planning - Investigation stage before starting a game

I was thinking about how to organize the stage about getting informed about whatever game is needed to develop, what would others do.

For example, if I wanted to develop a game about car racing, I should figure out all the factors during the race, from the car factor to the pilots, etc., environmental factors like weather, circuit conditions, etc.

How does one manage this stage?

Thanks.

Answer

1. Use your imagination on the general topic if you haven't already.



2. Do some research online and in libraries / museums too if you're keen.


3. Play a few similar games, or at least watch youtube vids / read reviews of them. Know your competition.


4. Rinse, repeat steps 1-3. Slowly your imagination will feed off the ongoing research you are doing, and your game idea will become more defined / refined.


5. (Optional) Take notes as your major ideas take shape, if you don't have an amazingly good memory.

And before you do any of the above: Get a google account if you don't already have one, and set it up for tagging so you can use it as an all purpose database. Gmail, google docs and google bookmarks all use tagging as you probably know, to cross reference information by topic. What if you have two categories, "fuel" and "circuit conditions", and a single article matches both? -- So, tag to keep track of the cool stuff you'll find. You can search gmail more easily by typing eg. label:"circuit conditions" label:"crashes" into the gmail searchbar to find an article you know you saw somewhere on both these topics...

And as Phil has stated -- using a cyclical approach like this will show you quickly enough if your idea is not something you wish to pursue.

EDIT: And as Randolf has suggested, even if you only scribble notes that you will never look at again, scribbling notes and sketches has the impact of solidifying concepts in your mind.