Hi all,

Some of you may have seen my other thread in the Writing subforum. Sorry for re-posting, but I'd like to also discuss this with you game designers.

We at Nevigo are developing a game design and non-linear writing tool, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about what kind of software you always needed but never found? Your "my prayers have been heard"-tool for game design? ;) What features to you require specifically?

Thanks in advance for your contributions, and all the best for you and your projects!

-Kai

You might want to revise your thread title, because from what you ask you seem to be concretely working on a practical tool, not daydreaming about a meaningless perfect one (as is typically the case for "I have an idea" forum threads). While you are at it, can you narrow your generic request for feature suggestions by explaining what does your "game design and non-linear writing tool" do and how does it compete with pencil and paper, with spreadsheets, with text editors, with diagram-drawing software, etc.? Telling which features could be appropriate is very difficult.

[...] you seem to be concretely working on a practical tool, not daydreaming about a meaningless perfect one [...]

can you narrow your generic request for feature suggestions by explaining what does your "game design and non-linear writing tool" do [...]

Hi LorenzoGatti,

Actually, I want to start right at the beginning instead of using our existing tool to narrow down the discussion. You're right, talking about feature ideas may not be the best way to approach this. I'd be much more interested in...

• ... the challenges you're facing in pinning down / illustrating / shaping your game design vision in the ideation process,
• ... how you currently approach those,
• ... and how a tool could help you improve those processes.

So it's more of a requirements analysis than a discussion about concrete feature ideas. Yet, if you have any specific features in mind (like over here in the writing forum), please feel free to share those as well!

Cheers,

-Kai

Easy Gantt chart software might be useful.

Easy Gantt chart software might be useful.

Thanks. And what would you use it for? Merely project management and tracking? Or also for actual content-related aspects?

Easy Gantt chart software might be useful.

Thanks. And what would you use it for? Merely project management and tracking? Or also for actual content-related aspects?

In college they had us make our schedule of events like art, programming, testing. etc. and then map them out on a Gantt chart. I tried using Excel and surely there has got to be an easier method. I was able to make my Gantt chart in a game engine easier than I could Excel.

If it is a story tool then export and import functions. The functions should be able to export custom text patterns so that they later on can fit nicely into whatever other editor you might be using for your game.

Something to facilitate crossreferencing information (including quicklinks) as the bigger and more detailed a game design gets the harder it is to find specific information needed to just find if the subject matter being composed is cohesive/valid for its intended theme and storyline.