Though it's about writing, George R.R. Martin has a quote that is applicable here:

George R.R. Martin said:

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.

For me personally, I lean more towards the architect side when it comes to writing. For example, I enjoy writing and for a long time I've been wanting to write a story in my fantasy setting involving an important civil war, and one particular character in there. A lot of time has been spent working on the setting, working out details of the chronology, figuring out exactly why this character is important, "discovering" his story before I actually write the story proper.

But as a programmer, I'm more of a gardener. I know what needs done, and I may have an idea of how to do it, but much of it just develops as I'm writing code.

When I write, I generally have a rough idea of what I want to write. I write a bit in first person to establish my characters, give them a starting point, and then try to get a feel for the theme. Then I throw it all away and I start writing things that happen. Eventually, I start stringing in the individual scenes that relate to the theme and try to reform what I've already got to tell a cohesive story.

For games, though, I don't really have a process. What I tinker with usually stays scraps and never comes together.

But why do games you work on stay scraps?

Real answer. I don't talk about this much in any kind of detail. I don't lie about it either. I just don't talk about it or avoid the subject.

I bounce on and off of medication for bipolar disorder in cycles of about every six months. Those months you guys see me making crazy progress on stuff and really pumping work out? I'm off meds.

I don't expect half of the people here to understand the particulars of what bipolar disorder is, but suffice it to say that it makes life a living hell of malignant perfectionism and listless hopelessness in two to three week cycles.

Add that to an anxiety disorder that was caused by stuff that happened during my military service... And frankly you've got a recipe for the graveyard that is my BYOND project folder.

My planning process goes:

1. Determine what type of game ( let's say I chose card game for instance )

2. Figure out how to be hipster with it ( I hate creating things that already exist, i.e. you'll never see me make a blocky building survival game, if I were to make a survival game it would be the exact opposite of Minecraft and any of those zombie shooters )

3. FORGE A WORLD. This is when I take the genre, and then whatever wonky game play idea I conjured in my head and try to rationalize it in some weird fictional universe. So let's say I have a card game and that the hipster premise is that instead of trying to reduce the enemy's points down to zero, each player is tasked with reducing their own HP to zero. It would feel incomplete without some sort of setting to make sense out of it, so I'd make some lore. I'd brainstorm different scenarios where someone would want to do themselves harm, like suicidal people. So I'd make a card game where some of the cards would be "slit wrist" or "leap off bridge" or "listen to any of Taylor Swifts albums", because all those things would help kill you. I realize this is a horrible example but you get the point.

4. Profit. At this point I usually figure out how exactly I want to market it. I usually resort to humor because that's what I'm good at. People would think I was batshit crazy if I made a trailer with the catchphrase "Come play the game that'll make you kill yourself!", but it's just ridiculous enough to make people curious, which is what you want, because curiosity leads to a click and a click leads to a download and a download leads to a DOLLA. I also try to figure out how exactly I'll go about payments. I'm usually opposed to micro-transactions, early access, and other bullshit like that, so I tend to just charge a one-time subscription fee.

@Ter13: I see. My mom goes through the same thing + [literally] a list of other mental/physical conditions. Blessings to you (and anyone else in the same boat).

@The Magic Man:

One thing I've found helpful is to keep a to do list and have a bunch of stuff I will do within the next day or two. Not that I ever finish anything, but giving myself something manageable to do and setting a time frame to do it keeps me going longer than if I just did whatever.

I recently started using that method for my daily routine and off/on for anything I develop, and it is very effective when I stick to it. I don't write down a lot of items, but enough that I'm fairly certain I'll finish within a single day.

@EmpirezTeam: Not sure if serious or joking, but I'm going with the latter. I actually half-expected you to speak on your writing process.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

3. FORGE A WORLD. This is when I take the genre, and then whatever wonky game play idea I conjured in my head and try to rationalize it in some weird fictional universe. So let's say I have a card game and that the hipster premise is that instead of trying to reduce the enemy's points down to zero, each player is tasked with reducing their own HP to zero. It would feel incomplete without some sort of setting to make sense out of it, so I'd make some lore. I'd brainstorm different scenarios where someone would want to do themselves harm, like suicidal people. So I'd make a card game where some of the cards would be "slit wrist" or "leap off bridge" or "listen to any of Taylor Swifts albums", because all those things would help kill you. I realize this is a horrible example but you get the point.

This sounds like an awesome card game. You could have the players take turns being on offense and defense. The person on defense would be trying to prevent you from suicide with different cards; cards that block card attempts, cards that raise your esteem points, intervention cards, and cards to raise your health.

So the person on offense would play a card and they would have tragedy cards and suicide cards. The goal of the tragedy cards would be to lower your esteem. For instance got bullied at school -3 esteem, girl you like made fun of you -6 esteem, parents died in an accident -12 esteem.

The suicide cards would come into play to lower your health. They would each have a value in which would subtract from your esteem. If it is a higher value than your current esteem it would subtract the remaining value from your health. If not it would just take from esteem by making you feel like a coward for not following through. The reason you wouldn't want to use these often to lower esteem like tragedy cards is because they are a lot more rare in the deck and they are the only cards that can actually lower your health.

If the person on offense fails to kill themselves before all their cards are played or their esteem gets too high they lose. I would play this game and I hate card games.

Have you ever felt like nobody cared about you or had a loved one that committed suicide? Have we got the game for you.

Off Topic- My close uncle committed suicide and its quite funny to me.

On Topic- Actually sounds like a interesting fun game. defiantly fall under the Gardner all the way around, but when it comes to writing i kind of follow something i hear in a move call Finding Forester, "No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!"