What I'm thinking of are structured lists with various entries, pertaining to the specific storyboard item, attached to those items.
Of course, this feature should be activated as a DEVELOPER OPTION only, to not scare away the casual MAX user.
The idea behind this is by no means "making the avid developer a slave to a tool" (something so many other tools do,
in the end), but basically bind a list of noteworthy things to the game project in an orderly manner, so not to lose them
and be able to reference them quickly from within MAX, possibly even relate to them in other MAX projects.
Of course, it is always possible to produce some other container in Word, Excel, etc,, but that may
end up in a plethora of files losing their relevance quite quickly, and is never really integrated in MAX.
The lists should really go to and come from a database like sqlite in the background,
thus making arbitrary searches for anything ever recorded there easy.
The contents of the lists themselves never go to the game other than through the developer's mind.
The lists would technically be composed of fields such as :
* "unique ID" to identify (and possibly relate to) the entry
* "Game ID"
* "Entry Class", values -say- : "TO_DO", "FIX_ME", "INFO", "RESOURCE" "GITHUB", "LINK", "COMMENT" "REQUEST" "RESOURCE" and possibly others
* "Text", values -say- : <well, text>
* "Referenced from", values -say- : "Level-ID"
* "References to", values -say- : File- or web-link, "Level-ID"
* "Status", values -say- : "New", "Started", "problem: <SoAndSo>" , "finished", "dismissed"
* "Priority", values -say- : "low", "medium", "high"
* <possibly more>
Example for Entry-Lines (within MAX to be displayed as a line or 2-or-3-liner,
but below, organized vertically in order to make them comprehensible
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<some entry>
Hidden:
UNIQUE ID : 253
REFERENCE ID : 0 <default, = no reference>
GAME ID : 100 ; -> evaluates to working title, e.g. : "The Obsidian Dream"
Shown:
CLASS : TODO
TEXT : "Level 0070: implement the pyramid in the aztec village"
REFERENCED FROM : "LEVEL 0040: Pyramid mentioned in a map the player acquires from old shaman"
REFERENCES TO : "LEVEL 0110: Obsidian Dagger found at Pyramid's bottom required to kill monster in the final battle"
STATUS : "STARTED"
PRIORITY : High
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<another entry>
Hidden:
UNIQUE ID : 321
REFERENCE ID : 253 < reference! >
GAME ID : 100 ; -> evaluates to working title : "The Obsidian Dream"
Shown:
CLASS : GITHUB
TEXT : "Problem with Lighting in Pyramid submitted"
REFERENCED FROM : "<n/a>"
REFERENCES TO : "<link to github request>"
STATUS : "additional info request from TGC already supplied, check response!"
PRIORITY : High
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* Attributes not needed with certain items may be hidden when the item's list is being displayed.
* Filters may be applied when displaying the list, especially on the 'Priority' and 'Status' attributes,
* Thresholds may be set optionally (say: "when MAX is started, display list automatically
if more than <x> entries with priority higher then 'average'
and 'status' <> 'resolved' are in the specific list" )
* The unique ID is to be generated automatically for each item on creation of the item
* The game ID shall be used to reference the "working title" during development,
and allow to switch to the finalized game's title
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The SPLASH SCREEN could be the holder of a list to be thought of as "THE HEAP":
here, anything may go _initially_, but with clear intent to assign it to another storyboard item, later.
In other words, if the game is finished at some time in the future, there should be no items left on this HEAP.
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The TITLE SCREEN could be the holder of the GENERAL List,
containing general information,such as a rough master plan
( - CLASS of the following points is probably "INFO")
"Meant to be an educated FPS game",
"planned to extend over 12 Levels, ",
"Themes "SCIFI, AZTEC and MEDIEVAL"
"DEPENDENCIES <TGC>: Booster, AZTEC DLC"
"DEPENDENCIES <other>: 'Glorious_Knight' from TurboSquid)
"DEPENDENCIES <other>: 'Steamboat' from SketchFab
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The ABOUT SCREEN could be the holder of the "GAME LAYOUT List",
containing information basic to the game's story and useful for planning ahead,
recording - say - actors's names, side info, the intended level layout, the goal(s) etc.
so we have data for a more refined master plan,
as well as input for Loading screen text designs etc
"Protagonist : Colorado-John"
"Antagonist : B.B. Guy"
"Takes places between WW I and WW II"
"Locations all over the Americas"
...
"Level 0010 : Arrival in the port of San Josè "
"Level 0020 : Nightly Excursion in San Josè"
"Level 0030 : Day 1 Boarding the Steamboat"
"Level 0040 : Day 2 Ambush on the river"
"Level 0050 : Day 3 Disembarking right into the Jungle"
...
"Level 0120 : Finale"
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The LOADING SCREEN could be the holder of a List, the content of which, admittedly, I am currently unsure of,
maybe, some entries now in the GAME LAYOUT List should go here.
<Input from the community hereon especially appreciated >
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The LEVEL SCREENs lists, each, probably will receive the highest number of entries,
describing arbitrary given aspects of the specific level,
as well as relationships to other levels,
confirmed technical bugs, allegedly occurring technical bugs reported by users,
performance issues etc.
together with - hopefully found - solutions for such problems.
Also, since we obviously have only one entry and one exit into/from a level in the storyboard,
here's a good place to document additional transit points from/to the level.
Here, too, at the time of finalizing, no entries of type FIX_ME should have a status
other than "resolved"
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The GAME WON SCREEN list may receive planning information/ideas
for successors of the game, or user input worth noting for the long run
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The GAME OVER SCREEN list may receive short-time information on the game,
such as inconveniences / possible improvements,
logic discrepancies, and other "soft bugs" reported/suggested by (test/EA) game-users
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Admittedly, distributing the lists over the storyboard items may seem odd at first,
but - although all contents of all displayed lists surely go to the same ONE technical background list/table -,
displaying that background list on its own will probably, in a very short time, lead to a displayed list
WAY to long to work with in an acceptable manner, whereas using GAME ID, STORYBOARD ITEM, LEVEL ID
internally as keys fields in the background when working on a specific storyboard item will keep the
displayed list as short and tight as possible to what the developer is working on.
Ok, this has become longer than I originally intended (and is still too short
)
Now, what do people think about it ?
Best regards
Y.
Lives of great men all remind us we may make our lives sublime
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