Back to the drawing board..

Ahoy!

So I am having the worlds worst case of creators block. I can’t for the life of me think of an idea for a project. I am not wanting to make just some revolutionary game, but something I can use as my sandbox for development practice. I DO, however, want it to be fun and decent and releasable.

What do you guys do for ideas? I have talked with many developers and it seems like they just get random ideas so easily… I can’t think of anything!!! :frowning:
Also, what do you guys do to prepare your new ideas? Design document?

Thanks!

  • A

Not everyone does but I highly suggest it, it gives you an idea set in stone and allows you to manage a schedule and create realistic goals.

Describe a design document. I’m confused on whether this should be a graphical document, or just pen/paper. I would use a design doc for the idea and main features. I would like to use it for characters and style… but Idk. I’m having trouble designing pixel art atm… it’s where my block is.

I cannot believe that right now, for me, designing the art is much harder than developing…

A standard design document consists of a few things, they are usually text however are often accompanied by illustrations to demonstrate things that would be a bitch to write on paper:.

  • Title page
  • A short and concise pitch paragraph around 3-4 lines, usually the thing you would read to a publisher when you present your game
  • The “mindset” the game should put the player in, like how they should make the player feel
  • The technical grit of the game, like screen layouts and transitions, as well as game mechanics, level design etc
  • Then sometimes a game flow, basically describe in an ideal situation a play through of a single session from beginning to end
  • Next, probably the most important would be resources and general requirements for the project. So this would be Time, Scope and Budget. Resources include everything from staff, to assets.
  • Then the most most most important, a realistic schedule that keeps within your Time, Scope and Budget
  • Some form of copyright statement, if you are selling to a publisher you will want to put in a Transfer of Copyright statement here with appropriate boxes for signatures

Of course this is basically a dumbed down version of a proper design document.

Also, if your having trouble making art. Don’t let it hold you back, put place holder and deal with it later.

Design documents kill ideas. The whole point of a design document is to make a vague idea more concrete so you can go ahead and build the thing, or realize early on it won’t work so you can save yourself the effort. (But you need to have the vague idea first). The other point of a design document is to communicate your idea to other team members and to management. It’s called Death by Documentation, don’t go there. Instead play some games and think about what you would do differently if you wrote the game.

There’s no such thing as a “standard design document” especially when you’re talking about games. I don’t like them at all for games but if you really want to throw down your ideas and then organise into phases of things you need to do. Don’t obsess - just write down your ideas and try and order them.

I use a simple todo doc normally, however I’ve just been creating a Trello board to capture my list.

Cheers,

Kev

Yes design documents suck the creativity out of people and shit but face it, without writing down and documenting your idea, all you will do is dabble in code for days and get no where.

The things I mentioned above are parts taken from commonly used design documents, the most important parts.

So this would be the name of the game, if you have one. Then write down how you want to make the player feel, this helps you figure out the atmosphere and general theme of your game. Writing down the core game mechanics are a must, without a solid idea you will just be going around in circles.

The other parts such as Time, Scope and Budget are important. Nobody wants to deal with any of this rubbish but at the same time, having a good idea of how long a project will take (or take to get to a state you deem “playable”, at which point you can start getting creative), how big the project is going to be and if you can (if your going to) afford to pay artists/sound engineers.

And a schedule does not really have to be a solid “things must be finished by [insert date here]” kind of thing, but it is nice to have a list of things you want to do in X amount of time, this will give you goals and help you get things done.

The copyright thing, well I use one because I share my ideas with a team of people and not that I don’t trust them but have to protect my own interests.

tl;dr GD’s can kill creativity and are boring to write, however they help you structure your project better until it gets to a stage it is easy add/alter/remove code.

I dunno about generating ideas or design documents, but once I have a simple game idea, using pen and paper to make a giant messy list things that might be good in the game is fun and productive. Basically describing the game world with object/entity names, what abilities/weaknesses/stats/etc they have, and rough sketches of what they might look like. lists of different environment/level types and what they could have in them, goals and activities for the player to do. Then proceed to add or remove various ideas until it looks about right. After this you can take whats left and write a more organised version of it which will show you exactly which ideas need to be implemented. Using pen and paper makes it feel more solid than having it in a text file. You cant scribble notes all over a text file or write down that thing you just thought of in bed at 3am.

Ignoring the technical requirements and just focusing on the creative world building gives you more freedom to think up ideas without worrying about how you are going to implement them. I guess this is similar to what authors do… they don’t have technical limitations, their entire workload is devising and building believable imaginary worlds, characters, events. There are resources on the web to help authors, these are probably also very useful for game developers to learn from.