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Throughout the planning stage, your game will grow from an idea into a project. It’s exciting because it’s the beginning of something. It’s terrifying because at some point you’ll have to decide to take the plunge—which is scary for anyone striking off on their own.
Since you’ll be doing a hell of a lot of game design at this stage, here’s some of the best advice I’ve learned from industry veterans:
Start building as soon as possible
Another way to say this: get in-engine as soon as possible.
Building systems on paper is certainly important work, but it’s no substitute for in-engine experimentation. Plenty of ideas work on paper. But in practice, they fall flat for reasons you couldn’t have predicted. You’re going to spend a ton of time making the wrong game and the wrong features. Part of the creative process is understanding how much junk you need to build before you strike gold.
A lot of people say “you need to make 10 bad games before you can make 1 good one.” You’ll probably need to build this game poorly several times before you start to fall in love with it.
Solicit constant feedback
Feedback at this stage is painful. You have a vision for what your game can be, but of course it’s not there yet. No one’s in your head, so they can’t see what you envision. They can only play what’s in front of them. They’ll certainly criticize it. Nevertheless, it’s important for them to play with it, and it’s important for you to talk about it.
You’ll get some experience talking about your concept, which is really useful at this stage. You don’t want to be bad at talking about your game when it matters. You’ll start to see what clicks (“okay, for light gamers, call it a strategy game, not a management game.”). But most importantly, someone will say something that resonates with you, and it’ll unlock brilliance.
Document your failures
When you try something that doesn’t work, write it down! Write down what didn’t work and why it didn’t work. It’s important to fail, but you don’t want to keep failing the same way. Learning from your mistakes is an essential part of the process, and documentation helps reinforce that learning. It’s also useful for putting into a devlog later, which you may find helpful for marketing.
Beyond that, I’m not going to spout much game design wisdom. This is a game production guide. You’re the driver; I’m just providing the car. You can use it to get from point A to point B, but ultimately it relies on your control, vision, and expertise to move forward.
This section of the site contains the following articles:
Market Research: I emphasize this because playing games in your genre helps you learn about common design choices, what others have done, and—most importantly—how you’ll be different. If you want to be a great writer, read more. If you want to be a great game designer, play more games.
Creative Pillars: these allow you to impose constraints on your game throughout the design process. That might sound like a bad thing, but it actually helps propel your game forward.
A Modern Game Design Document: there’s a balance between documenting nothing and documenting to excess. Turning a classic game design document into a modular wiki helps you strike this balance.
What's in a Vertical Slice?: I want to help you build a vertical slice, but what exactly is a vertical slice? And what do you need to build to finish one? This article breaks it down.
Scoping Your Vertical Slice: this article expands on "What's in a Vertical Slice?" and adds practical steps to help you plot out what exactly you're building.
Building a Team: you'll typically need others to help build your game. This article tells you where to find them and provides some best practices for managing a team.
I've started off by describing the tools you'll need to develop your best game (Market Research, Creative Pillars, and a Game Design Document). Market Research—or playing games like yours—is the best starting point for any new idea. If you're ready to get started, head on over to Market Research.
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