Tool Tutorial Organize all game dev information with this Anytype widget

[joena]

If you are like me and have notes everywhere on your desk. Stop!
There is a better way. (you can still just print stuff out if you need the physicality of paper notes)
Anytype is a "everything app".
It lets you organize all things in one place.
Most notable are its offline mode, local first approach and the encryption. It's also open source.
You can create what they call "Spaces" and invite and give permission to others to join that "Space" for collaboration.
It has it's quirks and a steep learning curve.

After having spent way to much time getting to grips with how to do things in Anytype I made a widget I wish I had when I started.
The widget is made with strong focus on game development.
Specifically the "typical" DAZ renders Ren'Py game. (with a few bells and whistles maybe)
But it should work just as well for any other type of game dev. (or even just story writing and worldbuilding)
The widget is just a nice starting point so you don't have to start from scratch.
You can and should adjust it and make it your own.
Instead of "Development Overview" name it "MyAwesomegame Overview" or whatever and give it another icon and cover.

The widget is divided into:

Characters	Locations	Worldbuilding
Story	Branching	Progression beats
DAZ	Ren'Py	UI
Audio	Minigames	Achievements
Bugs	Documentation	Credits

It's a basic setup so you can just get to the fill in information part and skip most of the tedious setup and linking.
I included comments on how this setup works and it should be not too difficult to get going with it.
Install instructions in the attached "Install Instructions.txt"
Preview pics:
View attachment Development Overview.webp View attachment DevOverAudio.webp View attachment DevOverChars.webp View attachment DevOverLocat.webp View attachment DevOverRenpy.webp View attachment DevOverWorld.webp
You'll need the following:

Anytype

You must be registered to see the links

and the attached files
View attachment Development Overview Widget.zip
View attachment Install Instructions.txt

 

[joena]

reserved

 

[joena]

I left out a Glossary in the Development Overview Widget. But it's pretty easy and quick to add one.
If you are new to Anytype the following tutorial will go over most of the things.

How to add a Glossary to anywhere you want to in Anytype:

1. Decide where you want to add the button(card) that links to your Glossary page.
   For this tutorial I will be adding it to the "Story" page at the very bottom.
   So scroll down and left click where you want to add it then type "/page" and hit enter or select "Page".
   This opens up the newly created page.
2. Change "Untitled" to "Glossary".
3. Left click below and type "/link" and hit enter or select "Add link".
   We are linking back to the page we just came from so choose the page you started on. (here it's "Story")
   If you want the card to not fill the whole width of the screen you can click below to create a new block and drag it to the side of the card/button and resize it to your liking.
   If you hover over a block you'll see 3 dots. Clicking it gives you some options and it's also where you can grab the block for repositioning.
4. Now click the created button/card to go back to the page you started on. ("Story")
   As you can see the by default the new button has a icon. (looks like a page)
   To remove the icon click the 3 dots next to the button -> Preview -> Icon -> None
   Feel free to again add an extra block to the side to make the button not span the whole page.
   We now have the basics for navigating done.

We could stop here and just add our Glossary entries as text below.
But we can't easily sort or link to a specific entry this way.
So we will be using Anytypes ability to create our own custom object types.
We are going to add our own object type ("Glossary Entry"). Then we'll create a "set" of that object type.
A "set" is the same as a "collection" but can only be of 1 type.
By making our own object type we can then make a "set" of that type and get all of them collected for us automatically.
It also gives us the ability to use a template for any new object we create of that type.
The "set" will make sorting and filtering easy and even gives us a handy "+ New Object" we can click to add a new entry.

Adding the custom object type "Glossary Entry" and setting up the default template for it:

1. Click on "All Objects" and with ">" navigate to and click the "Types" tab
2. Click the "New" button. This opens our new custom object type.
3. Change "New Type" to "Glossary Entry"
4. Just below there are 2 boxes. The left one has a tag that says "Default". Click on the right one(only has a + in it).
5. We are now editing the template we are going to set as default for every new created Glossary Entry.
   (This is what will come up when you later click the "+ New Object")
   You can leave "Untitled" if you want but I like to make it more clear what is supposed to go here.
   I'll change it to "Glossary Entry" but you can be even more verbose and go for "Glossary Entry What" or whatever you like.
   This field is where what you want the glossary entry to be about goes.
6. Now we also need to add a Description.
   If you click on the 3 dot triangle at the top right it brings up the Relations window for whatever you are editing. (here the template)
   As you can see under "In this Object" every object already comes with a "Description" relation built in.
   So we don't need to add it ourselves to the Object.
7. If you hover over "Description" you'll see the 3 dots that let you grab and add it to your object.
   Drag it onto the page to the left.
   With that the basics for a typical Glossary entry are done.
   Since it is usually just in the format "someEntry: Description" we don't need all the fancy layout like icons, cover or even Title.
8. If you hover over "Glossary Entry" you'll see the "Layout" option.
   Click it and select "Note".
   We are done editing this template so click the "<" button below. (or select our custom "Glossary Entry" on the left under the "Types" tab)
9. The box on the right side should now say "Glossary Entry" (or whatever you entered there) but it is not the default yet. For that hover over it and click the 3 dots and "Set as default"

Making a set of our custom object and adding it:
Since we are already on our custom object's "Type" editing page let's create a "set" for it.

