Common steps into a finished game

[saymoo]

Hello community members!

Here's a shortend (cheatcheet) roadmap, most professional game developers use for creating a game to a finished product.

- Write out your game idea in a script (begin with a draft)
- Work out the details from that script. E.g. if the script says something about some theme, explain the theme in more detail (visual writing)
- Make some storyboard (like comics, squares with pictures in it visualizing the script)
- make a design document from the storyboard and script. A design document is a very detailed document that covers ALL things related to the game, like objectives, characters, weapons, special abilities, level descriptions, technical explaining (scriptcode and middleware to be used), etc etc etc etc.. In the end when dealing with publishers, they most likely want to get a copy of the design document (it's a written game, the document should represent the whole game in every aspect, so by only reading through it, you surely know how it will be visual)
- Make a detailed but realistic schedule for your team or yourself, and KEEP too it. (even if it seems impossible, just make it happen (crunch time)) Remember: your schedule will be modified by even more strict and thight milestone dates to keep toom, by a future publisher (if you found one during development)
- Make concept art for your assets, the more perspectives the art for an asset has, the better it is for your modelers (as backplanes e.g. or the getting the feel of the character) to rebuild the drawing into a 3d model
- Make primary assets (like main characters, or main object (like weapons or a mesh (like a castle that returns more times during the game) this also includes textures and animations.
- Start prototyping with made assets, for certain functions, e.g. in Splintercell, ubisoft montreal/shanhai have made some prototypes only focussing on fighting moves, untill those worked out exactly as they wanted. Then they made other prototypes covering other element of the game, e.g. light/shadow visibility by enemy etc etc etc.
Prototyping is very important, it can tackle future troubles you might run into from the beginning.
- Create the levels, and more assets (incl. sound fx), and TEST them intensively. (change the designdocument if some radical changes happen, so both the levels/assets and the document are always in sync.)
- Create at the same time some code that is used in the level (game logic), incl using the working prototype code elements.
- Make gui's for the game, and test them intensively.
- Optionally: create cinematics
- Make an Alpha release for internal team testing.
- Fix bugs, i'm sure there are many.
- Make an closed Beta, for internal and some carefully selected external people to test the product.
- When entering the beta stage, you can already start seeking for a publisher and include them as beta tester.
- Fix bugs...
- Make either public beta, or just release it (if agreed with the publisher, if having one)
- Keep seeking for bugs, and fix them (patches)
- Listen to your fans, and respond accordingly.

[desigpa]

Good stuff. Thanks!

[CreativeCoding]

*Favorited*

Man, my bookmarks are filling up!

[Zomy]

Really god thread, everyone should read this .

[immortius]

I would add "Polish" somewhere in there - for tweaking things which aren't necessarily bugged, but just needing some care. Say, movement speeds, damage values and such.

For a competitive multiplayer game, balance testing and tweaking should also have a strong presence.

[Angel_Mapper]

Prototyping should be the first thing on that list. It's all for nothing if the core concept of your game isn't fun. Quick iteration on the basic gameplay will let you figure things out before major changes would be necessary.

[Saishy]

I don't think that is a good workflow, its too much "graphic focused" are you an artist?

You should focus on the main core of the game and make sure that works perfectly, don't add any functions, flavors or try new features until you are completely sure your main game is working.
Them every time you add something, you must keep testing it until you make sure there is no bugs, and always focus on one thing at time.

Forget beautiful, cool features or even things you would really like to see on your game, if they are going to delay you from making a playable version, then forget it.

[Psilocybe]

Forget beautiful, cool features or even things you would really like to see on your game, if they are going to delay you from making a playable version, then forget it.

Well, I'd have to disagree. Sometimes a game needs cool features, and you just have to budget your time accordingly. If you focus to much on "getting it out there," it may look sloppy or feel unfinished. Good games take time.

Oh, and I like the workflow saymoo

[Angel_Mapper]

He's talking about internally. Your game should look ugly as hell ("programmer art") until your gameplay is nailed down.

[Makaze]

Damn straight. If it's not fun while you ask yourself things like "Is that orange rectangle an orc in this build? Or is it the princess..." it probably won't be fun when it's pretty either.

[Saishy]

Damn straight. If it's not fun while you ask yourself things like "Is that orange rectangle an orc in this build? Or is it the princess..." it probably won't be fun when it's pretty either.

Lol I played my last game project by using text commands and dumb things like using wooden barrels as spell effects.

And when I finished all the game mechanic and everything was working I started adding the "magic" to the game.

Serious, I expended 3 years doing almost nothing because I was always adding cool features and new ideas, and it got to a point where my project was never progressing, only becoming bigger.
Things just started to work when I cut everything that wasn't strictly necessary to make a playable version.
(That includes using boxes for characters or ugly text UIs)

[Blade[UG]]

Damn straight. If it's not fun while you ask yourself things like "Is that orange rectangle an orc in this build? Or is it the princess..." it probably won't be fun when it's pretty either.

maybe that might be a little TOO lax on the "programmer art"

[Baracuda771]

This is probably one of the best pieces of material on these forums. This should be stickied if it isn't already as it may teach others the core of the game before actually making it; like a sort of story board.

[Psilocybe]

I agree. There are all too many threads saying "I really want to make a game but I don't know where to start but it's all so cool so could I have some help please?!" This would definitely help people who have no idea where to start.