I very rarely spend time on meta; what time I do spend on gamedev is devoted to teaching i.e. answering questions on the regular site. Perhaps my absence from meta is the issue here.
What I find surprising is that I have never once been notified of the opportunity to nominate / vote in a moderat...
Hey, before I ask it on the main site, I wanted to check if my question was on topic/not a duplicate. I was also hoping you guys could suggest edits to it to make it more clear and concise.
"What questions should I ask and what process should I follow to get from a high level game concept to a fully fleshed out idea, that "merely" needs code and asset creation?"
The core problem here is that "fully fleshed out" is the same as having the program. If it was actually properly specified you could just write a compiler to translate your idea into a program.
You have to just accept that your idea doesn't flesh everything out and there is work to be done interpreting the idea.
user92578
Are we talking "high level" as in "Cool MMORPG with trading" or "I have a GDD ready, not sure how to start programming it though"?
Somewhere between. It sounds awesome in my head and I can imagine I would have fun playing it, but I'm struggling to actually get it out of my head and onto a piece of paper
Say, you want to make a starcraft clone. Everyone on your team knows starcraft by heart and if in doubt you can always check the original. While that idea is very well fleshed out when it comes to game specifications you still need a lot to actually make the game. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to measure or compare strategies to do that and people just make educated guesses.
user92578
TBH I kinda feel like the only good answer to the question is prototyping.
I liked this video about making diablo 3 and explaining the core ideas behind it. They show successes and failures and give you a feeling for how it can be done.
Of course you are not blizzard so sometimes their approach is meant to deal with having large teams, a problem you just don't have, so be careful when copying their ways.
But writing down the core pillars of your program should be reasonable (which is explained in the video).
do you reckon this would be worth putting on the site with your answer? Just so it doesn't get lost to the depths once a different conversation comes along
Another thing: Try to concentrate on the core game and skip or cheat on the rest. For example don't start learning OpenGL in order to make the game. Having good OpenGL code is not what makes or breaks your game. Just use some library or something.
Same goes for assets, just pick something from opengameart.org as a placeholder.
Sounds like you just need a project with a small enough scope
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user92578
It's a lot easier to build something that can be called a game and then expand upon that than start developing a massive over-scoped project that'll never get even to the MVP stage
I would say my realistic scope is a puzzle game. I feel i don't have enough time to develop a rouge like or a plat former. I work full time as a software dev so time is always my biggest contraint
but ive never been a puzzle game guy so its hard to think of somthing
@Tyyppi_77 Did you play alot of games like contra or other 2d shooters before making gun hero?
user92578
Not a lot of shooters no, a little Super Meat Boy here and there
It's a lot easier to build something that can be called a game and then expand upon that than start developing a massive over-scoped project that'll never get even to the MVP stage
I do have a basic platforming engine. I find its hard for me to make a platformer feel "good". I do wanna work on a semi complex rouge like but it would take a life time.
I'm currently trying to release a game to steam. I want to see what the process is like.