First I make an outline for the whole game, and then one for the chapter I’m working on that’s broadly scene-by-scene with branches based on choices, successes, or failures.
For short games I’m more likely to write and code at the same time, but for longer games like CoG ones, I almost always code first with placeholder text to make a playable structure whose functionality and difficulty balance can be tested using the automated testing tools. That includes stats and any variable changes, because for me the story and the mechanics are interwoven so closely that it wouldn’t make sense for me to do them separately. It makes it easier for me to shuffle things around, which often happens once I’m writing. The coding stage is where I do a lot of the figuring-out, though.
Then I write the first draft, filling in the gaps and changing things around as needed. I play through a chapter at least once, and also generate a playthrough or two using RandomTest to check wording and flow, so each of those playtests gets an editing pass. If I have a sense that I might want to change something big at that point, I may edit or I may make a note of it to look at later.
Then I submit the draft to my editor, and do revisions as needed once they come back.
My current playtesting process is putting up a chapter every couple of months and going through feedback. I’ll always edit to include fixes and will almost always edit small changes, but again if large changes are being brought up, I’ll usually sit on it to see if it comes up from other testers too.
Once I’ve got a full draft, I’ll playtest it myself from beginning to end before the beta testing begins. The CoG and HC process involves editing from at least two staff editors, plus continuity edits (where readers read through RandomTest-generated playthroughs) and copyedits. I’d recommend that authors not publishing with CoG or HC generate at least 5 playthroughs to read through, because you can spot a lot that way.
That’s where the bulk of the larger-scale edits happen. I wrote about how I organised myself during full draft testing for my game Royal Affairs here.
I don’t ignore plots or storylines in a first draft, but the first draft is quite a non-linear process where I will hop back to a previous chapter to make sure something is clarified or foreshadowed ahead of something I’m currently writing.