Today I want to give you some insight in designing my King Crab Catching mini game. I created that game to reherse my unity programming skills with C#. Ofcourse, before I could start programming or doing some art for it, I needed to have a clear design of the thing I was going to create.
The game is still in development at the moment of writing, but here's a movie of what I have so far:
I started out with 2 "requirements":
- It was going to be an endless scroller type of game
- It had to be procedurally generated
So I started looking at existing games to take as a starting point. The first game I came across was Rayman on tablets/phones. This was already to complex as a starting point, but gave me some ideas, like collecting coins and having to jump from platform to platform.
The following game I came across was an old arcade game for mobile phones (not smartphones in that era). The game where you are a helicopter and you have to push the up-arrow to go up and then it automatically falls back down with gravity. And you have to fly through a level filled with deadly obstacles. If you hit a obstacle like a meteor or a floating rock you die. This game was a good starting point to start designing. So I started brainstorming for more features to add in, and to give it a new setting, cause helicopters are boring.
The brainstorming for a new setting made me come up with:
- A level where you have to jump from platform to platform (like rayman)
- If you miss a platform you will fall in water and die.
- There will be Crabs on the platforms.
The Following brainstorm was about new features and the goal of the game:
- The goal is to keep going as long as possible to collect score points.
- There will be rock abstacles you have to jump over.
- There will be coins to collect to increase score
- You have 5 health points (hearts)
- Hitting an obstacle makes you loose 2 health points
- What to do with Crabs?
Then I had enough to work with and started programming in unity. I started from the platformer tutorial I believe, which already provided me with character art and a character controller to run around and jump. After I had the basic features implemented I started going back to the brainstorming board. Things I noticed during the current gameplay were:
- The rocks spawn to often, so I either have to make them spawn less, or provide a way to destroy them.
- If you try to collect all coins you will die soon because when you jump to collect coins you will likely end up between 2 platforms.
So the following brainstorm session made me come up with the following:
- Player can shoot to destroy rocks
- Player can shoot nets to catch crabs which will increase your score
- If you hit a crab, you will loose 1 Health point
- You can collect hearts to increase your health points by 1 (every 20-30 seconds a heart will spawn)
And that's how I ended up with the final design of the game.
Currently the game is still in development, but all I have left to do is implement the health points system.
Hope this gave you some great insight in my design method for a small game!
Peace
Stefan "Stellar" Geerinckx
zaterdag 21 januari 2017
vrijdag 19 augustus 2016
Types of Players
Identifying types of players and what they want from a game is a great way to improve your design skills. in this article we will take a look at what I think are the different types of players that exist and how you can make sure that each type of player gets rewarded in your game.
How do we create designs that appeal to the Achiever type of player?
- Have a statistics page that includes total number of kills, double kills, gold collected, deaths, gold medals acquired, time played to reach max level, total playtime etc...
- Have numbers for everything, like total achievement points earned so they can brag how much they achieved.
- Progress bars with percentage or x/150 displays so they can brag how far they progressed.
How do we create designs that appeal to the Collector type of player?
- Visual progression! Greyed out templates of what to collect, progress bars, visual representation of stars to earn, etc...
- Visual customisation. For example in RPG games the ability to change cloths to custom cloths or colors, different equipment to collect that changes appearance of your character. Haircuts to collect that you can use at a barber shop, custom weapon skins to collect, etc...
How do we create designs that appeal to Explorer type of players?
- Add rewards for exploring special points of interest.
- Add achievements for exploring.
How do we create designs that appeal to Grinder type of players?
- Add spots that are more rewarding for a particular type of reward.
- These spots of interest should be the most fun parts in your game to play.
- You could add achievements for completing these spots multiple times in a set amount of time.
How do we create designs that appeal to Crafter type of players?
- Add stuff that can be created by the player
- Add stuff that can be customized in looks (even something as simple as a color change can be enough)
I hope this overview gave you some great insight in how to improve your game designs. You really have to consider every type of player when designing a particular system so it fits multiple categories.
See ya in the next blog post! :)
Achievers
The first type of players are the achievers. Achievers want a list of things to do. They want special challenges that award bragging rights like titles or achievement points. Special challenges and achievements should be optional in your game, they should not give rewards that give you power like gold, equipment, upgrade points. The only reward it should give is optional stuff like achievement points and titles.
How do we create designs that appeal to the Achiever type of player?
- Have a statistics page that includes total number of kills, double kills, gold collected, deaths, gold medals acquired, time played to reach max level, total playtime etc...