1. On the right of "Glossary Entry" you see the big "Create" button.
   Click it and select "Create Set of Objects".
2. Change the Title from "Set of Glossary Entry" to whatever you want to call it.
   I'll name it "Glossary Entries for this game" but you can just call it "Glossary Entries".
   Just remember what you named it because we will need what you enter here to be able to add it to the page we set up at the very beginning of this tutorial.
   (You can find all your sets and collections under "All Objects" -> "Lists")
   We are done with setting everything up so now the only thing left is to add the set to our Glossary page.
3. Click the "<" next to "All Objects" and navigate to where you put the Glossary page. (I put it under "Story" at the bottom)
4. Just below the link back ("Story" for me) left click and type "/set" and select "Inline set"
5. Here select however you named your set. ("Glossary Entries for this game" for me)

We are pretty much done.
Except that by default the entries are being sorted by creation date. Maybe you want that and then there is nothing more to do.
I prefer to have them sorted alphabetically and descending.
If you hover over the title bar of the set you can then click on the up and down arrow to edit the sorting.
Change "Last modified date" to "Name" by clicking on it.
You can also add more views with the "+" for different sorts or filters.

Making the set more usefull:
Once you have at least one entry you can also add in the "Description" by clicking the "+" next to the "Name" row.
You can now conveniently add new entries with "+ New Object" aswell as filling in both "Name" and "Description" right there.

Linking to specific Glossary entries:
If you want to link to an entry then easiest is to:
- click on it in the set so that the entry opens in its own page
- click the 3 dots in the top right and "Copy Link"

 

[osanaiko]

This is interesting... but I have to tell you this: it is very rare occurrence for any "info organization strategy" to get traction beyond it's creator.

When I *have* seen it happen, it's always been some personality driven figure, popular within their own niche, who pushes it to their followers. And even then the reach is short and the likelihood that any users continue long term is short too.

I've even suffered through an in-house dev project that the company owner forced on the team, to create some similar tool. A few guys spent a couple of hundred hours designing and coding it up, and 12 months later, none of us, not even him, still use it.

Anyway, as long as the scheme works for you, then great. I'm not trying to shit all over your posts - it's quality work and at least one person in the world appreciates your effort.

Just beware spending too much time working on sidequests like this - the effort spent might have led to interesting learning, but did it really progress your game project?

 

[joena]

Thanks for the feedback.
It's less about the scheme (or strategy) and more about the tool itself and not having to start from literally nothing and learn everything the hard way.
Setting this up took me maybe a full workday and that was with me stumbling through how to do things.
If I had to redo it now then it would take a few hours. It's very easy to customize things in Anytype.
(so much for hundreds of hours "wasted" on coding something like this up lol)
The flexibility of Anytype may be its most "usefull" feature.
This widget is more of an example you can use as a starting point to make it your own.
I myself have cut and expanded the widget for a personalized version I use to keep track of a project.
It greatly helped me find areas that needed more attention. (like for example fleshing out some side characters so that they are more than just a "empty hull with a story related purpose")

I don't care if it gets any traction. Just thought it a very nice tool and wanted to share it.

Sometimes the time spent finding or making the right tool for the job makes new and better things possible that would not have been possible before.

For example:
A story's quality depends mostly on its characters struggles. The better and more believable you can descibe it, the better your story will become. So the knowledge about your characters and their world is crucial.
If you use this tool like you would paper and only do character sheets and leave it at that then there is no benefit.
But you can easily link and sort/filter things. This makes keeping track easy compared to on paper (or even a text editor).
Instead of having to repeat a lot of information over and over again you can just link.
Sorting and filtering is another benefit you can get.

 

[osanaiko]

Like I said, no shade intended. The scar tissue of the stupid internal tool that we had to build while other important customer stuff was on fire still stings me . Sounds like your solution is a huge winner in terms of effort to value. And if nothing else I now have added Anytype to my list of stuff that I should check out.

Anyway, what sort of game are you working on?

 

[Quintillian]

Thanks for making this post. Coming from a software oriented background, I used a lot of Notion during college, and now everything I do, I planned it first in Obsidian. Those two are great tools, but also they are a lot of work to set up just right. Will definitely checkout Anytype in the near future. Thanks again!

 

[joena]

Anyway, what sort of game are you working on?

Still figuring out most of the story of a Ren'Py VN type game atm. I am a hobbyist so progress is slow but steady.
Branching narrative is tricky. lol