creation
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I have a good question. How do most of you guys find inspiration for new and original games? I am always afraid my ideas are not original.
Sucess is the only option
Mostly while doodling on paper. Sometimes I go outside just to walk and look around. Reading books, watching a movie or a documentary can be very promising if you need inspiration.
I don''t worry about originality for originality''s sake. I just think about what I like and I wish I could do. My own sources of inspiration come from history, philosophy, religion, and ironically...not thinking. Just doing something like going outside and exercising, or taking a stroll and seeing sights. Talking to others about their thoughts is very helpful too.
I know I''m not the first person to say this, but most ideas aren''t original, it''s the implementation of the idea that will make the game good or bad. How many fantasy RPG games are out there right now, and how many of them do as well as Final Fantasy games?
As far as inspiration goes, my ideas come from just about anything: movies, books, my back porch, etc. Like hpox said, just go for a walk and notice things. You''ll be surprised.
Robby
"Too late?!" There''s no such thing as "too late!" That''s why they invented death! - Walter Matthau in "Out To Sea"
As far as inspiration goes, my ideas come from just about anything: movies, books, my back porch, etc. Like hpox said, just go for a walk and notice things. You''ll be surprised.
Robby
"Too late?!" There''s no such thing as "too late!" That''s why they invented death! - Walter Matthau in "Out To Sea"
quote:Original post by Dauntless
My own sources of inspiration come from history, philosophy, religion, and ironically...not thinking. Just doing something like going outside and exercising, or taking a stroll and seeing sights. Talking to others about their thoughts is very helpful too.
Damn, I envy you. You don''t even have to think to get bright ideas. I have never been lucky enough to perceive a single great idea from movies, fictional books, history, philosphy, or religion, sigh. The only place I can get an original idea out of is from the cold hard scientific articles. And then I have to spend hours process it in my mind into something I can actually use for a game. Curse you people, grrrrr...
Sometimes, I''ll get ideas while playing a game wrong, and yes I do this often. Other times, I''ll look at a game, and take away an attribute, and work with that. Sometimes it''s just a comment on something. Sometimes it''s not really anything original, but a series of things I have to do that just take on a life of it''s own.
I had an interesting one at a party, where I made up a story based off of the people around me and then made a game from that. It actually wound up being halfway fun too.
Sometimes ideas just come from the biomass. Walk around the mall, listen to people, talk to friends, listen to music, sit back inspired and just let the ideas roll. 1 out 20 or so will be original (at least for me).
Hope that helps.
I had an interesting one at a party, where I made up a story based off of the people around me and then made a game from that. It actually wound up being halfway fun too.
Sometimes ideas just come from the biomass. Walk around the mall, listen to people, talk to friends, listen to music, sit back inspired and just let the ideas roll. 1 out 20 or so will be original (at least for me).
Hope that helps.
I''ll give you the same advice I heard when I was asking "how to write" questions. Just go out and live, basically. There are ideas all around you. For example, there are a lot of animals outside my apartment window right now. What if I played a homeowner fending off killer squirrels? Kinda silly, but it might work...
Dreams, while cliched, are very good sources of inspiration.
Otherwise you''ll just have to hope for inspiration from above, or something.
There is one piece of advice I can give you: Any of your ideas, no matter how stupid or moronic they seem, are worth thinking about for at least as long as a TV commercial break before you discard them. Ideas always seem awful initially (with only occasional exceptions), yet if you think about them for a while they suddenly become genius.
If you''re like me, when you get an idea you''ll immediately label it as crap and endeavour to ignore it. DON''T DO THIS. Instead, bounce it around these forums, off your friends, anybody. You''ll be surprised how cool other people think your ideas are, no matter how awful you think they are.
Take the film Metropolis, for example. It revolutionised sci fi, and without it there could probably have been no Blade Runner. Yet Fritz Lang, its creator, always maintained that it was his worst film.
Otherwise you''ll just have to hope for inspiration from above, or something.
There is one piece of advice I can give you: Any of your ideas, no matter how stupid or moronic they seem, are worth thinking about for at least as long as a TV commercial break before you discard them. Ideas always seem awful initially (with only occasional exceptions), yet if you think about them for a while they suddenly become genius.
If you''re like me, when you get an idea you''ll immediately label it as crap and endeavour to ignore it. DON''T DO THIS. Instead, bounce it around these forums, off your friends, anybody. You''ll be surprised how cool other people think your ideas are, no matter how awful you think they are.
Take the film Metropolis, for example. It revolutionised sci fi, and without it there could probably have been no Blade Runner. Yet Fritz Lang, its creator, always maintained that it was his worst film.
I don''t care if my ideas are original, to be honest. I prefer quality of execution than the innovation behind it. I guess you could say that I would rather see existing gameplay made better than inventing new gameplay. But in looking for ways to do this, I try and take in as many different types of computer games and computer game-related concepts (books, movies, pen and paper games, card games, etc) to try and spot what works and what doesn''t - and what could be well employed elsewhere.
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