- Have numbers for everything, like total achievement points earned so they can brag how much they achieved.
- Progress bars with percentage or x/150 displays so they can brag how far they progressed.
Collectors
The collectors are the pokémon card players among gamers. That's the best way I can compare it. Collectors want visual progression of things to collect. Like a greyed out template of all things to collect, and when they collect something it will be in color. Collectors don't only focus on things to collect, but also on things to complete, much like achievers but they want it presented differently. Where achievers want numbers for bragging rights, collectors want visual progression for own satisfaction. The way to achieve great designs to appeal to both collectors and achievers is to create both visual progression like progress bars or greyed out templates and add numbers of total things earned.
How do we create designs that appeal to the Collector type of player?
- Visual progression! Greyed out templates of what to collect, progress bars, visual representation of stars to earn, etc...
- Visual customisation. For example in RPG games the ability to change cloths to custom cloths or colors, different equipment to collect that changes appearance of your character. Haircuts to collect that you can use at a barber shop, custom weapon skins to collect, etc...
Explorers
Explorers want to see as much content in the game as possible. Therefore it is important to have a lot of levels, a lot of play fields. What's important to satisfy explorers is to reward them for doing so. Add experience gains, collectibles or gold rewards for exploring every inch of the game world. Find out which is the usual route players take when playing the regular game objectives, then find out the places that players usual don't go and add in rewards for going there anyway. Special points of interest like they say. It is important though that the regular game objectives are more rewarding than exploring, else exploring is not optional. Other types of players usually don't want to spend time exploring.
How do we create designs that appeal to Explorer type of players?
- Add rewards for exploring special points of interest.
- Add achievements for exploring.
Grinders
Grinders are the players who like to find the most efficient part of the game and keep repeatedly playing that one part of the game, because it is the most rewarding. While your game should in the first place be balanced so that every piece of content is more or less the same in terms of rewards for the amount of time spent. It is a good idea to have a few spots that are more rewarding for a particular type of reward. For example, spot one could be more rewarding for gold coins, spot two could be more rewarding for badges, spot three could could be more rewarding for experience points, etc... This way the grinders have something to "grind out".
How do we create designs that appeal to Grinder type of players?
- Add spots that are more rewarding for a particular type of reward.
- These spots of interest should be the most fun parts in your game to play.
- You could add achievements for completing these spots multiple times in a set amount of time.
Crafters
Crafters are the people that like to create their own things. Breathing animals so they become a pet or a mount, collecting materials to create your own weapons, or to create a custom skin for your weapon, creating own clothes or a custom clothing skin, buying upgrades for your racing car, building houses, etc... Here again, you want crafting to be optional. Not every player likes to spent a lot of time to farm for materials, or spent time to optimize the looks of a weapon. Some players just want to start racing or start shooting stuff as soon as possible.
How do we create designs that appeal to Crafter type of players?
- Add stuff that can be created by the player
- Add stuff that can be customized in looks (even something as simple as a color change can be enough)
Final word
As you can see there are a lot of different types of players. Most players can be categorized in 2 or 3 of these categories. Therefore it is of great importance that you try to create your game so that it appeals to as much of these player types as possible. If one of the categories a player fits in is left out of the game, the player might quit the game before you know it.
I hope this overview gave you some great insight in how to improve your game designs. You really have to consider every type of player when designing a particular system so it fits multiple categories.
See ya in the next blog post! :)
zaterdag 30 juli 2016
Action RPG item design example
I wanted to share a little example of how I visualize a design before I start writing it down in a word document. Often, I start by creating a Photoshop mockup to visualize how something will look inside the game or GUI. Here I wanted to design an item system for an Action RPG. i''m not going to share the entire design, but I just wanted to show how I start in Photoshop.
- Base items will have Armor or DPS
- Base items will have levels
- When upgrading the level of a base item, it's Armor or DPS will increase
- Different rarities of base items will have a different maximum level
- Base items will have 3 types of sockets. A set socket, a rune socket and 1-3 gem sockets
- Socketing a Set rune will provide you with set bonuses if you socketed multiple items with the same set rune
- Socketing a Stat rune will provide you with predetermined stats
- Gem sockets can contain the gems and thus the stats that you prefer
- Items will become character bound upon socketing runes or gems.
- The item tooltip will show the influence the item has on gear score and stats upon equipping
This is the design for what you see in the photoshop mockup. From here I started designing more details about the item system.
