Decision Trees

jonmulcahy

I spent a few hours today putting together the decision tree for my next endeavor, now that I have this down I can finally work out the end game logic

Socks

iamcartez

No matter what we do, the outcome is Flappy Bird!

I like that tree, even though photoshop couldn't make it readable... I've started to tackle multiplayer myself finally. I really want to make a universal leaderboard as well as a follow up to my word game.

jonmulcahy

@Socks‌ hahaha

it all leads to flappy bird

jonmulcahy

@iamcartez said:
No matter what we do, the outcome is Flappy Bird!

I like that tree, even though photoshop couldn't make it readable... I've started to tackle multiplayer myself finally. I really want to make a universal leaderboard as well as a follow up to my word game.

it's not readable on purpose not ready to share the game yet, but this entire tree is just how the game will be calculating the dynamic ending.

LumpApps

@sock lol!
I made these too but never sticked to it. Ideas tend to pop up when I am building. But great to see it in good use.

BBEnk

Thats a good way to lay things out, I think with my next game I'm really going to do more planning. Unlike Steam Jack.. It's mostly in my head and lost forever.

StormyStudio

Always love a good flow chart... my office wall is covered with them (hand drawn) for my current big endless project..

Armelline

StormyStudio

Armeline that's genius... I CAN TOTALLY STEAL THAT AND MAKE IT MY OWN...

colander

lol @Armelline love it.

jonmulcahy

@Armeline that's great

I've got 3 flowcharts (including this one) printed up and filed away. Since we moved last year I no longer have a dedicated office and spend most of my time on my laptop, so no room to tape stuff up yet.

after the basement reno is complete, I will have my game design nook back!

but anyone designing any sort of complicated game, these things are a fantastic way of laying out your rules and logic.

jonmulcahy

So,

the above flow chart was a basic outline of the end game generator. a 10000 foot view so to speak. Today I started going about putting the entire game flow logic down on paper.

This is it so far, and I still have 4-5 more logic sections to add at the end. It's really cool to finally see this all down on paper. I've got it tucked away inside a few different excel spreadsheets, notes of paper and in the game itself.

tatiang

@Armelline Don't know how I missed that the first time around.

@jonmulcahy Just goes to show that game design is not a simple process. GameSalad is a two-sided sword of sorts: really easy to make games (when compared with the alternative) yet really challenging because of the nature of games and coding logic. It's a huge effort and even though we can't see the details of your design, it's interesting to see how complex it already is.

quantumsheep

@jonmulcahy said:

but anyone designing any sort of complicated game, these things are a fantastic way of laying out your rules and logic.

You know, I agree with you that you need to do more planning etc, and flowcharts are a great way to do that.

But I still just keep everything in my head, apart from a few notes in a text document or just written down in one of my many design books

Crazy, I know!

Hope you get your game design nook back soon

QS =D

jonmulcahy

@quantumsheep‌ @tatiang‌ thanks!

I have about 10 design notebooks at home, all with various sketches, rules, interfaces, and math jotted down. Some games have multiple books, others are shared. This is the third time I've put together a flow chart, but the first time I did it for a game I'm actively developing, the others were in the planning stages.

This entire logic flow is just to calculate the ending. The entire game is dynamically generated based on your decisions, and this logic tree gets you from the start to the finish. The rules got so complicated I needed to lay it all out.

Below, every red circle is a way to die. The big red square is the final ending.
I can't wait to show more, but not until it's feature complete, don't need any clones

quantumsheep

I just want to be clear that what you're doing is absolutely the right way to go about things!

My mate Jake LOVES flow charts, and uses them all the time.

Personally, I just like to run in, arms waving about, and hollering a bit

I was making a 'choose your own adventure' type game a long while ago, and certainly using flowcharts helped then!

Good luck with it!

QS =D