How Did you Do It?

I mainly gain my time by taking it away from sleep. You believe that you have no time now? Wait until you get married! You believe that married life is busy? Wait until you have kids! You think one kid is a handful? Try two!

Now, if you focus, you'll realise how much time you actually have, but are not using effectively. I had to lose all my free time (now being a married dad with two kids and a full-time job that is more of a lifestyle) before I realised how much time I had.

So, the sad fact: you're loaded with free time, you just won't realise it or cherish it until it's gone!

The Ghost of Christmas Future has spoken!

This applies to everything in life. I totally agree.

Just to add one thing to what you guys have said: keep your brain constantly in game-creation auto-pilot. I think about games while sleeping, working, eating, walking,... Like a brain screen-saver.

No joke. A few days ago I spent more than half an hour trying to park and I designed a game about parking meanwhile!

The game is terrible.

;-)

Néstor

For me its about focus, I too work full time but with little pay, am starting a business teaching Level Design, have a family full of drama. I also watch TV and sometimes a movie, read books and magazines, gaze at the stars, work on my Masters and do lots of other things. For me Game Design is all of these things and more. There is no subject that can't be turned into a game or studied for game purposes. Its not about finding the time, its about using time.
Oh I forgot to mention I sleep too:)

My hope is to design a game that I've been working on for 2 yrs w/ full art and completly working mechanics. Then go to game conventions and sit with it set up and have people try it out. If it gets a good enough following hoping a designer may pick it up. Getting your name out there is the way I've always thought of getting into the industry

First we are talking of board game design, not of video game design.

I also lack of time to do my design. I always open to new alternatives to save time. I tried reading a bout about how to oranize time too. Still in orver all, I have to cut down many thing to have more time for game design.

Same thing for me. I also don't have the time to play some video games I wanted to play. This is why I focus on short term games. TV is bad, it's a passive activity that does not make you think. Internet is another problem. I have some stuuf to do on the net and it rapidly consume my time.

Writting in the bus or while waiting is also something I try to do. I want to get some sort of artist box that can contains various sheet of papers and which is had enought to write on it. The goal is to carry my files and write anywhere I want.

I have sleeping problems, so I cannot et this one.

From experience, I tried it, and I seem to have some problems getting into the design. So I rather take 30 min lunch and get an extra 30 min I can stick to a longer activity.

Sure there are ways to optimize time, but I also need to put a mark on many things I want to do because I won't have enough time to do it. One of my problem is that I am too much polyvalent, I ca do so many things (I could be a jack of all trades). For example, I completely abandonned computer programming to have more time for other things. Board game design have replaced this which gives e less time for manual activities like cooking, sewing and painting.

Still, even by optimizing all the minutes you have, you still need some time area for prototype production and playtesting.

Any other tips for optimizing time are welcomed.

I do hope we aren't showing prejudice against other mediums for gaming, many CG are prototyped before a single line of code or level are even assembled, including FPS. And the most common method of prototyping is with boards and miniatures.

Point taken, I follow your reasoning.

Me too

If you feel you really need additional external inputs: read a book. Read two. Read three. Consume your local library. TV is neither necessary or productive.

Actually, I do somewhat agree that a variety of different activities and experiences are worthwhile inspiration for games. I made a game called "Reality TV", where you combined cards with words on them to create hilarious sounding reality TV shows, which you then pitched to different studios and collected ratings. It was terrible :)

I also made a game called "Studio City", about making crappy B-movies just to turn a profit. It was just rejected from Hippodice. :)

So my movies-and-TV-inspired games haven't been too much of a success.

I just find TV drains my inspiration every time I turn it on, but the occasional exposure probably won't hurt, especially if it's a cool nature documentary (which is how Reef Encounter was created).

Stefan

I think movies in particular could be very constructive for design or at least as ideas for themes. For me, designing board games is about giving an the player an opportunity to participate in an experience, which is the same goal of good movies. A good movie engages both your senses and your mind, and good board game does the same. A good movie allows you to discover a great story; a good game allows you to become part of the story yourself--to encounter it at a fundamental, decision-making level.

So I think movies and games have a lot in common and that movies could be inspiring for design, but at the same time most movies require a lot of focus that could otherwise be put to use solving problems.

I recently bought for 13 buck an plastic artist box at "omer de serre" (in montreal). It's is an 1 inch thick and it opens like a book. You can store 8-1/2x11" sheets and it's large enough to hold folders.

The good part is that the plastic is hard and you can write on it. So it is somewhat easy to carry and you can bring it anywhere to write your ideas.

I hope it will help speed up my design.