- Base items will have Armor or DPS
- Base items will have levels
- When upgrading the level of a base item, it's Armor or DPS will increase
- Different rarities of base items will have a different maximum level
- Base items will have 3 types of sockets. A set socket, a rune socket and 1-3 gem sockets
- Socketing a Set rune will provide you with set bonuses if you socketed multiple items with the same set rune
- Socketing a Stat rune will provide you with predetermined stats
- Gem sockets can contain the gems and thus the stats that you prefer
- Items will become character bound upon socketing runes or gems.
- The item tooltip will show the influence the item has on gear score and stats upon equipping
This is the design for what you see in the photoshop mockup. From here I started designing more details about the item system.
donderdag 7 juli 2016
Rabbits want carrots, Players want rewards
One of the most important aspects of game design is finding ways to keep your players rewarded and motivated, so they keep coming back for more play sessions. There is nothing more frustrating than spending time in a game and then having to go to bed while you feel like you didn't progress, didn't receive any loot or weren't able to get a triple kill in your play session...
In this article I will talk about the different types of reward that you can add to a game, and how to maximize the amount of joy the player will experience from the reward system.
Types of reward
There are many ways to add reward to your game. A common misconception is that reward can only be something that you "receive", for example gold or loot. Reward can be part of anything in your game, including progression, audio, visual effects, performing well as a team, or performing well against other players. It is the job of the game designer to identify the actions that require reward and accentuate those action with correct reward. Consider the following types of reward you could add to a game:
- Currency (gold, resources, badges, etc...)
- Loot (equipment, upgrades, collectibles, etc...)
- Progression (upgrades, experience, level unlocks, skill unlocks, etc...)
- Kill streaks (extra reward for double kills, triple kills, killing sprees etc...)
- Competitive (personal score points, achievement points, etc...)
- Co-op (team/clan score, team achievement points, etc...)
Baseline for rewards
Every good game, game system or design philosofy starts with a strong baseline. A baseline is what you should experience in every playsession. It is not related to luck, player skill or being smart. Every player should get these baseline rewards. It is not related to how long your playsession lasts.
A baseline should be:
- Linear in time
- Measurable
- "Steady Progression"
Why is it important to have a baseline? It is important so that there is a steady way of progressing through the game, especially important for casual players to feel rewarded as well as for people who just have long periods of bad luck.
The baseline can be created by identifying the core gameplay loops in your game and adding straightforward rewards for those actions.
Adding milestones
Milestones are short bursts of reward on top of the baseline. They require a certain amount of time or effort to get. Milestones provide you with short motivational boosts to keep on playing the game. The longer term milestones, that require a lot of time/effort or luck are there to provide the player with bigger motivation to keep playing the game. But they also give you point at which you can end the play session with the feeling you achieved something. Following my rule of three design principle, there are three main ways to add milestones
short term, much effort, Max 10 minutes, steady, not much luck required
Mid term, not necessarily much effort, max 45 min, some luck might be involved
Long term, requires a lot of time or luck
Adding randomisation
What casual players want and what hardcore players want from a game can be very different. Especially in terms of reward this can be a hard topic to balance in your game. You definately want to get the baseline right so even a short play session at least yields some reward. The hardcore gamers though, they want increasing rewards the more time you spent (milestones). But hardcore players usually also like to min/max things, prove that they are better and smarter in this game than others. Thats where luck and randomisation comes in. It provides more depth to the game. People can start keeping statistics in excel and try to find out the most efficient ways to play the game.
A game where everything is steady and balanced is a BORING game!!
Special FX & audio
A great,way to accentuate on rewarding certain actions the player performs is by creating special interactive GUI FX, sounds or particle effects. for example, leveling up should be accompanied by a popup with sparkles and a clear, loud sound effect so the player really knows that he just increased in power. Having a great sound effect or special FX when a key action in the game happens can feel really rewarding.
Final word
So, I hope this article gave you some insight in different ways to reward the player. It can be really fun to figure out ways to make the player go "woow" or "woooot". Also balancing, adding milestones and randomisation can be really fun to figure out.
In this article I will talk about the different types of reward that you can add to a game, and how to maximize the amount of joy the player will experience from the reward system.
Types of reward
There are many ways to add reward to your game. A common misconception is that reward can only be something that you "receive", for example gold or loot. Reward can be part of anything in your game, including progression, audio, visual effects, performing well as a team, or performing well against other players. It is the job of the game designer to identify the actions that require reward and accentuate those action with correct reward. Consider the following types of reward you could add to a game:
- Currency (gold, resources, badges, etc...)
