The Brainstorming Stage

#1 I found that the book 3D Game Programming All In One was quite helpful with that as it gives some nice pointers on where to start with a game design docment. Surely you will want to do things your way, but the approach described in the book is a nice way to get you started.

#2 Maybe you can start categorizing your ideas by the major features it will have until you move them to your design document. For example, create a Word document that will include anything that has to do with the in-game interface/menus. Then start filling it with your ideas about the interface/menus.

Then create another document and fill it with ideas about how you will handle the economics of the game or the combat system. It might help you if within your document you create a table, and add your ideas in each row separately. This will help you to keep them separated and easily viewable. You can move the most important ones or the ones with higher priority to the top. You can even color them differently. It really depends on your preference.

I'm currently creating an Excel spreadsheet in which I will list all the features very briefly that will help me with the progress of the game. This spreadsheet will complement my design document not replace it. Hope I helped.

Nick

#3 You might find something like Treepad or FreeMind to be helpful if you want to type out all your ideas as they occur to you, then prune and/or organise them later.

#4 Thanks for the ideas, guys.

#5 I always keep a small notebook in my pocket (Moleskine makes great pocket-sized notebooks that hold up to anything, Mead also makes some decent ones) and brainstorm throughout the day on a game idea. Eventually, that little notebook becomes the basis for my design doc. It is a technique that works really well for me, though it depends on how you come up with ideas.

There was one time that I had three different books going simultaneously :)

#6 I keep a plain ol' spiral notebook (It's a graph-paper spiral notebook, but otherwise plain vanilla) around for just this thing. I keep notes on my current game project in the front, and as additional ideas come to me I stick them in the back. Then LATER I migrate them off the page into a file on my computer.

I also use the same notebook during development, where I keep track of tasks. I scratch them off as they get completed, deleted, or migrated to another page. There are some nights when I'd just sit at the computer staring at a blank screen if I hadn't jotted down a list of tasks in priority order to try and get done.

#7 @Jay - Your technique for task management sounds much like mine. I just do a list, then put one box by it if it needs doing fairly soon, a double box if it's higher priority, and three boxes if it needs done NOW :) I've tried the writing things in a notebook (it turns out, it's also graph paper, and it's semi-spiral... but mine are better... they're from Russia :) For some reason, I don't get anywhere with the notebook for fleshing out game ideas. I think it's because my mind goes faster than I can write, and I can at least keep up a little better by typing.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I might have to go back to the notebook thing if my brain ever slows down.

#8 I've had very bad experiences with notebooks. Almost what you're describing J. Alan, I think faster than I write; so instead of writing properly I do a sort of hybrid writing/jotting/sketching thing... The problem is that it gets rather tricky when I later have to figure out what I was thinking at the time of "writing". It's possible, but I have to put myself into the same "state of mind" as I was when I did it.

On the upside I suppose if someone stole my notebook they wouldn't be able to understand a thing of it, hehe.

#9 "On the upside I suppose if someone stole my notebook they wouldn't be able to understand a thing of it, hehe."

Yknow, I've thought of that too. I'll write things in the notebook that to an outsider would sound like the ravings of a crazy person. Once I found some words etched in a mailbox in downtown Seattle that were so paranoid and bizarre that I had to write them down. They were positioned like a math equation, but it looked like someone was trying to solve the mystery of how the asians were trying to conquer the country.

I just thought: man, somebody would think there was something wrong with me if they read this notebook...

#10 Usually what I do after the brainstorming stage (of random notes and ideas) is create a task list of what needs to be done... then try and sort it by order of what needs to be done first, then just start hitting at the list.

#11 Notepad if your a windows user. I find myself in front of a computer most of the day at work and at home. Notepad launches in milliseconds and you can jot down anything in there. Then I take it all and organize it into a Word Document.

Also since I jotted it down in notepad I can copy and paste it over, often comming up with new idea's during the migration.