A Non-Planner's Attack Plan

I am a terrible planner. So I'm constantly just charging forward. If it's a book idea, I just start writing. If it's game development, I start coding. Maybe I ponder the project a bit, get some ideas as to what the end will be like.

This is bad. Unless you're an improv artist or freewriter, some planning is necessary.

I ran into this fact while building Escape Apsis, the demo game for my World Weaver IntFiction game engine. It became too large for me to see it in my head. I didn't have a map of the ship so had to mentally picture where the rooms were, where the vents were, and what I had or hadn't already done.

The game's over all plot seemed to be collapsing. It was time to start fresh, with a map and some planning. So now I have the first 'level' mapped out and basic rooms coded. I'm building up the logic and puzzles now. In doing it this way I am only dealing with a small set of rooms and puzzles etc.

I will begin planning the other levels as I work through the first one. So far I think this is a much better approach.