- Loot (equipment, upgrades, collectibles, etc...)
- Progression (upgrades, experience, level unlocks, skill unlocks, etc...)
- Kill streaks (extra reward for double kills, triple kills, killing sprees etc...)
- Competitive (personal score points, achievement points, etc...)
- Co-op (team/clan score, team achievement points, etc...)
Baseline for rewards
Every good game, game system or design philosofy starts with a strong baseline. A baseline is what you should experience in every playsession. It is not related to luck, player skill or being smart. Every player should get these baseline rewards. It is not related to how long your playsession lasts.
A baseline should be:
- Linear in time
- Measurable
- "Steady Progression"
Why is it important to have a baseline? It is important so that there is a steady way of progressing through the game, especially important for casual players to feel rewarded as well as for people who just have long periods of bad luck.
The baseline can be created by identifying the core gameplay loops in your game and adding straightforward rewards for those actions.
Adding milestones
Milestones are short bursts of reward on top of the baseline. They require a certain amount of time or effort to get. Milestones provide you with short motivational boosts to keep on playing the game. The longer term milestones, that require a lot of time/effort or luck are there to provide the player with bigger motivation to keep playing the game. But they also give you point at which you can end the play session with the feeling you achieved something. Following my rule of three design principle, there are three main ways to add milestones
short term, much effort, Max 10 minutes, steady, not much luck required
Mid term, not necessarily much effort, max 45 min, some luck might be involved
Long term, requires a lot of time or luck
Adding randomisation
What casual players want and what hardcore players want from a game can be very different. Especially in terms of reward this can be a hard topic to balance in your game. You definately want to get the baseline right so even a short play session at least yields some reward. The hardcore gamers though, they want increasing rewards the more time you spent (milestones). But hardcore players usually also like to min/max things, prove that they are better and smarter in this game than others. Thats where luck and randomisation comes in. It provides more depth to the game. People can start keeping statistics in excel and try to find out the most efficient ways to play the game.
A game where everything is steady and balanced is a BORING game!!
Special FX & audio
A great,way to accentuate on rewarding certain actions the player performs is by creating special interactive GUI FX, sounds or particle effects. for example, leveling up should be accompanied by a popup with sparkles and a clear, loud sound effect so the player really knows that he just increased in power. Having a great sound effect or special FX when a key action in the game happens can feel really rewarding.
Final word
So, I hope this article gave you some insight in different ways to reward the player. It can be really fun to figure out ways to make the player go "woow" or "woooot". Also balancing, adding milestones and randomisation can be really fun to figure out.
vrijdag 17 juni 2016
Diablo 3 Paragon System Revamp Design
A while back, it was announced that the game designers of Diablo 3 were working on a revamp for the paragon system. At some point, the community managers asked for input about what the players would like to see in the new paragon system. So I started designing. I first made a photoshop mockup of the ideas I had in mind, sometimes It’s easier for me to visualise something before I start writing it down in words. Then I wrote down the specifics in a word document.
Here is my design:
Paragon Rank
-
- Account-wde
-
- 1000 ranks
-
- Linear XP formula (both level 1-2 and level
999-1000 take the same amount of XP)
-
- Every 50 ranks gives 1% Movement speed
-
- Every 100 ranks gives 1 yard pickup radius (10
pickup radius at rank 1000)
-
- Every rank you gain 10 Spendable Achievement
points and a chest that contains a random key, a random organ and 10 Demonic
Essences
-
- Based upon the chosen paragon path for the
character, every rank up will give one of the following: 1% magic find, 1% gold
find, 1% essence find, 1% Key find or 1% Organ find
Paragon Level
-
- Per character
-
- 100 Levels
-
- Reaching level 70 unlocks the ability to choose
a secondary paragon path for this character
-
- Reaching level 100 unlocks the ability to choose
a third paragon path for this character
-
- The player has the choice to make a level 100
character or to make 2 level 70 characters to achieve the same amount of
paragon paths. Or make 5 characters with no level requirement to have all paths
available
-
- Every level will unlock 5 spendable stat points
- - The available stats are: Power (increases damage
done), Flexibility (decreases crowd control length), Defense (Damage reduction)
and Endurance (life and life regeneration)
woensdag 15 juni 2016
Diablo 3 expansion dream features
Here are some of my dream expansion features for Diablo 3 that I wrote a while ago to post on the Diablo 3 forums in hope that the developers would read it. Too bad it seems Diablo 3 has gone into “maintenance mode” and there won’t be any more development nor expansions in the future. The good news is, a new Diablo game (Diablo 4?) is in development as there are job openings for a unannounced Diablo title at Blizzard's jobs website.
