I'm curious to know whether people just sit down and design or if you plan on paper first. What's your process?
Note the following is for iOS: For me its brainstorming ideas first with colleagues, then pen and paper to document ideas and sketch out screens. A few Starbucks and Skype meetings then once the overall concept is thought out and agreed start building basic scenes in BB for review amongst the team. Usually I make some videos so others can see the initial game in action and then when everyone is happy we're going in the right direction start delivering .ipa files for the game to be played. From that things move quickly with ideas and changes etc.
I like to be in an environment that doesn't feel stifling. I'm home so much it's hard for me to be there when I'm thinking of new concepts. I always use techniques from "Thinkertoys." Same techniques I used to generate Color Switch I sketch everything on paper personally.
I prefer quick prototyping instead. It is maybe easier for me to try-and-feel and then show to ppl than explain how it should work. Also I find it easy to change shapes and colors from initial concept to fine and shine. Also it can happen that a concept changes something like 100 times during development time simply because I do something, that does not work, then do something else, still do not like it and finally it ends up completely different, like Flappy Bird becomes Crossy Roads lol
It always starts out with sketches for us - gotta be the quickest way to realize stuff. Here is the first sketch we ever did of our game Circulate, certainly rough and ready - no need to get fancy at that stage. (That's my excuse for a bad drawing ;-)
THINKERTOYS – A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques - See more at: http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.Og9qkQEI.dpuf
I spend a lot of time making notes prior to a game. I can build images in my head pretty well and make notes accordingly.
I also highly recommend the associated card deck. Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck http://www.amazon.com/Thinkpak-A-Br...1-9284121?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ZA4PH85B8NSV2C990YR
Very interesting. I set down and start right in on BB. I must do two or three concept versions before I have something I want to really do. I just started working with an Illustrator so I think this will all change for me. I had a concept and showed him a short utube video of the BB file and ran a demo. He is building new characters , background and objects for my concept. I think in the future. It will work like this for me. 1. concept - one world using basic art 2. Show Illustrator and let him build the art 3. build the file
Older post but thought i would chime in. All my artworks i do using a Galaxy Note 12.2 Pro tablet. And SketchBook Pro. Since i am my own illustrator and dont rely on another artist, I typically think of an idea, then open SketchBook and start designing gfx. Using layers, i will start with the background, then some foregrounds, then just move forward to UI and character. all on their own separate layers. This way not only do i see what the entire game will look like, All i have to do is make all layers invisible except BG, export it as PNG, then make it invisible and all others except foreground, export as PNG...do this with the rest. Then import them into BB. The only time i will do something separate is usually for character design. If animating character, ill draw his default stance, Duplicate the layer, make the opacity about half, then with duplicated image, erase and redraw say, his leg slightly outward, then do this over and over creating layers for each. Export each layer individually as i did above and drag and drop them into BB character animation. Now i have a moving character.
Sketch on paper always. I find if you go straight into design with out any planning, you just go round in circles when building the game.
I start with concept sketches, with notes written about how the game product will have what design features, and then move to a game design document that lists things like checklists and sounds and music and effects ... essentially a storyboard that facilitates development
Most of my concepts comes from me directly playing inside Buildbox to test it's limitations and capabilities. I used to draw graphics before diving into Buildbox. All that created was countless amounts of arts with no direction