What inspires you to create a game?
Where do you get your ideas?

I get my ideas from going to creative places. Namely Disneyland.

The game I'm currently working on was a design I came up with right around the time I started working on Rocknor's Bad Day. But it wasn't until a year later when I was at Disneyland, standing in line to get ice cream, that the concept was really fully visualized.

I think it's the fact that the place is entirely a man-made vision where nothing is placed without careful thought that inspires me. Disneyland feels like a giant game to me, for some reason. Anyway, the combination of the amazing architecture, the fun rides and visuals, the different genres (Fronteer, Space-age, Jungle, Fantasy, etc) the sugar, the downtime to brainstorm while standing in line, and being away from the computer for a while really inspires me. Every time I go I get great ideas for games.

~Hanford

I'm sure I'm atypical here, but I've grown very wary and mistrusting of "inspiration" as a planned tool for game development. Projects that look great in the inspiration stage often fall apart in the perspiration stage. Inspired ideas are great when they come; however, I find the risky process of awaiting inspiration to be at odds with the business need of minimizing risk and maintaining stability.

So I don't use inspiration as the primary source of deciding what kind of game to develop next. In lieu of inspiration, I think in terms of idea generation, selection, and prioritization, and I have simple processes that tackle all these areas. Inspired ideas always come up, but they still have to pass through the same filters as seemingly unspired ideas.

Instead of inspiration I let the business needs dictate when it's time to develop a new game. And then I set a business goal for what I want that new game to achieve (increase sales, expand into a new market, etc). Then I aim to design a product that targets that goal. To me this is inspiring because I'm excited that the product I develop will have a high probability of achieving the goal, whereby I can attain the result I want. Dweep's goal, for instance, was that it would produce enough cashflow to sustain me full-time. I was inspired by that goal more than the particular design of the game itself. Many inspired design ideas didn't make it into the final product because they conflicted with the business goal (i.e. they would likely create a game that couldn't sustain me financially). Decisions like 2D vs. 3D flowed out of the business goal of creating long-term sustainable income. For instance, I concluded that a 3D game would look much more dated in 2 years vs. a 2D game, since 2D technology was mature, and 3D technology was still rapidly evolving. Other design decisions were made similarly, with the business goal dictating the design decisions.

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore
I get my ideas from going to creative places. Namely Disneyland.


I read a book a while ago (can't recall the title) about the development and evolution of Disneyland. It's amazing just how much the customer experience is engineered, with business needs dictating much of the parks "creativity." The book reveals just how much our senses are being consciously manipulated at Disneyland to elicit a particular emotional response. I think most of these changes happened during the Eisner era. I visited the park with my family once shortly after reading that book, and I consciously took note of many things I had only previously been perceiving subconsciously. It completely changed the experience for me once I knew what went into each of those design decisions... sort of like having a magician tell you exactly how each trick is performed. Much of what you think is inspired is really just human engineering.

I'm sure I'm atypical here, but I've grown very wary and mistrusting of "inspiration" as a planned tool for game development.

In yourself? Meaning, you don't trust your own inspiration? Or you don't bank on it for a successful game?

I believe the 2 are seperate. Regardless of how good of a decision a game is busiesswise, I sill need inspiration when it comes to ideas, nice touches, and really just to motivate me to finish a game.

... with business needs dictating much of the parks "creativity."

There will always be a bottom line to deal with in any endeavor, whether it's a game, a theme park, or, say, an accounting practice. That is very important. it's important to keep your game's vision and creativity in check with the realsim of having to finish it. The trick to to see how wild, creative, and fun of an idea you can come up with while still keeping that bottom line in check. I think Disney does wonders with this (although I agree, under the Eisner era the parks have somewhat cut back in their above-and-beyond level of quality).

But, mainly I gain inspiration in an abstact way from Disneyland ... I don't visit the park to look for things to copy. I just go there and have a good time, and at the end of the day I have all sorts of great ideas and I'm itching to go home and research it.

~Hanford

I think DisneyLand is boring :eek:
Personally Busch Gardens is my park of choice... maybe that's my problem... lol

Anyway, some really good conversation here. I've really re-realized the basic concept of "Game Creation". :)

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore
In yourself? Meaning, you don't trust your own inspiration? Or you don't bank on it for a successful game?


I mean that I don't trust inspiration as an intentional tool for designing games. When an idea feels inspired, my emotional attachment to the idea may mislead me, and the idea may fail to be what I need to achieve my intended goal. So even though I'm left-handed and fairly creative, I trust my left/logical brain more than my right/creative brain in making design decisions. If I come up with a game idea that inspires the heck out of me, I'll dump it if my logic tells me that the idea will likely fail to achieve the desired goal.