Here are my dream features for an expansion:
New Class: Warden
- Uses javelin and spear skills
- New Warden class-specific items: Javalins
- Old skills like Lightning Fury, Decoy, Lightning Strike and others
New Feature: Runes and Runewords
- Runes now drop. There are 12 different runes each providing a different stat boost
- Normal (white) quality items now roll with sockets
- Runeword recipes have been added to the game. Runewords are unique items with a legendary passive that are obtained by putting certain runes in normal quality items with sockets.
New Event: Forge of King Kanai
- This new random event can be encountered in the Ruins of Sescheron.
- Rewards for completing the Forge of King Kanai includes 3-5 Random runes and a Resplendent chest
New Feature: Bartering NPC
- Forgotten Souls can now be used to purchase random legendary items, set items and runes
- 3 Forgotten souls for a random set or legendary item
- 3 forgotten souls for a random low rune
- 30 forgotten souls for a random medium rune
- 100 forgotten souls for a random high rune
New Feature: Team Brawl (Player vs Player)
- Two Teams of 4 players fight against each other to win the entrance to the realm of Demon Queen Tamylar or 4 other realms with a boss
- Demon Queen Tamylar is a boss that the winning team can battle to earn valuable PvE loot
- In PvP every character gets standardized equipment to keep it balanced
- When you enter the realm of Demon Queen Tamylar, your regular PvE gear is equipped.
- Items that drop from the bosses of the special realms are meant for PvE.
New Trading City: Kingsport (Socializing/trading game type)
- Big city where you can setup trading stalls to show off your items you have for trade
- 32 players are allowed to enter this game
- Trading is now allowed for legendary and set items
- Best-in-slot items are now a lot harder to find, in order to motivate people to trade items
New Secondary stats: Salesmanship and Item Drop Quantity
- Salesmanship increases your chance to get random vendor NPC’s to sell high quality goods to you
- Item Drop Quantity increases the amount of items that drop from monsters
New Paragon Stat Category: “Luck”
- Magic find
- Salesmanship
- Item Drop Quantity
- Gold Find
Other Features:
- No new level cap, your high level characters will still remain top geared max level characters
- New set items have been added that provide more build options for characters
- Magic find is now being averaged across players in a multiplayer game
- New Legendaries with powers for Magic find have been added to the game
New Items:
Magic find:
- Blade of Ali Baba – Your magic find is no longer averaged across players in a game
- Skullder’s Ire Chest Armor – Magic Find has increased potential (now counts for 100% for legendary/set drops)
- Nagelring – Your Gold Find is now converted to Magic Find
Life Steal:
- Bloodletter Sword – Your lifesteal has increased potential (now works up to lvl 70)
- Vampire Gaze Helm – 1-2% Life steal
- Lich King’s Band ring – Heal 1-2% of your maximum life on Critical Hits
Defensive:
- Shaftstop Chest Armor – Increases Armor by 15-20%
- Dwarf Star Ring – Your Dodge chance is now equal to your critical hit chance
- Hellslayer 2h Axe – Critical hits increase your resistances by 5-10% for 2 seconds
New Set Items:
Barbarian set
- 2 set bonus: Increase Seismic Slam damage by 100% and Weapon Throw damage by 300%
- 4 Set bonus: Weapon throw now jumps to 5 additional targets
- 6 Set bonus: Each hit of weapon throw now splits in lightning bolts hitting a nearby target for 500% weapon damage
Here are my dream features for an expansion:
New Class: Warden
- Uses javelin and spear skills
- New Warden class-specific items: Javalins
- Old skills like Lightning Fury, Decoy, Lightning Strike and others
New Feature: Runes and Runewords
- Runes now drop. There are 12 different runes each providing a different stat boost
- Normal (white) quality items now roll with sockets
- Runeword recipes have been added to the game. Runewords are unique items with a legendary passive that are obtained by putting certain runes in normal quality items with sockets.
New Event: Forge of King Kanai
- This new random event can be encountered in the Ruins of Sescheron.
