1. What is game planning? 1
2. What conditions should game planning have? 2
3. How to start a game planning? three
4. Other issues 4
Introduction to Planning (1) What kind of ideas are feasible 5
Introduction to Planning (2) How to Write Project Proposal 7
Introduction to Planning (3) The Value of Creativity and How to Write Stories 10
Introduction to Planning (4) How to build your game framework 1 1
Introduction to Planning (5) Start to draw the structural flow of the system 13.
Introduction to Planning (6) Turn the module into reality bit by bit 15
Introduction to the Plan (VII) How to Assign Tasks 17
Introduction to Planning (8) Communication and Coordination in Development 18
Introduction to Plan (9) Generation of Test Scheme 20
How to describe operation 22
1. What is game planning?
Our theme today is game planning. So first of all, we must understand a question, what is game planning? Once a friend came to us with some of his own stories and found his stories very touching. If you play a game, it will be a sensation. So, is writing some touching stories a game plan? Taking ourselves as an example, we feel that a good story is far from a good game. Our Heroes of the Water Margin-Soul of Fire is adapted from China's classic works. In order to integrate the views and tastes of modern people, the adaptation of the original work is very large. As far as our own story scripts are concerned, it can be said that they are all good after reading. But after playing a game, it is another matter. Not to mention the player's comments, but we all feel that the connotation of the script has not been fully expressed. Good ingredients don't make good dishes.
This is not to say that there is a problem with the level of our producers, but actually it is caused by the differences in thinking and feelings between people. Not everyone has the same feelings and comments about a story. Even if it is a TV series, different people will have different comments. Not to mention giving a story to seven, eight or even more people with different personalities and ideas, and asking them to make a story for thousands of people to enjoy, the result can be imagined. The purpose of telling this story is to make friends who are interested in it pay attention to one thing-a story is only the first step of a long March for a game.
Of course, some games have nothing to do with stories, such as simulation games and sports games. Some friends came to discuss with us with a thick stack of scripts and made their scripts. Their scripts have detailed stories, menu design and game rules design, which are comprehensive on the surface. They call it game planning. In other words, they think that writing a story, designing some menu functions and making some rules of the game are game planning. If that's the case, things will be much simpler.
I believe all the friends who read this article are curious! Look at the inside story of game making! Or you want to try it yourself. When others play games too much, they always feel that they have some good ideas and can definitely plan a good game. But if you really want to plan a game and someone to do it, then we have a very important question-who will play the game! ! ! You mustn't expect that everything will be all right after you come up with stories, menus and rules, regardless of the procedures and art parts. In that case, you won't get your own job. When programmers and artists finish their work, they will give you something completely different from what you think. You will find that this is not the same game at all. The reason why I say these words repeatedly is to tell my friends who are interested in it. Don't think that game planning is just making up stories and making rules. So what qualities should a game planner have? What kind of talents are qualified to do game planning?
2. What conditions should game planning have?
How's it going? Are you scared by what I said earlier? This is not, and that is not. What kind of talent is game planning?
Now I tell you again, an ideal game plan should meet the following conditions:
A. I've played enough games and have done some research on each game. Because only in this way can we fully design our own games and foster strengths and avoid weaknesses. Only after playing enough games can you understand some conventional things of players, such as yes and no buttons. Who is on the left? Who is on the right? On the other hand, some players often make mistakes.
B proficient in programming, game graphics, music programming and artificial intelligence. In this way, we can give full play to the role of the program and make the game more interesting without increasing the workload. For example, there are little people walking around the street in the scene. If these people simply walk around randomly without considering more artificial intelligence, then 100 people and 2 people are almost treated by the same program. However, if there are two people, and one of them needs to go to the pub under certain conditions, the workload of the added program is much larger than that of 100 people. And added a lot of work for the final test of the game. You must create the necessary conditions to see if he will go to the pub. And if this condition appears randomly and you are unlucky, you may have to wait all day.
C. I am very proficient in the art part, proficient in all kinds of plane, three-dimensional and animation software, and have a very solid foundation in art. And have a full understanding of photography and lens editing. If this really exists, it can make other artists who participate in the game fully understand the overall feeling of the game. You can tell them whether the color of the whole game is warm or cold. If it is a cartoon, is it Disney's cartoon style or Japanese cartoonist's cartoon style? You can personally design the positioning of the protagonist and the scene renderings, so that experienced artists can fully understand the game atmosphere you want to express. Is it a cheerful and lively fun style, or a sinister style of terror.
D. I am very proficient in music and music theory, and I am good at all styles of music, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign. Because people have a strong feeling and understanding of music, an atmosphere scene should match the music with the same atmosphere. Or use a special musical effect to express a special atmosphere. We tried to make a music producer understand why we should combine Chinese classical music with modern rock music, but in the end we failed.
E. I have a deep knowledge of literature and rich knowledge of Chinese and foreign history, so I'd better know some knowledge of expressing psychology. In this way, you can design people's role dialogue-the most important magic weapon to express moving plots, and it will also help you set off the background of the game era. If you want to design games with sci-fi background, you must also be familiar with some knowledge and trends of future technology.
Maybe this is a standard game planner, but we have never met such a talent. Because human life is limited, it is impossible to fully develop all aspects in a limited time. There is no way but to solve it by yourself. Fortunately, we may stand out in one of the above points. Then let people like you and me plan the game. But we can succeed, because we have two magic weapons to win-modesty, studiousness and unremitting efforts. Now let's get started.