I tend to generate large volumes of ideas through various brainstorming processes. Then I filter them for fitness for the particular goal and prioritize what's left. Some inspired ideas will pass through, but many won't. So while inspiration will still take place, it isn't a required ingredient in the process I use for designing a new game -- the fitness for the particular goal is far more important to me than whether or not an idea is inspired. I simply don't trust inspiration enough to make it a pivot point in product development. I can't exercise enough control over the results that inspiration produces, so I prefer to replace it with a process that's more under my control and understanding. If I determine that a seemingly uninspired game idea is what will best help me achieve my goals, then I'll favor that over an inspired idea whose results seem dubious.

For me, Katsu's Journey was inspired by dweep and Fitznik. While they are different games to be sure, they have very similar gameplay goals. Navigating a path between two points by manipulating objects in the environment.

I was also inspired by the commercial success of the above two titles. I decided that I wanted to do the next generation of a dweep/fitznik game. I looked at what would be the next logical step in terms of gameplay evolution. To me this was navigating a dynamic path between two points. Both dweep and to a lesser extent fitznik have multiple paths to a solution. But there are typically only one or two at most. What I had in mind was a path that was constantly changing, but in a logical, discernable matter.

To achieve this I decided to change the path to the solution by having the obstacles that defined the path move. That's where the guards with viewing regions idea came into play. I really admired the item system in dweep, how a few simple objects with very intuitive interactions could provide a rich set of choices. So I decided to have something similar in Katsu's Journey.

I also wanted to have a context to the gameplay, a reason for beating each level. The best way I saw to do this was to incorporate a story and continuous environments. Where each level was part of a greater world. (somewhat like Pharos curse I guess).

The result can be summed up as follows…

Katsu's Journey is a real-time tactical adventure game. Players assume the role of a young adventurer trying to sneak past enemy guards who are actively looking for him. At his disposal are a number of items that he can combine and use in a variety of ways to evade his pursuers

(I wrote the above description so that I will have a short/concise description of our game when we attend IGC and people ask "So what are you working on?")

Over time the project has taken on it's own identity, distinct from it's progenitors. But it's interesting to note, that the inspiration was never really some fabulous game I conjured up to create. The whole thing was a series of rational choices based on the information I had available to me at the time. I think being able to define why I am working on this title (beyond an expression in pure creativity) is one of the reasons I've been able to work on it for so long.

It will be interesting to see if my assumptions about the market and players were correct.

I want to clarify my above comments a little. Disneyland doesn't inspire me to make games per se. It is a personal trigger for inspired ideas.

~Hanford

I always take time to listen to inspiration when it appears. Some times, the ideas are just fantastic and the habit of mentally developing any interesting idea, letting it mature in terms of "how, why, etc" I would have missed out on some great gameplay ideas.

In fact, I have enough inspiration to almost never have to think about what I would like to make. I just have to pick which of my game ideas most fits my current goal.

Being creative, inspired and so on is like everything else a thinking habit. I've been designing games in my head since I was 8 or so, in addition to thinking creatively about everything. I think that if it is a problem to get new gameplay ideas, you have to let yourself dream a bit more. And if it is a problem that your game ideas are nothing but dreams that cannot be realized, you need to learn more about gamedesign and development. Being strong in both fields is the only way to go.

As a little afterthought, does anyone agree with me that Dexterity's planned design process is less than a model of example? Sure it is stable and nice for building a business slowly and carefully. I can also imagine games such as Diablo was conceived in this manner. But how easy is it to make a fantastic game without true inspired perspiration from a gamedesigner/developer that aspires to create something new, fresh and totally awesome? By adapting such safe methods in the start of the business, will it not mold the future to continue the same style? I'm not saying it is a bad way to start, I am merely pondering the pros and cons, and would like some other opinions.

Originally posted by Dexterity
I read a book a while ago (can't recall the title) about the development and evolution of Disneyland. It's amazing just how much the customer experience is engineered, with business needs dictating much of the parks "creativity." The book reveals just how much our senses are being consciously manipulated at Disneyland to elicit a particular emotional response. I think most of these changes happened during the Eisner era. I visited the park with my family once shortly after reading that book, and I consciously took note of many things I had only previously been perceiving subconsciously. It completely changed the experience for me once I knew what went into each of those design decisions... sort of like having a magician tell you exactly how each trick is performed. Much of what you think is inspired is really just human engineering.

You're a sad little man :( Disneyland is magic!

:)

Im with Dan here. Nothing inspires me like other games!
Typically, innovation can inspire too, but that can be a killer if depended on.
There have been so many awesome games, in so many genres, we have to be stupid to not have figured out the rules by now!

