Draft a spatial layout of your game – using miro or a similar tool.
Establish a critical path and a .
Read Robert Yang’s chapter on layout in level design
Define the experience goals of the level
Start with a parti and a bubble diagram
Define a critical path
Read this article about Dependency Charts by Ron Gilbert (LucasArts, Monkey Island series).
If your project has a narrative puzzle of some sort sketch it out separately as a chart.
Critical Path
For our purpose (general exploration game) you can create a document in which you describe in detail the path the player will take to go through the game (successfully) as a list of actions and a description of all the options, characters and locations. Imagine it as a solution or walkthrough of a game guide.
Example:
-You start in your private investigator office, the narrator tells you that you have amnesia and that you are a disgraced detective. There is a safe, a bottle of whisky, a desk, a cat, and a cheap mattress on the floor.
– You pet the cat and that reminds you of your wife, who kicked you out of your place, that’s why you are sleeping in the office.
-The bottle is empty, bitter monologue
-You can’t open the safe without a key
-You open the desk drawer, and find a key inside it
-You open the safe with the key
-You pick up the gun
-You kill yourself
-The end
Examples
The layout and prototype may have different formats depending on the genre, emphasis, and goals of your project.
Production document for Legend of Zelda (1986)
This tile based map of The Legend of Zelda depicts notable items, secrets, and characters of interest in each map section on the overworld. Every element is hand drawn on an overlay of the map.
Quest design document for Divinity (dialogue heavy RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3)
A level design document for Uncharted
For a point and click adventure the layout may be closer to an environment concept art since it’s visually oriented, here are some concepts and sketches for Broken Age
And machinarium
Both Broken age and Machinarium are puzzle games that tell a story, so the layouts must be conceived after or along with the puzzle/plot.
This is a puzzle design document for Grim Fandango:
