), is the easiest way. I think there was mention of the idea being a RPG. In that case, RPGMaker might be a decent choice, but RPGM doesn't give much flexibility last time I checked.

I'm not saying that C++, or any serious programming language, is not a good path to making a game, just that it's one of the longer, harder ones. There are plenty of exceptions though; DF wouldn't fit on any game-maker type program and is best off in whatever it's made with. If it's really that epic, you're going to have to take the longest path.

[Outcast Orange]

Dwarf Fortress was made in C and then converted to C++.
I also suspect it uses some home brew form of Curses.

[qwertyuiopas]

DF uses openGL to simulate the appearance of curses.

[eerr]

When people say "nobody" will steal your idea, I think that guarrentee is broken when you post a design doc on teh interwebz.
probably only 1% chance of rip but still.