"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail" Options

[Shadyone]

Well, I am certainly aware of this.. however.. I really hate this part of the production. Rather, I have no idea what to do at this part. I just want to jump straight into development, but then I can't do that without having a plan because then I will probably screw up somewhere and then make the game a complete failure.

So how do you guys plan your games? I only have a basic IDEA of my story so far.. which is enough to get me started with small things like the music composition and characters.. hell I've even started items already. I want a good take off to my game, I want to finish it within 2 months at the very least

[Kaust]

Well the most I've ever done is brainstorm certain ideas I want included, form, style, etc.
I know some people write whole stories for their game before starting, w.e. thats most likely their way because it embraces what they like doing most- using rpg as a medium for their story.
Like you I'm a development-head. Ideas come to me most easily while I'm fiddling about with the program, therefore it makes sense to fiddle about with the program with only a vague direction.
If you share that approach then the key, I think, is to actually have a direction, not to let the ideas contradict, etc.

[KD648]

It really does depend. Unlike the both of you, I'm an uber-planner. I brainstorm dungeon ideas in list form, make puzzles on graph paper, beat out my story structure, determine character arcs, and map out skills before I even touch a computer. I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way to go about it, it just depends on whether you're a "thinker" or a "feeler". I'm a "thinker", and so I spend a bunch of time thinking about it, making notes, and ironing everything out before putting it into code. The "feelers" I know do much better once they have something concrete to work with and mold as they see fit. Ultimately I think both ways take the same amount of time. The planners like me are going to spend a bunch of time with notebooks and scratch paper, while the feelers are going to spend that time re-doing the guesses they made that didn't pan out. You can come up with equally great ideas both ways, it just depends on whether you rely on a process to get you to those ideas, or you wait for them to jump in.

Personally, it really helps me to have a strong view of what I want my finished product to be before I start. Ultimately though, I still need to leave room for all the great ideas that will only come as you get more experience with this particular game. I love having a plan, but only about 50% of that plan ever pans out. My one piece of advice is to sacrifice whatever it takes to have a strong foundation (a catchy beginning, balanced gameplay, etc), because it's easy to ignore those things when you're just "screwing around", and things like that are can take TONS of time to fix once they become too engrained in the gameplay. I know from experience. I just spent MONTHS reworking the balance on my game .

[Yusshin]

I'm a bit mixed.

I have the story idea, I've written it down, and before I began mapping/NPCing, I made basic items, basic equipment, the character's leveling arch, and stocked up on tile sets / face sets, etc.

Then I jump into the mapping and feel it around :< make puzzles / quests up as I go along (while thinking of longer ones for later). Ideas come to me as I do this and I tweak around stuff as a result. As for dungeons, I plan those out, or else there wouldn't be much of a puzzle to it.

I make games like I write. There's a bit of brainstorming, then I just let it flow. Works for some; not so much for others.

[TheBen]

[Show/Hide] This isn't important

Well, I am certainly aware of this.. however.. I really hate this part of the production. Rather, I have no idea what to do at this part. I just want to jump straight into development, but then I can't do that without having a plan because then I will probably screw up somewhere and then make the game a complete failure.

Yeah, that's me all the way. It's kind of sad, because I'll go into a song and be several bars in, and then I'll say, "where am I going to go with this... ?" and that basically screws the song over because it loses direction. If I have the right inspiration, I can go a good distance with it, but after about half the song is done, I start trying to pick up that inspiration again, make new content, do whatever, but if you're going to do something longer than 2-3 minutes, then you need to plan it out (or use lots of repetition, but I don't necessarily like that).
It's the same way for games.

I've heard a romance writer say that he (or was it a she?) doesn't start working on a novel until he knows all the characters and how they're going to meet; in the same vein, I think, if you want to write an action game, you need to know all the cool plot points, when the White House inevitably explodes (Die Hard), when the satellite crashes into the oil derrick (Alan Wake's American Nightmare), etc.
I mean, if you have a gag-a-page webcomic with a long, over-reaching plotline (Sam and Fuzzy), then you don't need to plan out each and every gag so much as figure out all the cool twists in the story that you're going to reveal to the player.

