Having been forced to set aside my first attempt at a game project because it was just too ambitious and too disorganized as a project, trying to fold in everything plus a full kitchen and bath, I set to find some guidelines on how to set myself up for success in a second attempt, an action RPG concept that boils down to "WWII is interrupted by an alien invasion. Stop them."
I succeeded, and thought to pass on this good advice for the benefit of other n00bs here, as the Irrlicht Forum is one of the friendliest and most helpful developer communities towards newcomers that I've seen.
Firstly is a series of blog posts by Brenda Brathwaite:
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/1 ... of-a-game/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/1 ... om-a-core/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/1 ... -document/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... sign-docs/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... evel-docs/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... evel-docs/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... evel-docs/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... sign-docs/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... -and-flee/
More by her, on interface design:
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... -gameplay/
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/1 ... -must-die/
And gameplay:
http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... n-truth-1/
Then, a two part Gamasutra article on the need for and structure of a story for your game
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2 ... ds_to_.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... php?page=2
And, finally, an observation of my own: Learn from the massive hate-on that the original ending of Mass Effect 3 inspired, and plan for an ending - really a set of endings - that both bring a satisfying conclusion to the hours invested to reach it, which is built up to by the events throughout the game rather than hinging on one choice in the last minutes, and which is affected in real and significant ways by the choices the player has made in the earlier stages of the game, and not just in what weapons the hero has to face the final boss, or wears in the final cut scene. Unsatisfying endings tend to be a plague on video games in general - it's hard to actually think of one that really lived up to the rest of the game, though Xenosaga III (a series that always had truly epic amounts of fully voiced cut scenes, Xenosaga I being particularly egregious in the half hour between picking "new game" and when you can actually take control of a PC as it set up the world and characters) did pretty well despite being only the third of a planned six games, but ME3 was a particularly terrible example of a great game nearly ruined by anticlimax.
- dNN
