I always start with a daydream then go to planing in my head. Once done I map out a map tester to test out sprites (the ones I made). Trust me the sprites look better than my previous but still childish. That's the possible approch that has been done except on paper. Every game was once a daydream. So let Aveyond start as a daydream for all!

I'm sure Amanda won't mind if I share with you the little bit of the process that I'm familiar with.

First, she starts with a brief overview of how the game will go - who are the main characters, where they start, what conflict arises, half a dozen hurdles or events that must happen along the way, and how the game ends. Whether she begins with a couple of characters in mind and works the story around them, or the other way around, I'm not sure, and I suspect it might change from one game to another.

Once that's done, she writes up a VERY detailed plan of the game. By the time I get a look at it, Amanda has usually listed all of the characters, their personalities, weapons, skills, and their relationships; all of the locations and in what order they'll be visited; most of the main-plot-related NPCs, monsters, and a complete list of quests (related directly to the main quest) with their pre-requisites and rewards. She also creates the detailed world map.

From there, all the cutscenes and the complete game script is created (we're talking 400+ pages), and side quests are added.

Only when all of that is done, do we think about opening up the game engine and starting to create maps and events, scripts, and set up the database. And it's still a slow process, as custom art is created for the tilesets, and not much can be done in the mapping area until we have those.

That's what takes up most of the development time - the planning and documenting everything, to make sure the actual development goes smoothly.

well...that means we'll have to wait a while before we see the new Aveyond. But I think it would be foolish to think that it'll be released earlier than this autumn (maybe even later...)
But I'm still looking forward to it

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See? There's a chance that even Amanda doesn't even know when the next game is set yet!

I personally start with the basic overview first (e.g: "the story is about a princess who has a vampire servant" or something of the like), then flesh out the characters and story next, with a generic setting [e.g "it's set in a medieval fantasy world mashed with Victorian era!"]. Then the timelines and details on the setting comes later. And then I make notes or rant about my thought process somewhere, but mostly the stuff come off the top of my head. I'm not good with scripting stories. They just hinder me LOL.

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Holy spam! Does this script look like DD or does it look different? Can't imagine just what those 400+ pages of stuff look like.

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And this means? Aveyond starts as a daydream for everybody? But.. in the end it's still the developers who decide what happens... And as far as the trends goes, we haven't seen an Aveyond be set that close to the previous one...

Oh Right. Amanda mentioning that Uma and Nox totally should be in the next one in an FB post. Insert wild mass guessing and a whole lot of stuff that fans wanted. Still, Uma and Nox's presence doesn't guarantee anyone else's presence beyond the immortal Galahad and Te'ijal and maybe the darklings (who knows how fast they age and how long do they last). And... people stuck in Demon Realm, coz who knows how many other relevant characters made their way in there? Like, I don't know, maybe some other Darkthrops before Mordred?

What's DD? The only DD I know of is a Design Document, and the 400+ page script is not that - that's all the stuff that comes before.

The script is just that - like a movie script. Where everyone is, what they say, do, etc, word for word. It includes when quest items are given, used, when there are boss battles. It does not include talking to non-plot-related NPCs (at least the initial version doesn't), normal battles, items found lying around or taken from battle, etc. All of that is added in right at the end.

Yikes!Games I make are short. I guess a lot of help is needed to make it happen. And for the daydream part, I meant for the design team. Well I bet AV4 will be the best one yet if given the time. Let us cross our fingers that no issues come our way.

@shaz: Yep, that DD. So it's not, huh? Oh wow. Movie script. Wow. I totally can't bear doing that. It just feels so tedious writing the things out twice.

I'm very happy that Aveyond 4 is comming out, maybe this year or the next year, but I must ask this because I really don't know, what did it means "page script"? Is it the character designing, dialogs and the actions of the characters (the story of the game) or the game's programming? (sorry about my english, I am from east Europe)

all of those things are sorted out during development. The "script" is the dialog and actions. But characters and programming are both done either before or after.

But we're getting a little off topic here now.

Still. Those kind of planning I usually do in my head. I only write down things that takes a lot of work to get right, like how the story universe works and the character relationships. Writing things out is a hard task for me LOL



Moving on.

But you're working alone, not in a team. As long as you can remember everything (even I struggle with that, so I have to note ideas down), you're okay. But when you have others involved - one designing, one programming - and the project is going to take several months, you need to get it all down.

Well I tend to splat what I like on the program such as MLP. It's going good. Some nice little scripts to make things easier. Still trying to plan AJ's sprite out. Tricky and harder than Pinkie. I have really good memory of almost ever aspect for the game. Hopeful Lambchop is good at remembering things like that.

Let's get back to topic. This has deviated into something that belongs in the Game Making Questions forum.

Now I still wonder what Uma and Nox will do in the game. Will we see them as little children or teen pests?

Ponies!

I can't see them as being little children. If they were fun enough for Amanda to bring back, I expect they will be the same age as they are in TDP. Note, I have no idea what the plot will be or who the characters will be, so anything I say at this point is pure speculation too

Kiddie Uma and Nox, physically? Look at my avvie. That's what they probably look like. Easy enough.

Amanda likes to make big time gaps between the Aveyonds, so there's little to no chance of Kiddy Uma and Nox to be wandering around. Unless they found their time-travel skills very early on. If that's the case, Mel's gonna have such a hard time babysitting the twins

Still, would make more sense for older Uma and Nox to return. As kids, unless they're super special awesome (DO NOT WANT!), there's really not much they can do and then they're not so cool anymore. Unless all the hyper fans are just that excited about them that they'd take ANY form of the twins.

Yeah i don't think that Uma and Nox return as kids... Like the rest of aveyond games it'll probably be a few years after aveyond 3

Any way we can get notification for when Aveyond 4 will be complete and ready to play. I love this series!

in advance...


Merged topics
~Argoyle

It'll be on the sidebar whenever the release date is near
So far Amaranth has only announced that she started brainstorming