3. How to start a game planning?
Starting a game planning, in a sense, is to start a game production process. First of all, you must understand that your time is limited. If you want to be a professional, you should always remember that what you are doing is a commodity, which has a cost and faces the risk of loss. The most effective way to reduce costs and risks is to firmly control time, which should be fully considered in the planning stage. If you are an amateur, don't forget that if you spend two years trying to make a good game, your game may be rotten after two years. There are too many such examples. Needless to say, you have to give up halfway because of your energy and time constraints. So at the beginning, you must have a plan and goal to finish the game in eight months? Twelve months? Eighteen months? In a word, you must have a clear timetable. On the basis of this timetable, you may have to give up or change some ideas.
Now let's get started. Planning a game requires a pen (preferably a pencil), a stack of draft paper and a calculator if necessary.
After playing many western simulation construction games, I suddenly had an idea. What if all the houses in the game are buildings in our own country? Then we have a basic element of the game.
★ Build houses with national characteristics in an open space that may be desert or grassland.
Below we need to set some obstacles and rewards for players, which is also one of the important means to make the game brainy. By the way, not all players like to use their brains. But you must not expect a game to satisfy all players' preferences.
The historical background of the game is the second question. This problem is easy to solve, and Beijing where we are now is a very suitable geographical and historical background. Build the ancient imperial capital Beijing. A very attractive theme, isn't it? We have the second element of the game.
★ With Beijing as the capital as the historical background.
Architecture needs money, manpower, material resources and time, and players must try their best to get these necessary foundations in order to achieve final success. This constitutes the third basic element of the game.
★ Players must get enough money, manpower, food and building materials for manpower.
Let's combine these basic elements to make it a relatively complete system. This system is basically like this: classify buildings and use them to get money, population, food, building materials and so on. These buildings with specific functions are finally defined as commercial houses, houses, grain depots and government offices. It is natural to obtain funds from the business activities of enterprises through taxation. It is also an unthinking choice for the population to come from the folk houses. The concept of grain depot depends entirely on the historical background. In ancient times, grain from the south was transported by land and water, so we might not have to consider the problem of farming, but it triggered a new element-roads and traffic, so we added two facilities: roads and canals. As for the government's acquisition of building materials, it is mainly because the building materials of ancient palaces are mainly collected by the government.
In order to express the urban concept of ancient Beijing, temples, theaters and many other ancillary buildings have been added to our buildings. In order to show the characteristics of water shortage in ancient Beijing, we added the water factor and the building to obtain wells.
It seems that a relatively complete prototype of the rules of the game has emerged. But before you want to continue, you must answer the following questions.
4. Other issues
The first question is how big is your scene or map? This is related to the following questions:
A. In a limited scene, you can only put a limited number of buildings, and how many of the limited buildings are commercial?
B.how much time and money can so many companies bring you? How many buildings can you build with this money?
C. How much is a building and how long does it take to cover the map with the building?
D. what is the area of each building?
What you may not expect is that part of the answer to the question comes from the machine configuration of the end user of your game. If you ask the programmer, he will tell you that a picture with 640X480X256 colors takes up 300K of memory. The calculation method is 640x480/1024 (1k) = 300. And a 24-bit true color picture of the same size takes up 900K of memory space, which is exactly three times that of 300K K. If your target operating environment is 486/ 16M, obviously DOS system is the target operating system. In the memory of 16M, except that the running part and data part of the program may occupy 3-4M space, you can only put about 640X480X24BIT 12 pictures, even if other places are full of pictures. This means that there is only a 3X4 full-screen size, which is pitifully small. You can feel it with the diagram of 1920X 1920.
If you use hard disk as virtual memory technology, it may increase the scene, but the running speed may be greatly affected.
If you consider using 256 colors, then your artist must face a more serious problem-color palette, which is a headache for countless heroes. It not only means a serious decline in the quality of graphics, but also means a doubling of workload. Maybe you don't feel it directly, but we can tell you that in the past, about 60% of the time spent developing games in DOS environment was spent on solving the color palette problem.
It is your wise choice to expect users to run games under WIN95. In this way, the user's machine configuration will also be improved. At the same time, because of WIN95' s virtual memory technology and faster hard disk drive. Your scene will be greatly improved. But there are still many factors that affect your choice.
When the size of the scene is decided, some parameters can be made. First of all, you need to design a city reasonably. The so-called rationality means that most players will not feel uncomfortable. Then, find out how many of them are commercial buildings, how many are residential buildings and how many are government. On this basis, to determine the amount of money needed to build a city, you need to set the price for each kind of building in the whole city. Then, together with other factors, calculate the money needed to judge the time that players can bear to build a city. If it is too short, you will feel unsatisfied; if it is too long, your game will be shelved. Then, you grade your buildings and determine the efficiency of different grades of buildings. Generally speaking, it is to ensure the balance between all grades. For example, allocate the calculated amount to different levels of enterprises. In the process of distribution, users can be guided to establish more services of a certain level by adjusting parameters. You can explain which level of business is more cost-effective in the strategy or manual.
There are too many problems that confuse you. You should face them one by one and solve them. You may say, isn't this already in the process of playing games? Actually, it's not. When these parameters are really reflected in the game, you will find that there are many things you didn't expect. But even so, you need to simulate the design of this game in your mind over and over again, just like playing this game, and then make it. In order to find problems from it. Then divide it into scripts that artists and programmers can understand, and then give them to artists and programmers to make separately.
You see, game planning sometimes requires more care and patience, a certain understanding of procedures and art, and constant communication with people. It is not enough to write a story and make a few settings that you find interesting.
There are many game companies in Hangzhou, but few are well-known. Go online and see which mainstream games are from Hangzhou. You can call 17 173.