Original post by dAmAtA_cHiP i find a notepad really useful as a programmer. Quite often i'll think of a solution to a problem im having when im not near a computer, and jotting it down on a notepad ensures i dont forget it. Same thing with designing, you never know when a good idea comes to you (i remember reading the guy who came up with the idea for skill trees in diablo thought of it while in the shower)
While in the shower? Surely diablo wasn't the first game to implement skill trees? I can't think of a game to prove my hypothesis but I don't remember playing diablo and thinking it's system was genius (since I'm sure I had seen something similar before).
I also get most of my ideas while in the shower, it's the one place where all you can do is think (and wash, I guess).
So my advice:
Get a shower.
Oh You can do a lot more than that in the shower. :P
But for game design you can start anywhere with any tool and put in as much detail as you want to make your game. Some start coding, others daydreaming, and some in the shower. You can use a UML program as your first tool or Paper and pen. Depends on where the best place for you to work is and finding that out can take many many different game ideas. Dark Basic is a place to start or you could start with C/C++ or even with a couple dice some 'Magic' cards and a bucket of spaggetti sauce. There is no real definite place to begin. Books and studing come when you want to actually add a feature that takes more knowledge than you have. Five year olds playing in the park can come up with a game of tag. But they don't have the knowledge to make Halo for the xbox. Go with what you know how to use first and be creative with that knowledge. If all I know how to do is display an image, play a sound, trap keyboard events, have two players across a network, and detect collisions; I would make a game where your in a race with another person to trap randomly moving balls by placing millions of tiny blocks on a huge screen.
So, the main point, only use what you know in making a game not what you 'think' you can learn how to do. If you don't know anything; study and learn by doing examples.
You need more than paper and pen to design games. Game design is partly about ideas, but I've found in general it's mostly about iteration. The most valuable thing you can be able to do as a game designer is prototype and iterate designs fast.
Note that this doesn't mean you need to program... Running paper RPG campaigns, designing board or card games, etc, are pretty much the same skillset, so you can get started with those as you learn to program or find a programmer to work with.
I used pen and paper. (I prefer a 'fine-tip' artist's pen, such as the Uniball Micro Deluxe personally, but I used to be a graphics artist and animator back in my mis-spent youth.)
If you want to _prototype_ a game, something like DarkBasic or Blitz Basic may be worth examining, but do the legwork to make sure you won't be trying to force these packages to do something they were never intended to do. Working out which tools you'll need for this task is one of those areas where knowing something about how a game is actually made really helps.
This is the reason why knowing some programming -- or better still, a good programmer -- is a Good Thing. It means you won't be caught out by time-wasting traps like the above. You (or you programming friend) will know enough about your proposed game design to determine which will be the best tool for the task.
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By far the biggest time-waster is talk. Talk isn't cheap: you _will_ die eventually, so the more talking you do, the less walking you'll get done. It's called procrastination and it's the bane of all creative types. The first, most powerful, most basic tool in your arsenal is one you already own: willpower.
Stop talking about it and start _doing_. Once you've started the ball rolling, you'll find it much easier to keep it going, but it's that first, tentative step into the unknown that holds you back. You'll never, ever, get there if you don't take that first step and it's amazing how many people let that fear take over.
Take that first step.
That's the only 'tool' you need.
-- Sean Timarco Baggaley
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.
Original post by dAmAtA_cHiP i find a notepad really useful as a programmer. Quite often i'll think of a solution to a problem im having when im not near a computer, and jotting it down on a notepad ensures i dont forget it. Same thing with designing, you never know when a good idea comes to you (i remember reading the guy who came up with the idea for skill trees in diablo thought of it while in the shower)
I know a novelist who keeps a whiteboard _in_ her shower. Don't knock it. It works.
I'd do it too if I didn't live in a house-share.)
-- Sean Timarco Baggaley
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.
I usually use a variety of low tech. tools for my design work, whether for games, algorithm design, writing etc.
My Head: The usual first stage is just to think about the general themes and ideas. I often do this when needing to kill some time or when walking from point A to point B. I also tend to daydream when I should be working (a bit like right now [smile]).
Pencil and Paper: The next stage is to write things down. I usually use a pencil and paper to sketch through the ideas that I can't keep in my head, or to jot down notes to remember really good ideas.
Notepad, vim and LaTeX: If the ideas are good, then I try writing them up on computer. I usally write long documents in LaTeX, which is what I'm presently writing my game design in (it's great for academic papers and things with lots of maths in it). I might also use some art tools to draw diagrams, though since I'm usually writing these for myself only I'll generally just sketch those with pencil on paper.
Roleplaying, Dolls and Dice: If I'm stuck the mechanics of how a game design idea or algorithm will work, that's when I like to go through it manually. I like to use things like dice, cards and coins to simulate the process of algorithms, or I draw avatars on pieces of paper and go through the various possibilties of what should happen.
I generally don't code design ideas up until I start getting into the implementation phase, or if there's a critical piece of AI that I don't know will work or not (I'll use a prototyping language to try things out).
