Ok, we are not ACTUALLY designing a game, and I am not working on any real game either. But when I worked at HeR Interactive for 10 years, I learned some great lessons, tips and exercises for creating the Logic Map of a Nancy Drew Mystery Adventure game. I sat through many walkthrough design meetings (as a marketing and brand advocate) observing everything I could from our Game Designer and Creative Director.
This is just one element of designing a game. The creative team would research, design out puzzles, write up descriptions for characters and environments, and provide direction for music, acting, cut scenes and more. Here, we are just focusing on the basic foundation: the wireframe flowchart. This map would visually represent the logic flags for the player experience. When would a conversation become available? After player sees book information and picks up inventory object. What triggers a cutscene? If player saw bookshelf, called a phone contact, and was in the library. All three “flags” would trigger this instance, and it was kept organized by this plan. These logic flags would be shared with the production team, filled with programmers and coders. These members would set if/then flags for all the relevant player interactions.
The design plan would change throughout the process until everything was completed, there were no “black holes” (dead ends where player couldn’t progress any further) and the game felt non-linear.
For additional fun, check out the video I made featuring Designer Cathy on the HeR Interactive YouTube channel here, called “Amateur Sleuth Blog: Interview with Designer, Cathy.”
Want to design with me? Follow along in my video below!
Here are the supplies that HeR Interactive used, and which you can use, too!
Option 1 (HeR Interactive’s first step)
- Large white board
- White board markers
- Magnetic squares to write on with erasable markers
Option 2 (HeR Interactive would transfer the info)
- A printer with colored ink
- Blank computer paper 6-9 pieces depending on your design (it was 6 for me)
- Colored pieces of paper (lots of them, like sticky notes, but you can also cut up 3×5 note cards or construction paper)
- Pencil with eraser
- Scissors
- Tape
- Glue (optional, but handy)
Option 3 (HeR Interactive used Microsoft Visio. You can search online for free wireframe flowcharts.)
Get designing!
Print out my blank wireframe map here! OR Print out my finished example of a logic map here! Please note: these papers print out in multiple pages. You will need to overlap them at their sides and tape them together for the full view. Here’s an idea how mine looks before assembling all the pages:
