Hi, my name is Danilo and I am a Oracle DBA from Brazil. I'm graduated in Computer Science and have good skills in C and Java. Sorry for any english errors. I want to make a MMORPG (wait! don't stop reading here, give me a chance), but I know it is very hard, so I will make a smaller game first so I can get used with all technology necessary to create a nice game. I've already made some games in BASIC when I was a kid and last year I had AI classes and made some 2D space games using basic AI using Java. I decided to use XNA know, so I bought two books of C# and XNA. So I think the technology won't be a problem. The real problem for me is the Game Design! I have the idea, I don't have problem with the technology but I am afraid that if I don't make a good planning before start programming, I will lose a lot of time. I will make a horizontal scroll shooting game (Metal Slug like), so I've already defined these items: - Story - Four main chars - Guns, lot of guns (Neo, Matrix) :-D - Power ups - Enemies (those bastards!) - Scenario - Bosses - Main objective (you have a time-limit to complete the level) - Background music and sound special effects So, what more do you think I will need? Does anyone have a document model that I can guide myself? Any tips, any suggestions? Thank you all for any help! Coragi

Hi, thank you very much for your answer. About those items I wrote, I have them specified, I just didn't write here. The story, main chars and etc. are well-defined.

This link you wrote is great and it will be very usefull. Thanks.