As game designers we’re very familiar with tools that help us create assets and data (e.g. level and mission creation tools, rapid prototyping tools, spreadsheets etc.) but we're much less familiar with tools for helping us model and think through our designs.
Unlike game asset creation tools, where the primary goal is to facilitate the creation of production-ready, high quality and (hopefully) bug-free assets, Progressimo is a tool for supporting design thinking.
This is an important distinction. It means that playing around with half-formed, ambiguous, error-riddled design ideas is not just tolerated - it's what a tool like this was made for. (Though Progressimo does have features that allow you to export data to use as game assets as well.)
The progression plan is where the game’s progression structure is mapped out. Go here to read about creating a progression plan.
You can use this mode to “play” through your progression plan, step by step. Read about walkthrough mode here.
Progression rules guide allow you to guide and constrain the order in which new game content (in the form of progression elements) may be introduced (i.e. by you, the designer) to the player over time. Go here to read about creating progression rules.
The Notebook component allows you import and file away gameplay ideas and use your progression rules to sort and filter them, showing you which ideas are a good fit for the part of the game you're working on. Read about it here.
Sometimes at first it's not clear how to usefully model a game. This is partly due to the fact that in Progressimo there are a variety of possible ways gameplay elements and the relationships between them can be defined.
It often takes me a few goes before I settle on a way I want to represent things. Something I've found helpful is to think of the kinds of questions I'd like answered and use them as a starting point.