How do you design your game?

I'm just curious about if you are finished with a game, or mostly finished, what your process is. For me, I make a bunch of maps and then kind of get stuck once I lose interest making maps and start all over with a new game. (I know, that's terrible)

The 2 games I ever got closest to finishing I feel like the beginnings were really shaky and then as I worked more and more, the world kind of weaved together. I kept asking myself why something was the way it was- the fact that I had an explanation for everything was a pretty good foundation for continuing to trudge through parts where I didn't know what to do.

That said, I don't stick to a schedule or process of how things go. But when I do, I notice a huge difference. When I followed Yanfly's comic for making a game (3 towns with 3 dungeons, one intro and once conclusion) that had really made a huge improvement on getting a lot more done in a project than I had before (yet I still have yet to finish this game)

I'm trying to downsize my ideas so that I can actually finish a project, but still, at some points I find that I'm mostly making things up as I go and don't really have a plan, which works because it entertains me, but it doesn't work in the aspect of me actually finishing anything.

So I am curious and want to discuss, how did you plan your game and are there better ways than making it up as you go along?

Mine? Pretty much more or less like this

You might like to browse some of the recent threads asking the same or related questions.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ame-what-do-you-tackle-first-last-etc.101897/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/how-do-you-structure-your-game-story.101665/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/help-with-plot-developing.99985/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...e-or-inspired-on-rpg-maker-developing.100571/

There are several other threads which might be of interest on very specific aspects. A quick skim of topic titles on the first few pages will turn them up.

Thank you. I feel like I've googled to the ends of the Earth about writer's block but I still haven't seen that tutorial by Indrah, it looks really helpful, and it didn't occur to me to actually search the forums lol. I will read all of those threads now haha

It's true, and imo the biggest points are about knowing your limits and the game scope. Most of ppl just don't know if it's beyond their limit. And ended up thinking "I want to design something like this and I have no idea how?".

I sprinted my game in 3 months which looked like another RTP trash game. But I nailed the game scope pretty right. I just wanted to make a simple dungeon crawler. Few floors with a boss on each floor. I don't need anything else, just dungeon crawler. Then I took another 3 months to take out the game from completed game status back into in development again to polish everything in the game. Including rebalance, added some features, replacing the placeholder graphics, added some interesting encounters, and many things.

I believe if you have a clear vision on when you gonna bring your game, you won't get derailed so much.

Yeah, Vision is the most important ingredient.

If you know what you want, you can find various paths there.

I stepped into my project with a 2d world map, a 470-page novel, and a pen&paper rpg. I knew about each culture, each race, each class, and had a list of 70 some abilities.

If you dont have your world built, I would start there. There is a newer genre of writing that could aid you, if you dont want to create an entire world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fantasy

Step 2, I balanced each of my classes as best I could by deciding stats and equipment types. Then created their first 5 levels of abilities.

Step 3, created all the equipment for my starter town. Made skeleton of town: shop, inn, story-line npcs.

Step 4, monsters for starter area.

Step 5, perfected battle system using starter area monsters.

Step 6, dungeon layout. Add puzzles. Add monsters. Create boss fight.

Step 7-100, refine game skeleton.


Just very generally - my method: know your starting point and know your ending. I like to granularly build from these two points and slowly draw them together, as if two magnets. I will find occasion to add characters, plot points, et cetera as the story builds itself. BUT I ALWAYS KNOW THE ENDING.

JJ Abhrams has built his career on having no clue where he is going. I personally despise this method. The story teller should always have an ending; not just hope to keep generating moneys. Here he is explaining his method:


Something else I did, which might help for clarifying your vision, is draw a path over my world map that the main group would trudge. This way I know what towns they will visit, where I should put dungeons and where I need to have plot points occur.

I usually start with "systems" (such as the battle system, item creation system, or other core gameplay systems, such as chains of minigames in a game where half the gameplay revolves around minigames) using bare placeholder maps, design the database second, add narrative to weave it all together third, and finally expand/decorate the maps before release. Some people do it in almost the exact reverse order, and sometimes the process is going to be different based on what the core appeal of your game is.

As a piece of advice, if you have trouble sticking with/continuing games, enter contests with short deadlines, like the IGMC. Knowing that you need to complete it in 30 days or it will be "worth nothing" is a really good motivation to not get lost with purpose or carried away with scope. You'll be able to justify leaving things in that aren't perfect and moving on to the parts of game dev that you don't enjoy, and therefore you'll have a much easier time completing the game in a reasonable time frame. You can always go back and add a lot more after you complete it.