Skip to Content
 

Accepting that some of your ideas will suck.... a lot.

4 replies [Last post]
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013

As I mature as a game designer I see myself acquire thicker skin when it comes to my ideas. When at times I would lock down parts of my design out of stubbornness, now I seemed to have more clarity when placing my ideas in a game, especially when they don't work.

I think this is essential when finding the sweet spot in games: knowing that an idea might not work and actually being okay with it.

I've learned this with deeper conviction while designing Pillars of Civilization. I would try and solve a problem, come up with a solution, sit down to playtest, feel myself slowly die while watching my game fail to a very simple "lets try this and see if something blows up" mechanical-break method, and then continue to find the nearest blunt object and smash my forehead across it.

But I realized that this a very unhealthy lifestyle.

What I learned is that we may come up with a solution and it may look FANTASTIC but when we put it to the test it will most likely fall apart. And if we're not careful, we run the risk of adding and adding and adding mechanics on top of a broken base! Stepping back and chipping away at the REAL problems in our games is crucial. No matter how far into the game we are, throwing away a "good" idea to stop a bad mechanic from bogging down the game will never lose its effectiveness.

Ideas are temporary. Ideas are easily malleable if we allow them to be.

Just some thoughts as I continue my journey and improve as a designer!

X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013
I can find myself in

I can find myself in this.

Trying a new mechanic, or adjust another one. Just to see what happens.
Already knowing it will be a chaos. But it has become the fun part of it. And I have started enjoying it.

I don't know for sure if I am having a thicker skin. I am still dissapointed if something doesn't work. While I really really wanted it to work.

Guessing that acceptance is still a lesson to be learned.

Gabe
Gabe's picture
Offline
Joined: 09/11/2014
Joss Whedon calls it "killing

Joss Whedon calls it "killing your darlings." He says to be a good writer, you can never be so in love with a line or an idea that you can't get rid of it. Many times he has been stuck, and killing something he had written that he really loved is what got him unstuck and able to create something amazing.

I think the same concept rings true in game design.

let-off studios
let-off studios's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/07/2011
Ideas = Overrated?

There was a discussion thread I remember from earlier this year that suggested that initial game ideas are overrated. I personally think that ideas are crucial, but they're far from the only essential component to good game design.

When refining game designs, I've found it useful to come up with a "second right answer" to design issues that crop up. Case in point: I was concerned with a "runaway leader problem" for one of my current prototypes. I came up with two ideas to present at a game designer's meeting, and through a prolonged workshop session we were able to try both separately, then simultaneously. We ended up realizing it was less of a rewarding the leader, and more of a "losers keep losing" problem. One of the solutions worked, the other not so much, and the combination of the two may be useful for an expansion down the road.

adversitygames
adversitygames's picture
Offline
Joined: 09/02/2014
Another difficult thing is

Another difficult thing is when to let go of a *feature* vs when to let go of a *game*.

So sometimes, a bad idea in a game can just be a mechanic or way of doing or presenting things. This is (normally) fixable, try a different mechanic, mix things up, or just cut it and see if it works out.

But sometimes, letting go of that bad idea can take away something that is really important to the theme and integrity of the game. So here, changing or removing the problem can just kill the entire game. When this happens, it might be time to give up on the entire game idea. Do something else. I think this is much harder to do (since you've invested so much in it), but also much worse to ignore (since it's a dead project, it's doomed to fail since it has fundamental flaws).

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut