Project planning

Any tips on project planning?

I want to work more intelligently rather than just stumbling around between coding, modelling and other stuff.

Use something like this.

I'll give it a go... Do you add stuff as you go, or plan most of it in advance? And how much detail do you put in?

Me personally? I wing it. :)

I don't think you can do any more than a 'rough edit' on day 1. You simply don't know how long everything is going to take. But it does let you prioritise tasks which is always a good idea.

Depends how far you are into the project already ;-)

Basically I make a big overview listing the screens I'll need then the basic gameplay elements etc.

I always start on the game first and do the other screens later (because you might find that your game is rubbish after making it).

Anyway, pick an item from your overview list then plan it in more detail, and the code it. Keep a note of any ideas you get for improvements and log them to do later, not right now or you'll get distracted. Once that item is complete, tidy up any related loose ends and move onto the next overview item. Rinse and Repeat.

That's what I do anyway.

I never do any planning. I find it gets in the way of the "evolution" of a game, and just helps me procrastinate by planning stuff instead of doing it. Clearly that wouldn't work in a team, but since there's only one of me, it works fine.

Having said that, my natural priority is always graphics first. I can't code until I have models and textures to put on the screen. Mainly because you just don't know what issues you're going to hit until you actually have your media in hand. Creating a GUI? I create a GUI skin first. Creating the actor editor? I create some actors first. Creating the prefab editor? I create some prefabs and some textures and normal maps first.

Beyond that, I tend to code whatever seems most likely to cause problems first, For example, I wanted a pretty ( ok, very ) complex GUI system, so the basics of that were the very first thing I did. Then it was also the first thing I wrote an editor for. And recently it was the first thing I stress tested. Huge chunks of the game engine aren't even started yet, but the GUI is already pretty complete. I also imagined that LUA integration would be tricky, so that was done as soon as practical. It actually wasn't tricky at all, but I can now script the GUI entirely from LUA, so that's nice.

I have no idea if graphics first and the hardest stuff as soon as possible is a sensible way to work or not. It just works for me. I think the best solution is to find how you work best. You can normally generalize from other work.

sounds the complete opposite to my approach but we've both made games so it just goes to show anything goes as long as you actually finish!

Sonicfactory,

There is a very very good book which you may be able to get in a library, called "Game Architecture and Design" by Andrew Rollings and David Morris.

This book has in it a complete breakdown in reasonable detail with lots of examples, on how you should go about designing a game and getting the right crew for the job, how to write a design document/spec and how to keep people within that scope, when to expand it and how to deal with milestones and project scope creep (which is evolution to the extreme).

Very well worth a glance or a purchase if you intend to read it properly.

HOWEVER: you need to do what Bruce Lee suggests readers of his 'Tao of Jeet Kune Do' do, read it, think about it, throw the book away and do what comes to you naturally (with all the good knowledge embedded within you now too).

It is no good trying to force yourself into a style of development, just take ALL the best bits that you like about how everyone else does it and do that.

IPete2.

Mmmhmm, guess we'd better not work on any games together though, eh? ;)

Gantt charts are meant for upfront planning. Personally I prefer Scrum (wikipedia) which I find works really well.

And here's another one: "The Game Producer's Handbook" by Daniel Irish.

Yeah too damn right, glad we found this out hey! ;-)(