Creating a Solid Finished Game

[clockworkroutine]

Creating a Solid Finished Game

This tutorial was originally solely to get you committed to your game.  Its turned into how you can make a Solid game - it focuses on the process of developing - about HOW to think about your game - rather than WHAT to think about for your game.  

In turn as you start to create a game through the suggestions here, my hope is - is that you will come to the concrete feeling of "This is good.  THIS IS GOOD."  Which will end up in you being committed.  (its an edit of my old topic that looked ugly)

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1. Story: List of what Needs to be Done-
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----Make a tree of events of what needs to take place inorder to move on in a part of the story----make connections: how completing one branch of events fits into the main trunk or the main plotline. (its always good to keep tying the viewer down with insight through connections)

----Make another tree of who knows who - who is tied to who----make more connections (In my opinion there should always be a way to trace your finger to any main character and their relationship to another through the contacts they know. Why? because it adds depth. Its also interesting to be inspired by just drawing connections of people to eachother at random and filling in the story between them - it would be interesting to find that your friend is also the friend of your enemy - mmmm paradoxes arise.)

----Make again a list of ideas for future reference of inspiration.

----Write Descriptions of characters - and keep adding to it. Characters with a past and personality add so much to the overall gameplay. You can even branch their personal experience into pieces that you later can connect together as you get to know the character in the game better.

----Write Descriptions of Places - and keep adding to it. One key description being the kind of music you want behind the places. Even give the place some history behind it rather than being just some random adventure cave. Branching places together is a great idea - which not many games seem to do - and personally detracts from the game: think why would you have a town in a game if its significance is as meaningless as being a shopping center? Now it could be a shopping center that gets illegal imports from the Cuba the enemy Country.

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2. Programming: List of what needs to be done
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Gameplay is the backbone behind all games - what makes it fun. Brainstorm ideas and then organize them in a list. Under each idea as you proceed programming - write in what needs to be done to fulfill that idea and make it concrete rather than in the air.

-----Checking off what is done
-----Arranging the List in order of priority
-----Adding in subcategories of different aspects for a Key Element of Programming.

Think about making connections between your gameplay elements.  If you can get your gameplay to seemingly flow together - then to me you have a rather good game.  

For example in my game I'm working on - instead of cutting to a battle field - the area where the character encountered battle becomes the battle field except interface changes and you cannot leave the current terrain area (its a tbs battle system).  When battle is over your characters come together and you return to your main character and the game continues.  Seemingly flowing together.  

Fluidity - such as having conversation transition to battle and then transition out of battle and back to conversation.  Maybe its not a good thing to use transitioning screens - to have those breaks in flow - for example at shops instead of transitioning to dull menu's, think about setting your items on shelves behind the owner and a scrolling cursor appears when you talk to the owner and you are able to pick with the cursor what you wish to buy.  Or how about the tops of buildings dissapearing when you enter them - and a semi-transparent black frame is placed around the building so your eyes aren't distracted by what is outside the building. (Though that idea could play a part in the overall feel as well - you are able to see enemies come sneak around the house.  Such and such events as well.)

Minimize transitions is my two cents.  As much as possible think about having your game flow together - reduce sudden cuts of any kind.  

I also make seperate documents for actually figuring out how to go about programming an idea

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3. Graphics: List of what Needs to be done-
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----Make a checklist of all your characters - and check them off you happen to stumble upon a charaset that works perfect for them - you might want to type in the file name as well.

----Make a checklist of interface graphics that need to be completed or started.

----Make a checklist of all your places - and check them off if you happen to come upon a perfect chipset - in addition you can add its file name.

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4. Music: List of what needs to be gathered
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----Make a list of music to be gathered for the places that you described.  Connection right there.

----Think about connecting your music together - that it flows nicely in and out of each piece.

[SaiKar]

These sorts of things will definately help you, no doubt, but care is needed. You absoultely don't need to do all (or even any) of these things before jumping right in. Go on, dive in. Program and map your heart out. But after a while you'll begin to say to yourself, "wait, this didn't make a lot of sense. Nobody's going to understand this part. Maybe I need to take a step back and rework this part..." That's when it's time to start writing things down.

And not everything needs to be a checklist on a microsoft word document. I've had vague ideas for story and game plots at the darndest places. Boring class lectures, while eating lunch, taking a shower, out for a jog, and even a few from dreams. The key is let your imagination run wild but, and this really is critical, once you've got it in your head how you like it, write something down in one of these recomended lists. Don't trust your own memory; all it takes is one little shiny to distract you and a great idea can be forgotten.

The lists aren't made out of stone either. You can add and change things, or even delete entire ideas that you thought sounded good but turned out not to fit well (or be pretty stupid in retrospect). That's fine. The lists are orginzational tools and memory aids to make sure you keep straight all of your great ideas.

Using lists and orginization is extremely rewarding in the end. You might have an awesome idea for a scene late in the game one day. If you write it down, once you finally get to that point, you can make it just like you saw it in your head. I cannot properly express the feeling of satisfaction you'll feel once you get to a scene you dreamed up months or even years prior and find out that it's even better than you could imagine.

[clockworkroutine]

I take from you to just let your game come out naturally - which I 100% agree with - rather than forcing it out.  For me in writing I find it inspiring to put random punctuations and underline random words - as to work off of - in a stream of consciousness writ work.  Which I tried bringing to the idea of having a tree of characters and drawing random lines of relationship to eachother and filling in the story inbetween the lines - an aid to bring out creativity and imagination.  
I took this tutorial off of the stage that I am with game creation - meaning that I had some idea of a game before writing this tutorial but I didn't know how to go about in making it solid and complete.  

Then I made a checklist of what next to program - and I just made stunning progress.  So I thought of how I could go about in formulating the other half of the game element - that being story and came up with these ideas.

I guess my focus on connection is trying to bring out creative thought.  When you make connections - you form a relationship that ties it into the game - rather than being something just placed into the game.  I admit you don't have to follow any of this tutorial - such as having a game flow nicely - that is just me expanding off in my own world.  But I do think some of the ideas can definately help someone out - it helped me - maybe its because I wrote down what I needed to do for my own game. - . maybe people should just write tutorials on the same topic for themselves - it brought me great ideas.

 

The key is to let your imagination run wild

Reading that again - its interesting - and rather it is less corny n' actually quite beautiful.