Hello! Still a newbie in making my own game. I got more or less got the basic of the CS coding, so now I’m in the actual development of my first work, the story and content part.
Right now, what I’m to doing is writing everything like how I would write a novel, have the start and the first ending. After that first ending and everything laid out, that’s where I’m going to code the other possible choices, paths, outcomes, conditions and endings.
I’m wondering if you guys have other ways you use to write and plan your games, or like how you guys layout your games.
I’m probably overthinking this But I hope I make sense. I like having a plan I can follow.
I plan the outline then the setting, plot, characters and THEN I start writing.
(A tip, don’t just start writing, research: character names, nationality, persona traits, you don’t want your characters all messy! All writers have a starting point which is the most important part.)
Oh! Thank you for letting me know, I’m still figuring out this forum thing.
I already have the characters and other stuff; I’m mostly asking about the outlining and mapping part. Right now, I’m using bullets, bulleting the scenes so now I’m kinda stuck on the first choice I have with three options. Like should I finish the whole consequence and path of the first option and do the others after, do every consequence and path of the options as I go. (I’m confusing myself tbh )
I think the first step is to figure out what you want to do with the game. I find knowing this gives you a vision that helps you make other choices for development.
Do you plan on having a branching story? If you have a branching story, do the branches ever come back together? (I guess a road would be a better analogy here) Or are you doing something that is a pure branching story? Knowing this will also help in planning out a story and know what/where the key choices are.
Something you can do (that I plan on doing for my next story) is plot out the acts and character arcs around key choices. It was best explained to me that three and four act stories are separated by the MC making a major decision. These games we are making are literally games base around choices, yet it didn’t hit me to design the story around this until I was most of the way done with my current WIP.
Personally I write every option, and the options rarely diverge drastically enough that I have to do more than one major sequence of writing. I plan out the major diversions ahead of time to make sure I’m not falling victim to scope creep.
@Dvalor53 - Great tip, thanks for that. I think that’s a good idea. My planning and mapping is a mess right now haha Maybe having that direction would help me out.
@will - I’m realizing I’m in a mindset of every option is going to drastically change everything with you saying that haha I’m going to have to figure out my major diverge too. Thanks for your insights.
But I hope I make sense. I like having a plan I can follow.
