How Game Concepts are Generated

There are some really crazy and creative games out there, some of which seem so ingenious or imaginative you can't help but wonder what was going on inside the developer's head at the time of the game's creation. Turns out that there are various methods of coming up with new or unique game ideas, and I will be analysing and reflecting on various methods developers can use in today's blog post. As posted by (Daum, 2013), plenty of things throughout life can inspire you for obtaining new ideas. From playing another company's games, watching films and reading books, you can analyse what they do well and then maybe apply them into your own ideas for you to expand upon them further. Likewise there are plenty of experiences in life that can inspire someone, from having conversations with a variety of people and also conducting surveys with them to collect ideas (to get a large sample size of feedback), noting down every idea you think of during the day (so a month later you have a huge comprehensive list of notes that you can use to extract ideas from; this is called an idea fountain) or even just living through life trying new things to broaden your experiences (so for example if you've never been skiing before, why not go to a local ski centre to try on artificial snow, such a new experience could influence your future games design concepts). All of these methods are very natural to do, as you can live your life relatively normally for the most part, only with the intent to absorb as many ideas as possible to craft your own gameplay experience.

A group of people skiing. Trying new and interesting activities can broaden your knowledge of the world, and in turn possibly give you inspiration for developing a game idea! (Chillfactor, 2016)

However many of these I mentioned are quite time-consuming processes, and many game studios, especially bigger companies who are always producing new content, don't have so much time to waste with these long-term projects to generate ideas. First is brainstorming, which is a very commonly used technique in industry, where one 'group leader' takes down all suggestions by the group, usually in a big list. So if a developer were to get a group of people to shout out various things that make a good game, absolutely everything suggested would go on the list, even if it doesn't seem relevant at the time (even if someone suggested a random word like 'saxophones'). This is done because later on during the creation process the development team could find a great way to incorporate saxophones into the game with lots of the other suggestions, and in the end the game could be great because of the brainstorming session, as everyone gave away pretty much every idea they thought of in the session to compile as many concepts as possible. Brainstorming has proven to be a very effective method of creation, which is talked about by (SmartStorming, 2011), due to its wacky and off the wall nature which is perfect for game innovation. There are a few issues however, firstly there's not really much thought put into a brainstorm and there's also not much of a stimulus for inspiration, especially considering most brainstorms are done in a boardroom type of area. This means there can be quite a lot of quality response that may be hard to fit into a game concept, but if executed correctly then it could be a great process of creativity for a game, but I feel brainstorming is a very good technique when used correctly.

Instead of brainstorming there are other methods of generating an idea aside from just a normal brainstorming session, as researched by (Greenfield, 2014), each with their own pros and cons. One method is a mind-map, which is essentially a much more focused brainstorm that collects more thought-out concepts that are relevant to usually a more established game (so a company may already know they're making a platformer game, and will brainstorm for ideas about different gameplay mechanics instead). You could also use a moodboard, which is more of a visually-based mind map where you collect a large variety of images into a page which fit a certain theme. So if your game is going to be a party game with a cell-shaded visual style, then you'd collect various brightly coloured and cartoony images of various party equipment like balloons, cakes and banners and bunch them all together, which exhibits a very strong vibe for a children's game. Overall thought I feel every method for generating ideas listed here is viable in its own way, and they all have their own purpose, so a brainstorm for coming up with concepts and a moodboard for finalising a visual style, all of these methods can actually be used together to create a great gaming experience, and a developer isn't just restricted to using one and one only.

An example moodboard for a child-friendly game with lots of fun colours, locations and characters (from ICT Tutor (Reid, 2013))

Beyond these there are even other methods of generating an idea for a game, which are surprisingly much more effecting than you'd think. Both daydreaming and actually dreaming whilst asleep are effective methods of producing an idea. The former is good as you can daydream anywhere, such as on public transport or in the shower, meaning you can always be thinking about a great new product idea or how to fix and/or improve a current issue. In fact, according to official DailyMail journalist (Prigg, 2015), daydreaming is actually good for you and has various health benefits like increased productivity, because we're draining it of 'clutter' to process information more effectively. Because of this it's a good thing to sit back and think about your next big game idea from time to time. And likewise for dreaming, because your mind is unconsciously making decisions to create a dream, there are actually various wacky, odd and original scenarios that can be dreamt up which simply wouldn't be thought of in any other situation as you live your daily life.