An interesting tool for greating game plots

[whisperstorm]

I'm sure folks already know about this tool, which is mainly for allowing you to get your random thoughts down into an organized fashion, but I just discovered how ideal this tool is for greating game plots - say for an RPG or Adventure game. You could even have code snippets or screenshots in the tree view.

If you havent tried it out before now, I heartily recommend it.

It's called Freemind and is a "mind mapping" tool. Which is a fancy shmancy way of saying an outliner only much snazzier.

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[Sirrus]

Off topic, do you work for 1Up?

Alex

[mathgenius]

Crazy as it may seem, i have been thinking recently about making a game set in one of these tree worlds. I like how with a tree you can make any node the root, with all the branches flying away from that point. The idea would be to make the space easy enough for the player to conceptualize, but still interesting and surprising.

Maybe I should start a whacko ideas thread :p

Simon.
PS. for mind mapping I much prefer pen and paper.. biig paper.. sometimes even a huge role of paper.

[Obscure]

The product itself may be great but I noticed one huge mistake by the creators.

Someone new to the concept of mind maps downloads the product.
They want to know what it is and how it works so they select the documentation.
The documentation loads up as a mind map.
The user who doesn't know what one is or how it works now needs to know what one is and how it works in order to read the documentation and learn what one is and how it works. Huh?

[cableshaft]

I've tried several mind mapping tools and none of them feel as good as plain old paper. This one, in particular, is too restricting. From what I could tell, you could only have one main node and child nodes that branched off from that. I prefer the ones that let you drag and drop elements (like links to text pages, pictures, etc), let you draw, connect or disconnect anything... basically gives you a lot of freedom. There's one I've seen that lets you do that (I don't remember it's name anymore though), but it's pretty expensive (like $200+)

I suppose I don't mind mapping with plain old pen and paper anyway. Gets my eyes away from the computer monitor for a few minutes, at least.

[whisperstorm]

Yep, I do work at 1up. I'm one of the html/jsp developers for the site.

As far as the tool goes - yeah I agree it needs work, but I like the non-linearity of it.

[serg3d]

@whisperstorm

I've tried it and quite like it. I use it instead of text to-do file for couple of days now, will see if I'll stick with it....

[Sunshine]

An interesting tool for greating game plots

You know what another really good tool for generating game plots and such?...............................

[Sunshine]

Your Brain!!!!!! :d