Brainstorming and Focus

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Brainstorming and Focus

• Game Design
• Vishnu Kotrajaras, PhD
• ajarntoe_at_gmail.com

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3 sources of starting points for making games

• Gameplay
• Technology
• story

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Crude Example If start from story

• Say, Greek god mythology
• Not
• Strategy no such things from greek myth.
• Real-time-strategy too few characters.
• Is
• Action
• Adventure
• RPG
• Then, technology is important too
• 2D suitable for RPG.
• 3D for Greek Myth, must have outdoor scenes (not
  all 3D engines can do that).

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Starting with Gameplay

• Easiest way.
• Then decide on the technology
• 2D or 3D?
• Many things on screen at once?
• Large or small world?
• Is our programmers good enough?
• Need to redo the engine, is there enough time (or
  budget)?

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Starting with Gameplay(2)

• Decide on story.
• RPG you can tell a complex story.
• Strategy cannot have a very romantic story, but
  the story can be complex.

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gameplay
Story added within or Between mission.
Ok, 3D map (rotatable)
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Starting with technology

• Use last games engine, same programmers, etc.
• New engine does something well.
• Then decide on gameplay around given engine.
• 3D engine needs 3D gameplay, 2D engine cannot
  create 1st person shooter.
• Quake engine is for 1st person shooting indoor.
• Half-Life creates outdoor and hand to hand, but
  retains what Quake is good at.

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The cost is US 350,000 for one of the available
Unreal Engine 2 platforms, plus US 50,000 for
each additional platform. If you are making MMOG,
then parts of your subscriptions too.
Unreal Engine 2
Story is the last thing
Linage 2 gameplay
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Starting with technology(2)

• Then decide on story.
• Engine cannot handle outdoor no mountain
  climbing.
• No sound compression no long speech.
• Or the programmers must write them.

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Starting with story

• Then decide on gameplay.
• Battling monsters with friends 1st person.
• Talking a lot RPG
• Text parser or choice.
• Story of war Strategy
• General view or soldier view.

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Starting with story(2)

• What about technology?
• May need to implement new technology or new
  mechanics
• Characters walk up to talk to people when forced
  speech is needed.

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Idea? Where? The practice

• Playing lots of games.
• Talking to people who have ideas for game
  designs.
• Ideas from sources unrelated to games may stand
  out.
• Everywhere. So you must have notes to jot down
  close to you all the time.
• Write down every idea that you can think of
  during the next 5 days.
• See if some of them evolve during these days. Jot
  them down.
• This method is a good way to train as a thinker.
• You will see result after one month.
• Just dont shut yourself down
• Organise your ideas. Must use database.
• Record good ideas, throw away bad ones.

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Brainstorming techniques for games

• How do you begin?
• Use the thing you love.
• Art, culture, nature, fantasy, hobby, dream
• Exercise
• make 5 binary trees, each has a root that
  represents what you love.
• Draw two branches from each root, representing
  additional ideas you get from looking at the
  root.
• Repeat.
• Before growing branches, put some theme like
  space to direct yourself towards your goal.

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Other techniques apart from tree

• list
• List out everything you can think of in a topic.
• Then create other lists on variation of that
  topic.
• Idea cards
• Write one idea on each card.
• Mix them in a bowl.
• Pick out more than one cards and group them.
• We will get different ideas this way.

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Other techniques (cont.)

• Shout it out
• Record with a recorder.
• Shout ideas out for 5 minutes.
• Then go back to the recorder to extract good
  idea.
• Write
• As much as you can, as fast as you can.
• Use 10 minutes only.
• Then stop and read over, extracting good ideas.

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Other techniques (cont2.)

• Randomise
• Open a dictionary, or books, then jot down the
  first word you see.
• Research
• Such as finding out how ants live.

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Things to do while generating ideas during
brainstorming session

• Do not stop to reorganise previous ideas until
  you have run out of time creating new ideas.
• Encourage wild ideas.