Everytime a new game come along, that clicks and works well, that inspires me. Sometimes my pride can mess with me a bit if the game really rocks, but I deal with it, and proceed to rip all the best bits and store them away somewhere in my grey matter.

My inspiration comes from two areas depending on what I want to acheive.

Sometimes my designs work like Steve and I will sit down and plan what is needed, why it is needed and how to get the most of out it. This is great for small scale games especially when you want to sell them. I usually try and focus on what is missing in a particular genre, or on ideas that haven't been tried before and see if I can develop them into a viable game.

Then at other times inspiration hits me. I've always been very visually orientated, so my inspiration tends to strike me like someone slapping a screenshot of the completed game over my eyes. And I almost always get inspired by the atmosphere rather than gameplay mechanics or similar. This is probbaly why I rarely develop these instant inspiration ideas because as I start to think them through, the gameplay starts to fall apart or I realise that I don't have the resources for a game of that scale, etc.

I think if I had the resources, I would attempt to make some of these "instant inspiration" games. Not all are bad from a game design point of view, some of the ideas could really have excelled, but are simply too ambitious for little old me.

I tend to start with the feelings, actions, and responses I want to invoke in the player. Then I work backward to (hopefully) make it happen. As for the initial spark - that just happens from time to time. When they do, write them down and build an idea file.

Jack

Originally posted by Karukef
As a little afterthought, does anyone agree with me that Dexterity's planned design process is less than a model of example? Sure it is stable and nice for building a business slowly and carefully. I can also imagine games such as Diablo was conceived in this manner. But how easy is it to make a fantastic game without true inspired perspiration from a gamedesigner/developer that aspires to create something new, fresh and totally awesome? By adapting such safe methods in the start of the business, will it not mold the future to continue the same style? I'm not saying it is a bad way to start, I am merely pondering the pros and cons, and would like some other opinions.

I can understand what you mean, and I think this is the way a lot of people feel. But the thing is, if you want to make a living out of this, you often can't afford the risks associated with making "fresh and totally awesome" games. Chances are that they won't sell as well as a proven concept, and then how will you pay for rent and food? Myself, I work as a games programmer for a big company, and the game we're doing right now is very ambitious, but no ideas go into the game without being considered from a business point of view. So, what do I do when I want to work with "fresh and totally awesome" ideas? I do it in my spare time, as a hobby project, where I can play around and do whatever I want, without any risk involved. And that is where I think its best to work with groundbreaking ideas: on the hobby level.

I think that if one is to make a living out of game making, then the business needs to come first. If one is only in it for the fun of it, then it's best to have other ways to make money.

I conceived and designed Alien Flux ten years ago at university while mashed out of my tiny mind on speed, LSD, hash, mushrooms, and whiskey. I spent 3 years in this strangely oblivious state and then suddenly decided not to do it any more and go and get a job when I graduated.

Unfortunately I don't want to try altering my brain any more than it is already nowadays. Fortunately my creativity comes from holes in the marketplace - I naturally design games that I want to play because they don't exist: that's why Alien Flux happened. They might tend to be slightly oddball ideas but the important thing is, if there was already a game like one that I was thinking about, I'd just buy it and play it instead of going to the trouble of writing my own.

No science there, just luck, really...

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
I conceived and designed Alien Flux ten years ago at university while mashed out of my tiny mind on speed, LSD, hash, mushrooms, and whiskey. I spent 3 years in this strangely oblivious state and then suddenly decided not to do it any more and go and get a job when I graduated.

Unfortunately I don't want to try altering my brain any more than it is already nowadays. Fortunately my creativity comes from holes in the marketplace - I naturally design games that I want to play because they don't exist: that's why Alien Flux happened. They might tend to be slightly oddball ideas but the important thing is, if there was already a game like one that I was thinking about, I'd just buy it and play it instead of going to the trouble of writing my own.

No science there, just luck, really...

Cas :)

That's basically the way I make my games as well...
It's just that most of the time their is already a version available :D

Originally posted by Karukef
As a little afterthought, does anyone agree with me that Dexterity's planned design process is less than a model of example? Sure it is stable and nice for building a business slowly and carefully. I can also imagine games such as Diablo was conceived in this manner. But how easy is it to make a fantastic game without true inspired perspiration from a gamedesigner/developer that aspires to create something new, fresh and totally awesome? By adapting such safe methods in the start of the business, will it not mold the future to continue the same style? I'm not saying it is a bad way to start, I am merely pondering the pros and cons, and would like some other opinions.

Keep in mind that this approach doesn't rule out inspired new game design ideas. It simply forces them to justify that they can achieve the business goals. A game that's too uncreative and clone-like is actually riskier IMO, since it's likely going to compete in an increasingly crowded market with no good unique selling proposition. Some degree of innovation is congruent with keeping risk low.