[Show/Hide] This is slightly more important

In some ways, I think a feeler-planner hybrid style works best for me. For example, if I'm designing the characters, maybe I put his actor into the game, and figure out his faceset and charset, etc. If I think a certain feature would be cool, then I might try to script it in; if I think I know of a certain scene, I might get the inspiration for a piece to go with it.

I don't want to spend all my time just planning my game, but if I just go from the top, then I often don't get very far. This works with 2-page short stories and 2-3 minute songs, but if you want to make something long and interesting, then you really need to do at least a bit of planning.

[TheBen]

[Show/Hide] This isn't important

Well, I am certainly aware of this.. however.. I really hate this part of the production. Rather, I have no idea what to do at this part. I just want to jump straight into development, but then I can't do that without having a plan because then I will probably screw up somewhere and then make the game a complete failure.

Yeah, that's me all the way. It's kind of sad, because I'll go into a song and be several bars in, and then I'll say, "where am I going to go with this... ?" and that basically screws the song over because it loses direction. If I have the right inspiration, I can go a good distance with it, but after about half the song is done, I start trying to pick up that inspiration again, make new content, do whatever, but if you're going to do something longer than 2-3 minutes, then you need to plan it out (or use lots of repetition, but I don't necessarily like that).
It's the same way for games.

I've heard a romance writer say that he (or was it a she?) doesn't start working on a novel until he knows all the characters and how they're going to meet; in the same vein, I think, if you want to write an action game, you need to know all the cool plot points, when the White House inevitably explodes (Die Hard), when the satellite crashes into the oil derrick (Alan Wake's American Nightmare), etc.
I mean, if you have a gag-a-page webcomic with a long, over-reaching plotline (Sam and Fuzzy), then you don't need to plan out each and every gag so much as figure out all the cool twists in the story that you're going to reveal to the player.

[Show/Hide] This is slightly more important

In some ways, I think a feeler-planner hybrid style works best for me. For example, if I'm designing the characters, maybe I put his actor into the game, and figure out his faceset and charset, etc. If I think a certain feature would be cool, then I might try to script it in; if I think I know of a certain scene, I might get the inspiration for a piece to go with it.

I don't want to spend all my time just planning my game, but if I just go from the top, then I often don't get very far. This works with 2-page short stories and 2-3 minute songs, but if you want to make something long and interesting, then you really need to do at least a bit of planning.

[Cleril]

I'd say organization > planning. My first game ever wasn't organized and having to sift through 250+ switches to make the player's choices matter is impossible to work with. With my latest game Words, I plan the basics of the storyline, sidequests, but more recently I've been flowing and just designing appropriately.

[shinyjiggly]

I find it good to work with a healthy balance of the two. Like, I'll have the different main event sequence/areas to visit outlined before I do much of anything, but I also leave a bunch of stuff in-between to be figured out for later. For example: in chapter 3 of my game, I knew that it would take place underwater and how the character would get down there, but other than that, I was on a clean slate for what would happen down there.

But with that chapter and a couple of other ones (second half of chapter 5 and much of chapter 7), there was so little planned out that I started running out of ideas halfway through which slowed development considerably.

So if you plan on going off the beaten path, make sure that you leave at least a couple of breadcrumbs for yourself so that you don't get completely lost.

[bulmabriefs144]

I don't actually do that much planning, it's more a mix.

I designed the characters in depth (Ambrosia comes from a ... etc, etc, etc), and then wrote a outline of plot points I wanted to cover like:
- Evil demon trapped in a jar
- Anarchic government
- Character romance side stories/ backstories
- Add some weird stuff in too

From this point, I just added stuff to the outline on stuff I wanted to do like:

- Weather
- Day/Night time system
- Alchemy System
- Add Puzzle Enemies
- Etc