Idea generation

Where do ideas come from? I started asking myself this question around the time I joined games design course. I used to write stories and ideas flourished in my head, flying in and out all the time. It was hard to keep up. Games were somehow different. I have a friend who can come up with anything on the spot. It’s fascinating. I, in contrast, spend days thinking about my next project and the number of articles and videos with tips for being creative shows I am not alone in that.

I decided to start a blog for my last university assignment where I will mostly document my process with a tiny sprinkle of research articles (because I simply enjoy it). Thus, my first post is about coming up with the concept. I generally have s rule of three, some sort of superstition developed over three years. According to that rule, the third idea I try will work out the best. Never let me down. Although I do change the detail of it time to time.

This project is supposed to be my best work so far, therefore, I spent a fair amount of time coming up with the concept. Although I am still searching for an ideal routine, I have several tricks to approach the task. Firstly, I always start with browsing game stores, such as Steam or AppStore, noting mechanics which I find interesting. I then brainstorm each of them using a standard mind map method. I do come up with several ideas that way. They usually end up being those first two I disregard chasing my perfect game.

I did not neglect the tradition this time and ended up with a couple of concepts. One of them even made it to a fully developed Unity prototype, others finished their existence in the paper state. First time when I had to make a decision to abandon a project and start everything from scratch happened during my first university game assignment. Pretty tough, eh? So much effort sank into nothing. I had to do it twice for that project and it was all worth it at the end. Game ideas always sound much better in your head, but it is quite hard to predict all possible issues. It is never a waste of time to evaluate your mistakes and see what definitely does not work. Thus, when my almost fully developed prototype just did not have that spark it did not take me long to start over.

It was then when I discovered a random game idea generator and what a breakthrough! I know it might seem as cheating or useless but hear me out. It works by generating two or more words, sometimes assigned to a category, such as game setting. The beauty of it for me is that it’s just words and they are opened to interpretation. Not having a visual reference for what a feature works like, which happens when browsing existing games, allows me to see it from a new perspective and add my own little touch instead of parroting others.

The final inspiration comes from discussing the final concept with anyone. Sometimes when describing a game people would imagine two completely different experiences and it can be of great use. Listening to their interpretations always leads to some improvements to the initial concept.

Thus, after plenty of brainstorm sessions, dozens of generated word combinations and a couple of good talks with friends and teachers, I settled on a top-down puzzle game, where a player has to get from point A to point B. Simple. Unless the actions they can do rapidly disappear right after performing it.