As I’ve noted earlier, brainstorming is an essential part of the game development process. Although there are many effective ways to do this, I’m going to give you some guidelines.
When you begin brainstorming your flash game, you have to at least have a vague idea of what youre going to do with it. Then, just write down notes about the basic game play. Notice that I said write, not type. In my opinion, the best place to brainstorm on is a piece of notebook paper. Why? There are no restrictions on paper, you van have ideas branching off of ideas rather than linear bullet points. However, you should always do what you are most comfortable with.
After you’ve got the basic game play down, I suggest you write down a list of the MovieClips and Classes that you’re going to need to develop this game, with a brief explanation of each. Then, write down how they are going tointeract with the user and with each other. Here’s a very simple example of one of these lists.
Brainstorming for Brick Breaker Game:
MovieClips:
- Ball - Bounces around to break bricks
- Paddle - User controls this to try to keep the ball from falling off of the stage
- Bricks - The goal of the game is to destroy all of these
Of course, you’d have to definitely add on to this list with many more MovieClips/Classes. Also, drawing a diagram might be an easier way (if you’re using paper) to make the connections between the objects. It’s always up to you.
The next step I suggest for you to do is to make a few other brief notes and diagrams, like how the levels progress, the menu system, possible ways of losing, and so on. Your end product will range fro a few pages of in depth notes to less than a half of a page, depending on how complex your game is and how much you think into it.
When you’re done brainstorming, put it into an easily accessible place and begin developing your game. Good luck!
