My w finger got tired
This is a good example of how I work. Once upon a time people made games by writing a giant document describing every aspect of a game, then handing that document over to a team to implement. I don’t do that. Instead I start with a vague idea of how a game should work, then get the core features running as soon as possible. Once I’m able to play something I’m much better able to judge what works, what doesn’t work, and what might work. Case in point: Cruise control. Exploring is interesting, but it means moving forwards a lot more than in previous episodes. My forwards finger started to hurt, so I added what in most MMOs would be called autorun. I probably wouldn’t have covered that within the deep dark depths of a design document.
<3 Farbs
I agree with this kind of design plan. It seems a lot more intuitive and generally just smarter. Of course, if you have a team of people and each isn’t intimately familiar with what is going on in the game, designing the way you are presents some problems. But I think that for a one person or few person design team it’s a better idea to do what you’re doing, Farbs.
“Cruise control engaged”
OH CRUD! Where did that juliet station come from?
So are we gonna get wasted if were cruising and not paying attention???
Obligatory: “EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU GOTTA STEER BRO”
that type of design philosophy works great when your working alone or with a small team like yves said. definitely harder to pull off with a larger group. I work in mech engineering and we essentially do what you do. we see a problem that isn’t necessarily defined by a document then we mock up a solution in 3d then review it and implement.
I guess this process could work with larger groups with the right management. it would be chaos letting a bunch of little groups design parts of a game then expecting everything to merge and be cohesive. communication would be key.
That’s just how I created my game (which coincidentally was inspired by this). I started with being able to navigate a 2d array of characters then I figured out all the planets, saving and other ships.
@ryan – yeah, it can veer out of control with more than one person on a project. Still, I think it’s important when you build something new to acknowledge that you’ll at least need to make some course corrections.
how much fanart do you have, farbs
@IAT: Not nearly enough (hint hint). I did find some great fan fiction a while ago though. Actually, I’m pretty sure I once found Polychromatic Funk Monkey fan fiction. That was awesome.