All I'm really saying is that I force inspired ideas to measure up against the business goal they're designed to fulfill. Creative gameplay can be an important factor in making a game sell well. But there are a lot of applications of creativity that can be detrimental to sales, such as having an interface that's too creative (and therefore unintuitive).

I usually have inspiration in various moments.
While at bath. In the bus. While driving a car. When I am going out jogging.

But then I have to "materialize" all those ideas in a product, and then come the hard part :P
My first game is basically what I'd like to play: a soccer management game. Since I am not really in bad economical situation (that doesn't mean I am rich, but I have not to pay rent and I also work part-time) for now I want to do only games I'd like to play myself.

Later, I may decide to do games that sells for sure... but what are those games? :P

Interestingly enough I get most of my inspiration for coding solutions in the shower. At 6'5" 200lbs I don’t fit in bathtubs anymore :) but I find the shower to be a great place to remove all distractions and muse on the problem at hand. The sound of the water removes most audible distractions; the shower itself is not visually distracting so I’m just left with a good 15 min to think about the problem.

I've also been able to cultivate the ability to put something in my subconscious before going to sleep. Right before I dose off I force my mind to think through all the elements of a particular coding problem. All the desired inputs and outputs, and the available data that the process has access to. Generally what happens is just before i actually pass out I have an inspiration of something to try the next day. The idea isn't always 100% but I have come up with some good solutions that way. Sometimes I don't get any inspiration until the half-asleep state in the morning. This is the first time I've ever really articulated this process, but in thinking about it, I realize I really rely on this a lot when I’m stuck on something. It's sort of bizzare, does anyone else have any expirence with this type of process?

I can definitely relate to the shower-inspiration thing. And even the sleep thing. I guess it's the lack of distractions that frees your mind to do nothing but think...

But 15 minutes!?! Dang! You're one clean S.O.B.! :)

I have, for quite a few years, considered "not in front of the computer"-time to be "thinking"-time. That is, I kind of run a background process in my head going through program designs, thinking of potential causes of a bug or getting a better understanding for some algorithm I am implementing in whatever I'm working on.
The only time when I can't do this is when I am having an active conversation with someone or if I am watching a movie or watching TV (which means I seldom watch movies or TV nowdays).

The disadvantage of this is that I can become quite absent-minded and I'm usually quite confused when people try to talk to me.
Once I was driving my mothers car while at the same time going through a design in my head and an oncoming car, which really should've let me pass, drove up in front of me which resulted in a collision. I could have avoided this (I had quite a lot of time to see it coming) but my mind was not in what I was doing.

As for inspiration I tend to look at what other people have done and try and combine, change or somehow improve on their concepts while at the same time keeping it on a managable level.

@Dexterity: I'm doing exactly as you for my current design, that is heavily focusing on how to sell my game. I still spend a lot of time inspiring myself with future game ideas, which I believe is fundamental to achieve my future goal of creating true game masterpieces. (And not only important to keep my spirits up) :)

I don't think inspiration is planned (at least not in my case). I constantly look at everything and see how I could turn it into a game of one type or another. My current game concept came to me in a lecture on law for a police course. :p

At one time or another we were all inspired by games. I think a common pattern to all of us would be, We played games, we enjoyed games, we decided we wanted to make games.

If games were as boring and stupid as TV we probably wouldn't be inspired. :)

I keep an "ideas folder". Its just a folder with bits of paper with scribbled diagrams and stuff of game ideas. Its useful because I can write ideas down, then leave it for a few weeks and come back to it to see how good/terrrible the ideas are.

I have one of them. I call it my windows desktop :) My desktop is almost full and about half of the screen is filled with notepad files outlining ideas I've had and would like to develop at some point in the future.

I'm sorry, I can't concentrate on this thread any more. I keep seeing an image of Dan in a bathtub. <shiver> :D

Hmm, maybe I should have posted something constructive instead. Ok, here goes. Many of my game ideas come from looking at existing games and wondering if some aspect of the gameplay could have been done better, or at least less derivative. I love to focus on one "better way" and try to grow a game idea around it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it becomes a pointless showcase for a game gimmick. I get turned on by game mechanics that I haven't seen elsewhere. Sometimes I get game ideas from literature or film. A few of my ideas are inspired by programming just for fun, like writing programs to generate random sentences or goofing around with genetic algorithms. For my latest game, it was one of the ideas that came about while brainstorming after performing some market research. It shares aspects with many puzzle games but it has some unique game mechanics that keep it interesting for me. I find it also helps to be in the right mindset for new ideas. Just doing anything completely unrelated but creative can throw game ideas your way.