One of the most important things in this education, besides working in the groups, is how you handle the ideas. I have to say that being creative is something I missed during my time in linguistics. While an open mind was welcomed, the creativity was highly impaired. If you couldn’t support your train of thought by a reference to already existing works, you’d have some hard time. Only a tenured professor who is steps away from retirement was excused for having crazy ideas. But here, anything goes, while you can communicate it properly. I’m an artist now! So, let’s talk a bit about how I view the ideas and how to handle these fragile things.
A simple image is worth a thousand words. Everyone needs to take up a pen and a paper and start sketching. Don’t say that you can’t draw. Cavemen couldn’t draw either but it didn’t stop them! It doesn’t matter if it’s just stick figures, we aren’t putting your work on a display stand. You just need to get a message through and a crappy picture is usually better at this than a wall of text or works are a great compliment to the wall of text.
Forming an idea and shitty ideas. Let ideas be born. Slowly, but surely. Any idea, no matter how laughable at first, can be iterated and moulded into a genius by a right set of hands and minds. There are rarely bad ideas, rather there are bad interpretations. It is a typical case in the movies when someone does something stupid and then explains it by saying “It seemed different in my head…”. This is the point of iterations, the process of changing and adjusting until the garbage is away and only a great core remains. And this core can be executed with ease. This is especially important for the artists and the designers.
Single ideas and surges of ideas. This ties together with the point of carrying a notebook of being able to note down things at all times. You can be anywhere when diarrhoea idea strikes. And if you are in the situation where you can’t stop to ponder on something, you need to take a note of it. Even more complicated is the case of having a surge of different thoughts that all have a discussion value. At this point, all you can do is keep putting down the strings of thoughts on paper with as many details as possible in the hopes of being able to decipher them later when the storm calmed down. And don’t expect to understand everything you have written down either.
Creative drunk (with a disclaimer). I’m not advertising alcohol or consumption of any types of drugs here. However, if you find yourself in a state of a clouded mind and suddenly realise that you are pondering some weird idea – jam it down on paper or tell it to someone who is sober, to remember it for later! The ideas of a drunk mind are the things that might never come to a sober mind and this needs to be examined. Not only could it be a crazy idea, but it could simply be something you didn’t dare to voice while you were clearheaded. “The drunk mind speaks the sober heart”
The choosing of an already finished concept. Warning: rant and a high level of saltiness! One of the weirdest moments in the education were the 5 minutes we were given to choose one of the finished concepts for Shoot ‘em Up game. One of the biggest opportunities of the first year was squandered away, sadly. Of course, people would go for the most articulate and flashiest concepts for obvious reasons but that isn’t the point here. I commend the groups that did their job well at creating a solid idea. But there were so many other ideas that got thrown into the void at a whim.
Let’s examine the result of this scenario. We ended up with how many Witch, Fish, Echo games? It was excruciatingly boring to sit through the mandatory presentations where you get to see the same concept over, and over, and over again. Furthermore, it created an unnecessary scale of comparison of the same games. Don’t you think it was painfully clear which Witch (ha!) was the best? It was. Do you think that other teams with the same concept weren’t aware of their inferiority? They probably were (and if they weren’t, God bless those innocent souls). How do you think felt the people whose concepts weren’t picked? Probably like crap. As a result – unnecessary mental burdens everywhere.
What was to happen if the concepts were to be simply drafted? People who got the “good” concept could have made their games while focusing more on the production. The teams of the other concepts would have been faced with a challenge of interpreting the less articulate concepts into a proper game. Isn’t that a great exercise, to take someone’s embryo of an idea and realise it into something fully formed? That way there wouldn’t have been any unnecessary comparing of games. Everyone would have been happy to see their concept being realised. And watching the presentation of the progress in production would have become something to long for. There are two other key experiences that were missed by so many groups because of the different scenario playing out, which I will bring up next. An overall great opportunity for a unique high-value experience for every group wasted, in my opinion.
Letting go of your idea. Partly continuing the rant above, something that all needed to experience, but didn’t. Once you have formed your idea and it is handed over to someone else it is super important to let it go. The people will examine it and create something they see through their own eyes. Which is why I think, it is irrelevant to ask someone “is this how you saw this game?”. It doesn’t matter how they saw it, they weren’t the ones making it. As the concept is handed over into other hands it stops being your concept. All you have left is an echo if the idea that can manifest as basically ANYTHING. Learn to let go of an idea and most certainly don’t try to impose your vision on the team working with your concept. Same goes to the team working with the concept, don’t try to follow the vision of someone else to the letter. This is now your playdough and you get to do what you want with it.
Deconstruction of a concept. Another thing that many people didn’t get to experience was the option of taking a badly formulated concept and recycling it into something good. I am a firm believer that there are no bad ideas, only bad interpretations and executions. When faced with a poorly formulated thought the only scenario is to search for the essence of the thought in the text. Some repeating pattern, a word that is used many times. Searching for a diamond in a pile of refuse can be quite an adventure in itself. And once you’ve done that and produced something – you will feel great. And chances are that those who didn’t manage to deliver the idea 100% will be also happy at seeing their vision interpreted and brought to life. I know, I would be happy for sure!
Getting burned once might impair the creativity. Just like in real life getting burned once makes one avoid fire. Someone, who’s idea was bad might not ever push themselves into creating a new idea. But to approach this problem you simply need to reassess the situation. Reflect on what went wrong last time and take it into your calculation. But just because you failed last time you shouldn’t tune down on your ambitions, rather you should scope them better. To under-scope could be as harmful as to over-scope. Search for the right balance. And just as we were told in the lectures, how many games did those guys from Angry Birds made before finally scoring big? It’s about failing and learning and failing. Not failing, getting crippled and not wanting to fail again and thus not try properly.
Embrace the games in their creation (a.k.a. playtesting). Once the journey has started it is important to keep the imagination engine well fed. Once the playtesting begins and you get to experience the creations of others don’t be scared away by these rough-cut diamonds. While some devs are eager to show their progress, other are more reluctant, almost uncomfortable about their babies. Don’t flee at the sight of something that has no graphics, or looks wonky. Get the feel of it, talk to the creators, ask them to elaborate on what they are doing and what are they planning. You can usually get a good picture of their ideas even from an alpha build. And they will appreciate your interest, I’m sure. It will also help them since they will ned to articulate their plans and destinations and might realise flaws in those. So, if you playtest – playtest politely, but playtest hard!
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