How to Make Your Own Adventure Games

Study your favorite adventure games. Write down some observations about what makes these games enjoyable and why they're your favorite. Pay attention to both mechanical elements (such as rules and player options) and creative elements (such as setting, story and artwork). Look to see what kinds of elements your favorite games have in common, but also observe unique aspects that set certain games apart.

Create a setting for the game. Brainstorm creative elements for your game's world. Choose a time and place, if the game is set in the real world, or build a fantasy setting where you decide on elements like the world's geography, the culture, and basic facts about plant and animal life and the cultures of the various people who live in your world. Write down rough ideas at this point, as you'll have time to flesh things out a bit more once you know how these elements will interplay with the game mechanics.

Write a story for the game and create an objective. Come up with a basic problem or conflict based on the world you've created and come up with a goal that your players can either compete to achieve or work together to accomplish. Think of ways the storyline can interact with game goals (for example, acquiring items needed to achieve a quest) and try to amend it to make for the best gameplay.

Decide what kinds of aspects you want your game mechanics to include. Look to your story, and look back to the list you made in Step 1 for inspiration. You might also look to imitate aspects of purely strategic games, such as chess and checkers. Consider both luck and skill elements, as well, and decide how much you want of each.

Create the physical parts of the game. For now, just make them functional and plain, such as quick, handwritten cards and a sketch on a large sheet of paper for a game board. You will need to make revisions, so save the final artist design of the game for later (whether you do it yourself or decide to commission other artists).

Test play the game with others. Once you have the basics of the game mechanics worked out, test play the game with trial pieces to find out how the aspects of the game actually work out. Make sure the various parts of gameplay work together the way you want them to, but also pay attention to how the pacing of the game is and whether it's too easy or too challenging. Change around aspects of the game and have more test play sessions until you get the game the way you want it.