I'm trying to decide on how to best plan my game out. Curious what the rest of you all do? Whiteboard the story line? Or draw everything out on paper? Or just write everything up in a text document and then move to drawing everything out on paper? Or do you just build on the fly in GG laying down items and such as you go on the fly?

Any info would be excellent!

Most of my ideas, whether new or as the next part of an existing idea, come to me when I'm in bed and trying to get to sleep. I don't sleep enough as it is, so that sucks, but anyway... I usually grab my phone and save a note or email myself. The next day I'll look at it again and then leave it alone while I think on it some more.

After a couple of days, I will either expand on it or delete it. Late nights and insomnia tend to bring out the best and worst ideas. If I do decide to move on with it, I move to basic concept art after I have a better idea of what's on my mind. In extreme cases, concept art becomes an actual real world piece, like building a costume for a main character, especially if it's a 3D idea and I want to be sure design meets some realistic feasibility for movement, etc. I'll show the first basic ideas to 2-5 people that I go to with everything and get their opinions, take in their suggestions for a bit, and plan the next move. Then the worst happens as I get lost in a mess of what to do next. Should it be more art, start modeling, more writing, prototype builds, making mood music to help set the feel?? On and on.

I find that there is no great method for me that I should aim for with existing ideas, but the most solid results actually come when I get a quick flash of an idea in my brain and instantly sit down and start building the game/app/whatever without thinking too far ahead, if I'm within reach of any tools to get started. Most of the things I have completed come about like that.

Yeah. That probably doesn't help you much. Hehe. Sorry!

Since you has to be realistic when you plan a game, I think this is a good start point.
In another words, I want to start my game swimming through a tunnel, until reaching the entrance to the temple, but I can't "Swimming" in GG yet.

You has to take into account how many stuff your game can deal. without drop fps till the point than your game becames unplayable.

At firts glance it has nothing to do with the story creation, but it has.

When you has not so clear about the story, playing with a level creation, adding stuff here and there, might help to get ideas, so is the moment to pass to the.......



Developing the idea in the editor, many changes coming for sure, till tou are happy with.

But the gold rule here is, backups, backups, and backups often, and with a different/ descriptive names.

Make standalone with each update you does, so is easiest to get the errors (if any), and deal with.

hth

3com

Its best to structure it in a simple notepad file so you don't have plotholes later on.
Give yourself some freedom and space.

You can't deliver certain types of stories in GG as complex character interaction is barely doable for almost all of us. This is important because most human stories have many characters that interact which each other. Here this is only possible in a limited or handicapped way.
A great game plot has 2 levels: A somewhat simple primary plot and a deep and complex lore that is reflected through everything in your game. Look, feel,sound, narrative and gameplay.

Just really see what you can with GG and how you can best convey a story with the tools you have.

Keep in mind that, eventually, you'll have to dumb everything down. The finished game will always only be a crippled left over of the initial idea.

Depends on if you want your game to be linear or more open world. Think of it like a tree basically if you are to do an open world. For a linear game you could do something like:

Main Menu
Intro Video / Audio / Text
Level 1 (generally the tutorial stage that gives tips to the controls)
Level 2 (now that the player knows how to play the game, confront him with simple obstacles / danger)
Level 3 (ramp up difficulty so the player has to use cognitive skills to complete the stage)

-- The top would be enough for a demo --

Level 4 (reward the player for completing the stage with a heavier weapon or more items -- introduce more danger/obsticles)
Level 5 (By this point you should introduce a boss or climax)
Level 6 (Make connections to the introduction, give the player purpose and a sense of urgency to a crisis)
Level 7 (make this the most difficult part of the game. This will force the player to use all the skills throughout the game)
Level 8 ( this level is not as hard as level 7 but includes the final boss or plot point )
End Game Video/Audio/Text
Credits
Return to Main Menu

I usually plot these out on paper in bubbles. Since your game might not be point A to B. I also dont know what limits GG has in terms of Levels :/

Thank you all very much for your insights and thoughts. Seriously helped me a ton and is very cool to hear how others handle it and that helped me a bunch!! Starting to really have some serious fun with GG now that I'm getting the swing of things. I'm hoping to have a YouTube video within the coming weeks of my opening level of my game.

I like to aim small, and try to capture an exciting series of scenes or moments, cool gun animations, and good shootouts with some cool puzzles and jump sequences, as I go, explain them fairly vaguely (it's a low budget shooter who cares), then further tie them in with my "kshatriya" universe.