Making THE OCTOBER GAME: Workflows
There are so many moving parts in even the simplest game, that you’ll drown in complexity if you don’t have a good system. The design method I’m using looks like a set of nested rings:
When it’s time to actually implement the design, I break the tasks up into an upside-down tree structure like this:
I just keep breaking the tasks down until I get to drawing pixels, typing code, playing notes, writing blog posts.
Don’t be misled by the pretty diagrams, there’s lots of interaction between the levels of organization. Plus research, prototypes, tests, false starts, bugs, typos and lots of editing.