Short Summary:
I'm not there yet, but I've licensed two games. I did it by making one game a month for over 8 years, slowly practicing and building a fan base and researching the industry. Making contacts through organizations like GAMA and the GPA was critical and invaluable to my success.

Not watching TV dramatically increased my productivity. I would not be nearly as productive if I watched TV at all.

Input from other game-related industries (video game, etc.) is valuable and useful.

Long Answer:

On the question of, "How did you do it?":
I am not published yet. I've licensed (and been paid advances for) two games so far, with fair to good prospects for two more. I've taken the long, slow road. My original intent in January of 2000 was to use the Invisible City website to build an online fan base by releasing an original print-and-play for free download every month, then self-publish games and become a game publisher. I started releasing one game every month, and began to research what it takes to self-publish a game. I went to the GAMA Trade Show in 2000, 2001, and 2002. The research I did during this time convinced me that the money needed to self-publish was greater than I was comfortable risking – especially given the work needed to have a moderate chance of breaking even (not even profiting!).

In mid-2002, I gave up on the idea of self-publishing. However, designing one game every month had become a habit, and I've kept it up to this day (I did take a break in June/July of 2008, after the 100th free game). While doing game design, I worked full-time until late 2006, when I returned to school full-time. Game design has always been a hobby for me.

From mid-2002 to 2006-ish, I had no clear goal with the game of the month project. I wasn't thinking about making commercially viable material. I was just making games. In Summer of '06, I got a contract job to make games to teach math concepts to K, 1st, 2nd, and 6th graders. I got that job entirely on the strength of my online portfolio of games and the work ethic (and rapid prototyping) that portfolio demonstrated. That contract job landed me additional contract jobs for the same company, some of which involved additional game-like design.

In 2007, I decided to take my most commercially viable designs, spruce them up, and start shopping them around to publishers. Some of these games had been featured as the Invisible City Game of the Month. I had download statistics for these games, and could provide concrete data about their popularity. I had (and still have) a Game of the Month email listserv, so I have a stable fan base that I can also provide concrete data about. Other games had not been featured as Game of the Month, but had been extensively play tested and refined. I had detailed part lists and estimates for how much they'd cost to produce (from my earlier aspirations).

Lunch date with a retailer: I arranged a lunch (my treat, of course) with David Wheeler, the owner of Dragon's Lair Games and Comics here in Austin, TX. Before the meeting, I wrote up descriptions and estimated price points for my most viable games and sent them to him in advance. At the lunch, I asked him what he liked and disliked. I asked him about where the market was, is, and where he thought it was moving. I tried to figure out what made a game appealing for him, as a retailer, to carry. At the end, I had some valuable recommendations and a sorted list of about 20+ games. The games at the top of the list were the ones that David fund appealing and I felt would be easiest to have ready to sell.

Self-Promotion: I used the BGDF and Google to find publishers who accepted unsolicited submissions. I gathered every URL I could find, then ordered them from the ones I found most desirable to work with, to least. I analyzed the themes and styles of the games produced by the top 5 companies in my list, then went through my list of games, picking out 4 to 6 games that fit each company. I then followed the contact instructions for each company and wrote a letter of introduction and intent to submit game design proposals. If I recall correctly, I got three, "Thanks, but not at this time," responses and two, "Sure, send stuff in," responses. I followed those up with prototypes and got very nice feedback and rejection letters. Then, through a GAMA / GTS contact I'd kept warm, I discovered that another company was eager for and accepting prototypes. I contacted them and submitted games. Ultimately, it was this company that licensed my first two games. I'm currently following up with one previous first-round rejection with a revision (per their requests) of a declined game.

Game design is not at a point for me where I'll be able to make a living off of it, but it looks like I'll be published, which is nice. I'm going to keep plugging at it, and we'll see where it gets me.

On TV and other media as sources of distraction and inspiration:
I don't watch TV. I haven't watched it regularly (or even irregularly) for over 7 years. I've gained an immense amount of free time by doing so. Most of this free time is spent designing games. The rest is spent with my sweetie. It's a good trade-off. I still get plenty of exposure to media second-hand, through my friends and playtesters. They act as a sort of vetting service, directing me toward the better stuff, which my honey and I then watch on DVD and discuss.

On video game design vs. board game design:
Awareness of design and play in all its forms – board, card, active sport, video game, alternate reality games, live-action role playing, table-top role playing, etc. – is useful. Designing a level for a video game parallels designing a board for a board game or an event randomizer. I'm big on inclusiveness, and like to hear about how other disciplines deal with corollary issues and problems.

You're welcome. Writing a self-review like that helps me too. It forces me to take a good look at where I've been, understand where I'm at, and get an idea of where I'm going.