Game Ideas
The first stage of game production is the concept phase, in which the initial idea of the game is developed. But how do game designers come up with a game idea?
Play: Taboo
📝Critical Thinking | 🕒20 minutes | 📂Required Resources: Taboo cards
This activity is designed to help students generate new creative ways of thinking about something.
Discussion
In what ways does taboo help to generate ideas?
Where do ideas come from
Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time, say 4:30 am in the morning. This is why you should always have a notebook by your bedside table to jot down those ideas!
Seriously though ideas can come from many different places, often from personal experiences, analyzing and critiquing others' ideas, and brainstorming.
How do we come up with good ideas? This is the question that former NASA Engineer and Youtuber Mark Rober aim to highlight in the following TED Talk from 2015.
Author and game designer Tracy Fullerton states that "Game designers think of the world in terms of challenges, structures and play. We can break this down by further defining these elements as
- Challenges: what is it that needs to be done, what is the goal
- Structures: what are the constraints or rules to get the challenge done
- Play: what is fun or playful about the challenge
Innovative Ideas
We've already established that Good ideas can come upon us at any time, but how do we know if the idea is innovative? Designing for innovation pushes game designers to look beyond the current types of games and ask themselves what is next?
In the following TED talk, bestselling author Steven Johnson aims to provide a complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, society, and culture forward.
You might have noticed in the Steven Johnson's talk he states that good ideas often need time to "incubate". Incubation is one of the 5 stages of creativity. Therefore one can make the analogy that generating good ideas is a creative process.
Designing for Innovation
After generating a game idea, the game design team should consider how innovative is the idea. One method of determining this is to ask the following questions:
- What unique or new play mechanics will be implemented?
- What new or niche player type will this game appeal to?
- What new or emerging platforms will this game take advantage of?
- How can this game be integrated into our daily lives?
- What new business models will be used? Is your game free-to-play or subscription-based?
- What current game design problems do you hope to fix? Better story integration, and emotionally rich gameplay?
- What is the impact will the game have on individuals, society, or culture?
Methods of Idea Generation
While it might take years for good ideas to come to fruition, game designers often need to generate many ideas on the fly. There are several methods that can help with idea generation, the following are just a few.
Get Inspiration
Getting inspiration from games that have come before is a great way to generate new ideas. There are countless game designers who have made a huge impact on the industry and it is important as a game designer to be familiar with these individuals and their contribution to the industry.
Brainstorming
One of the best ways to generate ideas is to brainstorm. Brainstorming is the technique used to quickly generate ideas. Best practices for brainstorming include:
- Define the challenge: what are you generating ideas for? Be specific, do not just say to make the best game ever, instead how about making the best multiplayer first-person puzzle game ever?
- No Criticism: all ideas are welcomed during a brainstorming session regardless of how off the wall or non-related they may seem. One crazy idea might spark a new idea in someone else.
- Collaborative environment: make sure that everyone is in the brainstorming session participates, even at this early stage of development everyone on the team needs to take ownership of the project.
- Record ideas: generating ideas is not helpful if you forget them the next day. Make sure that all ideas are recorded in one format or another so that they can be referenced as the ideas are refined.
- Generate lots of ideas: the more ideas the better, again one idea might spark another
- Don’t go long: being creative takes effort, and going for too long can wear out your creative juices, keep brainstorming sessions under 60 minutes.
Research
Research means to immerse yourself in a subject to further develop your idea. For example, say your team has an idea for a gangster role-playing game (RPG) set in 1920s Chicago. The team should begin by researching 1920s Chicago, what events were taking place during that time period and region, and what challenges were people facing that could be incorporated into the game. This research will provide an added sense of realism and perhaps make the game somewhat educational.
Game Designer and author Richard Lemarchand, states that "every game can benefit from some research to give its foundations in the real world"
Research doesn't end with narrative design. Maybe your team has decided to develop a virtual reality (VR) game. In this scenario, the team should begin by researching the technology and answering questions like what games have already been developed using this technology, what are the best practices for designing in VR, what are some technical limitations, what are the best tools for development, and so forth.
Narrowing Down Ideas
After generating ideas the game design team needs to take time to reflect on those ideas. After a few days, the team will come back together and narrow down the ideas by asking questions such as:
- Is it technically feasible? Will we be able to make it?
- Is there a market? Who would buy this game? Will it be profitable?
- Can it be produced within budget? Will further funds need to be secured?
- Are you in love with it? How passionate are you about making this game?