Gamer Purgatory

Here are some suggestions:

If you haven't played alot of games, I would recommend it. Play some games from well-known designers such as Knizia. This will help you understand what good game design looks like and might spur some revelations into your design.

Secondly, figure out what the core of your idea is that will not change despite any revisions. You need some framework to work from, because if you revise too much each time then you will constantly be morphing the game into something else and you will get frustrated and will never be satisfied.

Once you decide on your core elements and theme - stick by it! Then after you playtest, you can focus on the suggestions you get within the framework of your design. If the game does not work at all, it might be time to scrap the idea completely and start fresh with something new.

My final recommendation is to take a break. If you feel stuck, often you just need to take a step back and let the design go for a while. Then, one day a new idea may just pop into your head that you would like to explore, or you might get new ideas when you revisit the rules later as you are looking at them with a fresh perspective.

I am hardly a master at this, as I struggle with the same issues, but I thought I would post this to give you some tips and possibly spur further discussion.

I keep written journals. If I run into a hard spot and the game stalls, I just work on a different one. As a result, right now I have:

3 games in final playtesting

3 games in playtesting

6-8 games that are ready for their first prototypes

10-20 games that just need a final couple of key ideas to bring them to the first prototype stage.

30-40 games that need some kind of real inspiration to move forward to the next stage.

20-30 games that I've given up on, but can still use as reference for other games.

The whole thing has kind of become a games factory, where ideas seem to (mostly) slowly wor their way across the factory floor, becoming more and more ready. When one stumbles and I can't find a solution for it pretty quickly, I set it aside and let it ferment while I work on others.

Bit-by-bit -- either just by chance or because I'm looking back through the journals for games that are "ripe" -- the older set-aside games come to the surface, bubbling up like so much crude oil, with new ideas attached. Progressively they move along that factory floor, becoming more and more ready.

I'm eager to get those final playtest games out of the factory, to make room in the chain for others!

To sum: I do run into design blocks, but for me, anyway, just setting them aside while working on another design seems to work greatt.

Well,

That is another way to do it, if you want to design alot of different games at once. I, on the other hand, prefer to work on 1 design (or maybe 2) at the most and try to get them into final prototype stage before starting something new.

The way you go about designing probably has a lot to do with personality types. I would be interested in hearing other people's opinion on this subject - maybe in another thread?

Ah Gamer's Purgatory!

We all experience it, we all hate it, but it exists none the less.

I think this issue occurs in all areas of life, it is natural to have those down times that, *get in the way*. We all want to have things finished to that *perfect stage*. But in reality nothing is perfect and nothing is ever *finished*. There will always be that new idea, new enhancement or new mechanic to make a game *better*. But it does stink to feel blocked when designing a game.

Besides the great ideas from everyone else, and I do tend to jump between multiple game designs too! Once in awhile I will also take this blocked time, to take a step back and reassess the game as it is currently implemented.

I take the direction of not being blocked, but being in an game assessment phase. I try to playtest the game more, I look at *how good* the current game is working, I try to reassess what mechanics are working and what mechanics are not working. I also reassess theme (if there is one) to make sure it fits well. And as I reassess, I often I get that needed spark to figure out a solutions to my other issue(s).

By doing this, I minimize the amount of change from one interation of the game to the next. As game designers it is very easy to add too much to a game when we think it is broken or feel that something is missing. I feel it is important to keep focus on why you are trying to change the game, there have been multiple times that I have started down the wrong path and had to undo the *fixes* that I thought were great ideas because I did not take enough time to assess or understand the real problem.

I have the same approach as fastlearner to game design and working with several of games in parallel. I find it reveling to know that if a game does not work, I can drop the game, reuse the ideas in other games. Have done that several times.
The real downside to this is that you are constantly frustrated that you have not done enough on each game, since you split your time between several tasks.

If I can't focus on game design, I drop it completely for as long as it takes to get back . The longest break that I had was for 4 month.

// Johan