WHICH CAME FIRST: THE STORY OR THE GAMEPLAY?

bahleted

While I'm usually glad to declare the primacy of gameplay, coming chronologically first doesn't mean much. During the last few years I've tended to keep a couple gameplay and story ideas around, pick one out to work on every so often, and at some point later on decide on a pair that I could work together.

OH is this way - technically the kernel of the plot came a couple years before I started on the gameplay, but it basically got tabled until I said "Gee, I could use a throwaway plot for this other gameplay idea I'm working with."

Actually the first thing I think of is very basic ideas of the characters and setting. Than I come up with the arbitrary 7 locations that contain the 7 macguffins and maybe 1 or two interesting twists which will allow me to add extra scenerios and locations on top of the main structure. This is basically the skeleton that I base the story and gameplay on

I admit that I kind of dedicate myself to the generic "light hearted rpg plot" with this method of thinking but I enjoy this formula the most as both a player and maker so there you go. Being original is for the birds

My game originally started off as a comic book and evolved into a game. What I tend to do is come up with the beginning of the story and the end of the story and make up the middle as I go along. The gameplay ideas come to me as I make the story.

I came up with an idea for a battle system first and worked from there. So, gameplay this time.

The SUPER CRATE BOX came first.

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I'm pretty sure we're talking about which one is designed first, not which one the player sees first.

Whichever the player sees first is whichever was designed first, be it intentionally or unintentionally. If one designs it to start this way, wouldn't that be what the player sees first eventually?

Unless you're talking about design in the general historical sense.

...what? That makes no sense. We are talking about design in the thought process sense. Which one you think of first.

When I started designing my latest game, I had a set of gameplay ideas in my head that I wanted to make a game out of, and then later started writing out a story to work around them. That means the gameplay came first, for me. If I'd started out with a story idea in my head, and then later started thinking up gameplay ideas that worked well with it, that would mean the story game first. This isn't hard to comprehend...