From your head, to paper

Vxss57

Member
I started doing some isometric tiles for my game and although they look promising, the further i go, the more i think, my idea might be better suited as a side scrolling game. The reason i started isometric is i prefer open world games such as project zomboid over games like Ori and the blind forest. But i do think my idea is fairly original and want to continue working on it. Side scrollers i feel are much better for storytelling games versus isometric , which i feel are better for quest type games.
How do you guys/girls go from an idea in your head to paper? How do you plan and decide whether to go for top down, platformer etc? I feel this problem im having is because i did no planning at all, and just jumped right in.
 
2

2toes

Guest
Hey, yeah your problem is not planning. I think it's easy and fun to just say "hey i'm going to just jump in and start programming" but, in my experience, I never finish the game, or even get close to be honest. I found this document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-I08qX76DgSFyN1ByIGtPuqXh7bVKraHcNIA25tpAzE/edit?usp=sharing . Not mine, credit is given in it though, and used it to plan out my game 100% and found it made the creation process a lot easier, note that some things did change while making it, but I will go back and edit my design document when i find time haha. So my advice would be to really think about what you want, this document will help you do that, then once you've taken a couple hours (or days) filling this out, you can start working on programming. I also find it helps to make lists of what you need to do as it helps you stay on track.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Planning definitely helps. I've had a bunch of moment where it felt like an idea 'died' once I got it on paper, but in retrospect it probably was because planning it out made me realize it wasn't such a good idea after all. To-do-lists helps a TON, so I'll definitely recommend those, but most types of 'professional' planning has at least a bit of intrinsic merit, even if it feels like you just burn time on stuff that doesn't actively contribute to your project. Just find some approach that helps you focus and stick to that, anything that works is the 'best' method.
 
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