As we embark on our next game project, I wanted to take the time to explain how it works and what we do. We would like to share our progress, successes and opportunities for improvement.

We hope this will help other indies (and maybe not so indies) to improve their styles or simply to improve on what we do. Please note, this is just the way we recommend you to start, but there are millions of different ways 🙂

So, you want to start creating a game… You have a great idea and want to make it happen. Well, great ideas are awesome!

First question I would ask is… who is going to develop this game? You or a team? If it is you, what are your stronger skills and which ones are your weaknesses? If you are a great programmer, then that is awesome… but what about graphics? If you are an artist, that is fantastic, but what about writing code? What if you are just a designer or a music composer? Well, based on that and the scope of your project, you may need to make some decisions and some alliances.

1. What is your game about?

First things first… the main <insert any color you would like here> elephant in the room would be…

Assume that you have less than 5 minutes to explain it… imagine you are in an elevator and someone asks about your game, that person will be getting out from the elevator very soon, so your mission is (if you choose to accept it 😉 ), to explain your game before they get out of the elevator.

What is the game about? Why is a great game? Why should they play it or work on it? Why is it unique?

Ok, you got the main idea down! We still have some work to do… but this is a great progress. Let’s put it on paper, as ideas will involve in time and it is always great to have it somewhere…

Now paper may be old school for some of you so use your Wacom, Surface, and other devices to get started. I personally love paper!!