Well, before I start talking about my prototype and game idea, I wanted to talk about how I got to that point. Ever since Project Wish, I have had a fairly active brain when it comes to game ideas. For the most part, during my work on PW, this creativity went towards PW’s goals, ideas and mechanics. Once I finally decided it was time for me to do something else, it was weird to actually put thought toward something other than a MMORPG. I had tried to discipline myself to the point that I avoided playing many games, and would try to devote any of my thinking time toward PW-centric ideas. This was good for PW, but when it came time to think of something else, it was like my brain had atrophied.
I had been playing close attention to the game industry, and knew what was popular and what was working, but I didn’t have any game ideas just popping out of my head at will. The purpose of this post is to explain how I got my brain back, so to speak. I knew after a massive project like PW, I wanted to work on something small. I wanted to see results, and feel like I was actually progressing. I knew that this meant keeping things small and simple. What I needed was some inspiration.
Look for Inspiration
The first thing I did was to start looking around for inspiration. For me, the easiest place to do that is the IGF website. If you don’t know what IGF is and you are reading this, then shame on you 
. The Independent Games Fesitval is the Sundance of indie game developers. Every year, indies from all over the world enter their projects for a shot at one of the many awards. The beauty of IGF is that you don’t have to win to get noticed. This past year, there were quite a number of games that did well, which did not win.
So, what I did was to just look at the list of entries and go check each of them out. One thing about indies is that they are filled with creativity. Rarely will you find this level of thinking-outside-the-box from large commercial companies. It is possible, but if you are looking for new, fresh ideas, this is the place to get inspired. In my checking, I played most of the games and tried to not be judgemental based on screenshots alone, like I usually have the tendency of doing. What you have to remember is that you can get inspired from anything, even if it is totally outside the realm of things you would normally look for. This means, even if you know you’re looking for a good idea for a 2d platformer, you don’t have to just look for 2d platformers to inspire you.
The general idea I had in my head started to form after seeing a few games. The ones that caught my eye most toward the end of 2008 are definitely worth sharing, if you haven’t heard of them already:
- Crayon Physics – I first found this game on GameDev.net, in the Image of the Day section. The creator, Petri Purho, had decided to make a game in a week. What he came up with was the coolest game mechanic I had seen in a long time. I watched his game progress over time, and was glad to see it entered into the IGF. He ended up taking the Grand Prize. In Jan. 2009, he had finally finished the game and I bought it the day it came out.
- Braid – I found this one on the Metacritic website as one of the highest ranked games released last year. I then did some research about it and read comments made about it that were very impressive. The acclaim was pretty much universal, which is very rare. Shortly after demo’ing it on my Xbox360, I bought it and played it through. What am awesome example of indie greatness.
- World of Goo – I saw this one on the IGF site and started checking it out as well. The comments were good, but I didn’t see the splendor of this game until I tried the demo. Even the demo doesn’t do it justice. You have to get the full game in order to see the fun and depth that this simple game really has. This one is a textbook on how to make a successful game on a simple idea. It is polished on every level.
- Cortex Command – I found this one blog-hopping and looking around. I wasn’t so fond of it to start, and even downloading the demo didn’t catch my attention at first. I died quite a number of times my first time in the demo, and almost gave up on it. A couple days later I decided to give it another try. This game has quite a bit of potential, once you see it. The developer(s) tried to enter it into IGF a few different times, but wasn’t accepted until very recently (this year). I am throwing my support behind this one, because it is one to keep an eye on. Go check it out!
- Diver - I found this one when researching the physics engine I was going to use for my game/prototype. This simple little physics-based game written for Silverlight is very fun. I had to play and play until I passed all the levels. A simple little mechanic can take you a long ways.
Coming Up with your Own Idea
Now playing games, and getting inspiration is one thing. It is entirely different to come up with your own idea. One possible bad part about getting inspiration from existing games is that you *might* end up with something that is not all that original. If you got the idea from something in another game, chances are that it is not very original. Do you have to have an original idea to make a good game? No, absolutely not. I’ll point to WoW as the ultimate example of a game that is not all that new, but just does so many old things well, that it becomes a masterpiece.
When it came time for me to start brainstorming ideas, it ended up being not as easy as I had hoped. I had gone and inspired myself, but that wasn’t enough. Now, so you understand something about me, I get ideas all the time. I usually try to have a notepad or post-it notepad somewhere close wherever I am. The difference here is that I don’t get game ideas all the time, just random inventions, etc. I’d like to consider myself a fairly creative person, but I was having a serious block when it came to game ideas. Even with PW, I never felt like I was short or lacking on ideas.
What I needed was some PEACE AND QUIET. This sounds like it should be obvious, but in the world we live in today, this is hard to achieve. Just sitting here in front of the soft, wonderful glow of my dual-LCDs is not such a conducive place for idea-making. I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer every day. My day job consists of my sitting in front of one for the majority of my time, and when I come home, I almost always get a few more minutes in at sometime during the evening. Then, after my wife and son go to sleep, I head into my office and sit here, spending yet more time. You’d think that there is quiet time to be had, but not so much. In order to get creative, I have to leave the computer and go somewhere quiet.
When I finally do step away from the computer, I have to have a place to keep my thoughts. I had a smartphone where I would jot notes onto, but this was a bit cumbersome. I started keeping a journal calendar on my nightstand and I also bought an idea book. This is just a small pocket-sized pad of paper that has an elastic band on it to keep it closed and protected. I kept it with me while I was in my idea phase, so anytime I needed to add to it, I could. I also would go back and record my ideas in it, if I had ideas when I didn’t have it with me. I found these to be good tools to help me come up with ideas. I was always prepared and had a way of recording ideas, wherever and whenever they came. This is very important because I found sometimes I would forget a lot of the specifics if I did not have a place to save it immediately.
Having a Base
Ideas are just ideas without some way to make them happen. Some ideas just can’t/don’t work, but you might not know that. The best way to know how to design games, is to know how games are made. You should have a base understanding of game engines and what makes them tick. This will help you design specific parts of a game, which could determine whether or not it is feasible. Some kid in high school that didn’t know what makes up a game engine just wouldn’t know how to design these. This could be the difference between success and failure. If you can come up with ideas and just assume that some programmer will love to implement your design, no matter how hard or complex, you just might in for a rude awakening. This is why it is also very handy to know how to program yourself. Even if you can’t program a whole game, if you can make a prototype showing your idea, and even having some of the code for it done, it can make all the difference in getting a programmer who will want to make your game. And let’s no forget, it takes a programmer to make a game work.
Next Post: My Prototype begins
