Tree Story

I came across a design doc for a game, Tree Story, inspired by My Neighbor Totoro. That's one of my favorite films, and the idea behind this game is really quite charming!

I wish I could create graphics like that - it helps so much in creating design docs. Being able to visualize what the game will look like is an invaluable aid in "seeing" how the gameplay will work. Concepts that are clumsy to explain on paper - especially since we still lack a unified lexicon to describe gameplay elements! - are elegantly expressed in a sketch or drawing.

I've been knocking around a game design idea in my head, that I've been talking over with my friend Matt. I should break out my watercolors and get sketching!

Comments

[fish]

drawings > text.
when it comes to design docs, anyway.

what i'll usualy do is open a very large PSD file and just start doodling with a wacom.
just sketch out ideas and mechanics. schematics, little level layouts. and then anotate them (with hand writing).

slowly, the big file just gets filled with ideas and concepts. all over. there's no real order to things. it matters not if the way the character jumps is explained before the way he grabs ledges or whatever.

i hate having to prioritise ideas when writing a design doc. ideas are big, messy, non-linear things. id much rather just put them on paper in a big messy organic way than try to straighten everything out in bullet points and spreadsheets.

i should post some of thsoe someday.