- Rewards for completing the Forge of King Kanai includes 3-5 Random runes and a Resplendent chest
New Feature: Bartering NPC
- Forgotten Souls can now be used to purchase random legendary items, set items and runes
- 3 Forgotten souls for a random set or legendary item
- 3 forgotten souls for a random low rune
- 30 forgotten souls for a random medium rune
- 100 forgotten souls for a random high rune
New Feature: Team Brawl (Player vs Player)
- Two Teams of 4 players fight against each other to win the entrance to the realm of Demon Queen Tamylar or 4 other realms with a boss
- Demon Queen Tamylar is a boss that the winning team can battle to earn valuable PvE loot
- In PvP every character gets standardized equipment to keep it balanced
- When you enter the realm of Demon Queen Tamylar, your regular PvE gear is equipped.
- Items that drop from the bosses of the special realms are meant for PvE.
New Trading City: Kingsport (Socializing/trading game type)
- Big city where you can setup trading stalls to show off your items you have for trade
- 32 players are allowed to enter this game
- Trading is now allowed for legendary and set items
- Best-in-slot items are now a lot harder to find, in order to motivate people to trade items
New Secondary stats: Salesmanship and Item Drop Quantity
- Salesmanship increases your chance to get random vendor NPC’s to sell high quality goods to you
- Item Drop Quantity increases the amount of items that drop from monsters
New Paragon Stat Category: “Luck”
- Magic find
- Salesmanship
- Item Drop Quantity
- Gold Find
Other Features:
- No new level cap, your high level characters will still remain top geared max level characters
- New set items have been added that provide more build options for characters
- Magic find is now being averaged across players in a multiplayer game
- New Legendaries with powers for Magic find have been added to the game
New Items:
Magic find:
- Blade of Ali Baba – Your magic find is no longer averaged across players in a game
- Skullder’s Ire Chest Armor – Magic Find has increased potential (now counts for 100% for legendary/set drops)
- Nagelring – Your Gold Find is now converted to Magic Find
Life Steal:
- Bloodletter Sword – Your lifesteal has increased potential (now works up to lvl 70)
- Vampire Gaze Helm – 1-2% Life steal
- Lich King’s Band ring – Heal 1-2% of your maximum life on Critical Hits
Defensive:
- Shaftstop Chest Armor – Increases Armor by 15-20%
- Dwarf Star Ring – Your Dodge chance is now equal to your critical hit chance
- Hellslayer 2h Axe – Critical hits increase your resistances by 5-10% for 2 seconds
New Set Items:
Barbarian set
- 2 set bonus: Increase Seismic Slam damage by 100% and Weapon Throw damage by 300%
- 4 Set bonus: Weapon throw now jumps to 5 additional targets
- 6 Set bonus: Each hit of weapon throw now splits in lightning bolts hitting a nearby target for 500% weapon damage
woensdag 18 mei 2016
Tools for a game designer
Concept Artists have Photoshop, 3D Artists have 3DS Max or Maya, Audio Engineers have Pro Tools or Cubase, Programmers have Visual Studio. And many other apps and plugins.
But what do Game Designers have?
Pen & Paper!
Maybe it sounds a bit old school, but this is your very first go-to tool when doing any first design iterations. It's fast and easy to write stuff down in mind maps or charts. Or you can even draw out a game canvas. This way you can easily visualize what you are designing. It's always good to add your original pen & paper designs to the design document when handing it out to the developers or artists. This way they can really feel what you intented with your designs, and you can add drawings that you can't easily make with pc software. Ofcourse the parts that you can actually recreate with a pc, you should, to make it look more professional. Like charts and mindmaps can easily be recreated with software.
Photoshop
Your go-to tool for creating quick mockups of game UI's. Obviously you can't do any 3D visualizations, but for systems that work through the Game's UI you can easily create mockups. Often when I'm designing something new I start by creating a mockup in photoshop to visualize my ideas. From there I can easily create a word document with all specifications for the system. It's easy to take screenshots from the existing game UI that's made by a UI artist and use his elements (buttons, progress bars, etc..) to create your own mockups and suggestions for improvements. This way you don't need to be able to paint your own UI designs, but you can just copy paste existing elements together.
Microsoft Visio
If you want to create flow charts and diagrams, this is the tool for you. It provides a good amount of shapes to drag on the canvas on which you can add text. You can also easily add arrows and connections. There are shapes for database design, brainstorming (mind maps), gantt charts, etc... I use this tool often to visualize things that would not be clear enough to the developers just by plain text.
Xmind
A great tool for creating mind maps. Although Microsoft Visio has the ability to create mind maps as well, I prefer Xmind as the interface is easier to use and the visual style of the mind maps is more attractive to my personal taste. This is a pricey piece of software though, certainly when you consider you can make mindmaps with visio too. It's your choice.
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