Generating and pitching game concepts

1
Generating and pitching game concepts

• Staffan Björk

2
Overview of the lecture

• Something about creativity
• Methods to be creative
• Remember that you should document your process!
• Selling your idea
• Reminder - Exercise today!
• Time 13.00-15.00
• Location 5205, 5207, 5209, 5211

3
What is creativity?
4
Something about creativity

• Not a scientific discipline!
• Little theory
• Some methods
• From consultancies
• From design interaction design
• NOT rigorously evaluated!

5
Something about creativity

• Not coming up with something out of thin air
• Can be seen as a new view on something familiar
• Influences not bad
• Introducing totally new aspects not creative
• E.g. Deus Ex Machina
• Creativity can be trained
• Can be done on demand

6
Something about creativity

• Greatest problem with creativity
• Fixation
• Ways of avoiding fixation
• Avoiding the area all together
• Taking short breaks
• Taking new approaches
• Internal inspiration
• External inspiration

7
Something about creativity

• Creative designs
• NOT being creative during the whole process
• Or using methods creatively
• Creative ideas must be organized and refined to
  become creative designs
• Phases when creativity can play a significant
  role
• Idea creation
• Concept creation
• Problem solving

8
Methods for creativity
9
Golden oldies

• Brainstorming Teamstorming
• Commonly used but seldom in a structured fashion
• Clear goal
• Cooperation
• Let everyone present their ideas
• Note-taking
• Mind Mapping
• Allows ideas to be documented in a structured
  fashion
• Freemind

10
Golden oldies, cont.

• Fullerton
• Inspiration List
• Identify influences
• Idea Fountain
• Noting down ideas
• Organize your brain
• Categories of ideas
• Idea tree
• Hierarchy of ideas
• Idea cards
• Cut-up technique

11
Game Design Patterns

• Cut up technique
• Use randomly chosen GDPs
• Assume generating ideas from three random
  patterns, for example, Last Man Standing, Shared
  Resources, and Safe Havens. The first pattern
  gives several associated patterns, but one,
  Dynamic Alliances, is close to the pattern
  Alliances that is modulated by Shared Resources.
  This sparks the idea of having all players
  cooperate against a common enemy and although
  they cannot kill each other directly, they can
  make it more difficult for other players to
  survive by depleting the Shared Resources.
  Looking at the related patterns to Resources in
  general, it becomes apparent that either
  Non-Renewable Resources or Limited Resources
  should also be used. Safe Havens also mention
  Dynamic Alliances in the context of providing
  safe areas to negotiate, but if the places with
  Shared Resources are also Safe Havens, this would
  promote players to gather there when under attack
  and also to probably restock on Shared Resources.
  The game designer can then expand this basic game
  idea by defining what Enemies the players have,
  how they can fight them, and what the end and
  winning conditions are for the game.

12
Game Design Patterns, cont.

• Use examples and suggestions
• In new combinations
• Use incompatible patterns together
• Note that these two say more if you have been
  creative than how to be creative

13
Methods from Interaction Design

• Extreme characters
• Djajadiningrat et al 2000
• Internal inspiration
• E.g. PDA users - a drug dealer and the pope
• Interaction Relabelling
• Djajadiningrat et al 2000
• External inspiration
• E.g. The gun to interface with appointment manager

14
Methods from Interaction Design

• Cultural Probes
• Gaver et al 1999
• External inspiration
• Design games
• Andersen et al 2003
• External inspiration
• Examples Underdogs Superherous

15
ASIT

• Method from business world
• ASIT
• Advanced Systematic Inventive Thinking
• Dr. Roni Horowitz
• Builds upon a method called TRIZ
• Approach to creativity
• Solving problem in closed world
• No introduction of new objects
• Use problem to solve the problem

16
ASIT, cont.

• Describe problem
• Identify all objects x, y, z
• Identify unwanted action
• Identify wanted action
• Unification
• X will wanted action

17
ASIT, cont.

• Application
• Unification of x and y
• Multiplication of x and y
• Division of x and y
• Breaking symmetry of x
• Remove x

18
ASIT - example

• Area
• Securing bikes and bike saddles
• Objects
• Bike, saddle tube, lock
• Unwanted action
• Bike moved or saddle removed
• Wanted action
• Immobile bike and avoid saddle removed

19
Selling your idea
20
Important aspects

• Clearly describe the core gameplay
• What is the thing to remember as one sentence!
• Have fully considered game concept
• Any area regarding the game concept
• Gameplay, audience, market, legal, aesthetic
• See stakeholders mentioned in game design course
• Thematic aspects
• These are the initial hooks
• Relate to other game concepts
• Relate to other games
• Use prepared material
• Shows that effort has been made
• Can express non-verbal aspects
• Prepare the presentation for the audience
• Do not use examples and concepts they do not know
• Game Design Patterns?
• How one presents is taken as how one will work

21
About the groups

• Notify me of created groups
• Send an email to me and all the group members
• Groups may be modified after next weeks
  presentation
• Ideas may not get Go ahead signal
• If workload too small or too large
• If boundary of core gameplay not expressed
  clearly enough
• Those of you who did not take the game design
  course this autumn should come and talk to me

22
Thank you!

• Exercise today!
• 13.00-15.00
• Meet in ML13