Planning A Game

[Daitomodachi]

Hello! I recently brought RPG Maker VX Ace sometime ago. I'm interested in making a parody/satirical game, but I never worked on a full-fledged game before. Does anyone have recommendations on how to start planning development of your game? 

 

[masashi86]

Even I'm also quite new here, but I can understand about the planning a bit.

A good idea is to write all the ideas and thoughts down somewhere.

If it's more story based game, think about the plot, what is the main story? What characters you'd like in it, and who is who in your game? Who or what is the dynamic thing that drives the story onwards? What things makes it funny and parodic/satirical? And write them all down.

Actually same thing is about the technical features, i.e. think what possible puzzles you'd like? Something different/cool look to it perhaps? and so on. And write them down too, maybe in different list than the story
Then you have lots of data what do you need for your game and can try to actually create the game in RPG Maker. And if you bump into problems just put questions in these forums. Here are lots of wonderful people who are willing to help you!

The planning by writing all things down helped me a lot when I started my first game creation using RPG Maker!
So that's my one suggestion for planning!
Hope this is useful
And good luck for your planning!

 

[Kes]

If you have only just bought it, there will be things you don't even know need planning, plus things that can't be planned until you have a bit of knowledge (like which scripts - if any - you intend to import).  While you are doing your general thinking and initial planning, probably the best thing you could do is follow a tutorial which guides you through actually making a game.  There's one listed on the official bit of the website.  Also, look at the stuff on this thread, put together by Andar http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?showtopic=14727  It contains loads of info which I think you will find very helpful for what you want to do.

 

[CWells]

Story story story! I'm still learning this lesson as I go along. Let me explain why it is so important to get that first. It doesn't matter if your "story"  is an actual story game or just a mindless beat em up. You gotta have some sort of plan, a world, names, labels, titles, whatever. Why? Well...:

You will build your characters, as the story grows you will add more characters. Once you have a good solid grasp on what the story is, you can make a much better guess at how many characters there are supposed to be, so you can set up a proper limit for yourself without falling short.

You can add titles to these characters, classes, give a rough draft of each characters personality and use that to build on what sort of classes you want, what sort of skills they should have. If you're still following me, that's already three tabs you can get moving right: Actors, Classes, Skills.

The same goes for the enemies. What are the enemies of the world? What are they going to do? Back to skills again, but this time you are using enemies to help you build up the skill database. And your enemies will be build from whatever world you have built when creating your...story!

Create some events, create some actors, create a world. Pick a starting point, whatever comes easiest to flesh out for you and build on that. Then jump around and see what else materializes from what you have started. You will jump around a lot but the best place to start is probably the story/world.

All of your skills, classes, they're all going to be dictated by your world. Is it magic based? Is it techno based?

Don't rush ahead too far until you have set up your skills. But be sure to get the actors and enemies out. This way, when you do start on skills, you know where they go, you know how many you should have, etc. The Skills tab might be one of the more trickier ones to set up right because that is where all of the character actions will be dictated. From attacks, to behind the scene commands to special strikes, etc, etc.

 

[Archeia]

Hello! I recently brought RPG Maker VX Ace sometime ago. I'm interested in making a parody/satirical game, but I never worked on a full-fledged game before. Does anyone have recommendations on how to start planning development of your game? 

This is your first game right? IMHO go crazy.

It might be bad but to be honest it will make you realize things and there's a different feeling when you discover things from the get-go than from planning. Maybe only plan for battles but for story just write an outline and go bananas with mapping and putting story in it. That's how I roll with mine at least.

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[Daitomodachi]

Great! This is awesome advice! Thanks guys! Right now I'm fleshing out the story of my game.

 

[Archeia]

Just remember not to go overambitious. I figured you'd be fine since Parody/Satirical games are the best way to get started in RM imo.

 

[sabao]

I've always found it difficult to write comedy. Satire depends highly on observation, and without a fresh perspective, I feel most jokes will come off as tired or unfunny, and that's the last thing I'd ever want a comedy to be.


For first attempts, I'd go with Archeia said and go hog wild. First projects are mainly for getting yourself used to the program and to understand its limitations as well as to assess what you can and can't do as a creator.


With that assessment you can at least be practical in your planning things for your game, should you decide to build something more ambitious.


Do you have the graphic skills to do original graphics? If so, how quickly can you do a character set, tileset or whatever? Are you willing to invest x number of hours making graphics? If these don't hail cery positive answers, then go for RTP or get help where you can.


Do you know how to script on RGSS? Can you script your uber awesome battle system idea with it? If not, consider substitutes or similar pre-made scripts which you hopefully read and understood the documentation of.


While there are other factors that require planning, I believe the most basic requirement is understanding personal limitations. Knowing what you can and can't do at least ensures your process remains at a consistently flowing pace and not screeching to a halt every time you can't figure out how to do this or that.