Planning a game

whats the best way to do it?

because right now i just go in head first and make it up as i go along. and that makes it really hard to structure my code well.

Pen and paper?

lol probably

i rarely paln anything past the initial structure of it – ie if im making a quiz game i need to know how its going to work so i can write the basic structure for it :p anything else gets added in as i go along :)

thats wat im trying to avoid.

I don’t see how starting with the basic structure is a bad thing. Sure, you keep track of what you want to game to do later on, but trying to write too much code at once generally isn’t a good idea (you’ve got more to debug, and less chance of quickly finding out what part of the code the bugs are in).

well in my last project i had the basic game well structured but then i started adding things that i didn’t plan at the start and it started to get really unorganised.

Do a lot of story boarding and jot down lots of notes, figure out what you want the game to do and figure out how you can do all of those things in a framework that allows more, but similar, things to be added later.

The game I’m working on now uses a string for damage type, even though I really only have three types planned, but adding another just means putting in the string type and writing a new function in my creature definition (I use a creature class as a base class for all monsters and the player, which just defines hit points, status effects, level and exp, and other such things such as dying—for monsters the exp is how much is awarded (assuming the player is the same level) and the level determines how strong it is to award more (or less) exp based on the player’s level).

I’ve also got a flags array/pseudo-class, eg:

var flags = {hpregen:0, slowed:false, fireimmune:true};

that I can add to when I make new flags. HP regen is actually a number that indicates how much regeneration, but it allows for both positive and negative regeneration (eg. damage over time). Say later I want to make creatures that are immune to magic, all I have to do is add a magicimmune variable to the creature class, set it to false, then in that creature’s class I set it to true and write special conditions for when its effected by magic.

Originally posted by Omrelap:

well in my last project i had the basic game well structured but then i started adding things that i didn’t plan at the start and it started to get really unorganised.

Exactly. If you program strictly with OOP guidelines(ie. using parameters, strict typing, general methods, etc), its less likely you will run into this. However, I believe that its a little bit less efficient, which hardly matters.

Well, part of structuring the basic game is to define specific limits to the development so that you don’t go off in a totally new direction in the middle of it – just make sure that all your new ideas still fit within the basic framework that you laid out in the first place. If they don’t, you should either make another game with some of the extra features in it, or redesign the basic framework to accommodate your new ideas.

You could try looking into UML.

“Planning a Game” it can be lots of work, some great developers take months coming up with there game on a storyboard or paper/computer files and documents. Planning a game shouldn’t be something fast and easy, it takes lots of time sometimes more then making/coding the game itself.

Developing a great game usually takes a year or more, but if you don’t have that much time o just can’t wait I suggest you create a simple, but fun, decent storyline game. You could include upgrades and power-ups, or just varieties of levels and difficulties.

If you’re new to programming and developing you could watch some tutorials, read some, and play some; I know kongregate provides the shootorials which help lots in development. Anyways, I game should take you at least 1-17 months to create.

The method I use is that when I have thought of a basic idea, I don’t do anything with it for arounda month. By that time you should have thought of lots of good ideas for it and will have hopefully explored much of teh games subject within your mind.

Originally posted by GameDesign:

“Planning a Game” it can be lots of work, some great developers take months coming up with there game on a storyboard or paper/computer files and documents. Planning a game shouldn’t be something fast and easy, it takes lots of time sometimes more then making/coding the game itself.

Oh my god, this. The game I’m working on was intended to be a “one month project” when it came to actually putting code down (it’s >ahem< gone over that by a bit, but I did get a real job), but the planning phase extended much farther than that. I did a good amount of research (including playing the game that is my main source of inspiration—ah, good old NES) and a lot of just talking with a friend of mine.

Well my current game, I’ve been working on for well over a year, its had 2 engine rewrites, changed frameworks once, and has been put on hiatus 4 times. But the thing is, I had the game mostly planned form the start for what I want, jsut not how I’ll do it, now that I am also settled on the latter, when I get around to working on it I know what I’m donig because I planned ahead.

MyLuckyDay beat me to it.
Here:
http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/starumltoas3/