Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Unless you are one of the lucky few who start with an idea, sitting there staring at a
blank piece of paper trying to force an idea out of your blank slate of a brain, may
feel like trying to give birth when you're not pregnant: lots of effort with no payoff.
Getting the right idea can be the hardest part of the entire design process and it usu-
ally takes several brainstorming sessions to achieve a good gameplay idea. In case
you get stuck and feel like you're pondering too much, we suggest you to stop trying
to be creative; go for a walk, watch a movie, read a topic, or play a (gasp!) video
game! Give the subconscious mind some space to percolate something cool up to
the surface.
Rough concept document : Once you have an idea for a game firmly em-
bedded in your consciousness, it's time to write it down. This sounds simple
and at this stage it should be. Write down the highlights of your idea; what is/
are the fun parts, how does one win, what gets in the way of winning, how
the player overcomes their obstacles to winning, and who you imagine would
like to play this game.
Storyboarding : The best way to test an idea is, well, to test it! Use pen and
paper to create storyboards of your game and try to play it out on paper.
These can save a lot of (expensive) programming time by eliminating un-
successful ideas early and by working through interface organization on the
cheap.
The goal of storyboarding is to get something on paper that at least somewhat re-
sembles the game you imagine in your head and it can go from very basic sketches,
also called wire-frames, to detail schematics in Azure . Either way you should try to
capture as many elements in the sketch as possible. The following figure represents
the sketch of the double jump mechanic for a mobile platform made by one of the
authors:
We discussed this process in depth in Chapter 9 , Prototyping . Once you have con-
crete proof that your idea is good, invest some time and resources to create a play-
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