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Getting stuck

• Try a use ideas from a totally different source.
• Example Secret of Monkey Island swordfight
  interface.
• First, no idea.
• But the designer then remembered The Princess
  Bride.
• Swordfighting that involves talking more than
  fighting.
• Born, a talking fight was.

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The Princess Bride
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my
father. Prepare to die.
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Secret of Monkey Island
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Time limit for brainstorming.

• Maximum is 60 minutes.
• Dont push it beyond that, youll be too tired
  and good ideas will be lost.

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Sometimes you can start with a more specific idea

• How can I make a board game that uses the
  properties of magnets in an interesting way?
• How can I make a videogame that tells the story
  of Hansel and Gretel?
• How can I make a game that feels like a
  surrealist painting?
• How can I improve on Tetris?
• How can I make a game that players create order
  from a chaos of shapes?
• How can I make a game that let opponents compete
  and trade resources with each other.

Specific starting point makes for a clear goal
and better communication.
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Team brainstorming

• Never criticise any idea.
• Destroy free thinking.
• Your friend who is criticise may stop thinking
  altogether.

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Team brainstorming(cont.)

• Always tell everyone that any idea is fine. There
  is no right answer.
• Try every brainstorming methods, especially the
  one you do not think will work for you.
• See if you can get 100 ideas in 1 hour.

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Communicating with your team during brainstorming

• On big paper or on a whiteboard.
• This will allow more communication than writing
  in small papers or just speaking.
• Number your ideas.
• Ideas should be short but understandable.
• Do not refer to existing games.
• Write core ideas down. The ideas will be shaped
  by the brainstorming process.
• Good games that can be your inspiration should be
  analyzed and the game components should be
  recorded. We keep these for future references.

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Editing refining

• Do not do it on the same day as brainstorming.
• It is best to let 1 week pass.
• Avoid the habit of criticising.
• No additional new idea will be accepted.
• Give marks (1 - 10) to each idea.
• Only discuss the top ten.

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Editing refining (cont.)

• But do not bash the ideas. Discuss the strength
  of each idea.
• Narrow down to 3 ideas.
• Schedule another brainstorm session to get the
  ideas of how to improve those 3 ideas.
• Discuss and improve each idea. Narrow down to one
  idea.
• Repeat the steps with this one idea.

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Example shopping cart Deep dive
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Focus

• Better game arises through arguments.
• But the arguments can destroy the focus of the
  game.
• You must not lose track of why you are making the
  game in the first place.
• Focus what you think is most important about
  the game.

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At first ask yourself (expected short answer)

• What in this game is most compelling?
• What is this game trying to accomplish?
• What sort of emotions is the game trying to
  evoke?
• What makes this game unique?
• What sort of control will the player have over
  the game world?

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Lets say we are making this game
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Example ask yourself about the platform game

• What in this game is most compelling?
• Win against boss or clearing hard traps.
• What is this game trying to accomplish?
• Let players use skill such as jumping, climbing,
  firing guns to pass obstacles.
• What sort of emotions is the game trying to
  evoke?
• Let players feel they are adventuring in an
  isometric 3D realistic world, with a bit of
  sacred things.

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• What makes this game unique?
• Super hard traps!
• What sort of control will the player have over
  the game world?
• Jump, run, roll forward, plant bombs, fire
  bullets, grab, climb, destroy things, lift
  things.

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How much should you write?

• Depends on whether the chosen detail is a
  must-have content for the game.
• In the example
• 3D isometric environment is a must-have too, so
  it was written down.
• If we lose something and the game will not be the
  game as we want it, write that thing down in your
  bullets.

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OK, once we get the focus, name the game

• Do not choose an idiotic name or unclear name
• For example, Tomb raider
• People may misunderstood
• Thought is is 3rd person view.
• Misunderstanding spread far and wide.
• Parts of the game, like an art, maybe tuned for
  3rd person view, but it may look bad or
  unrealistic in other viewpoints.
• It will be too late when you decide to change the
  name later.

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Tomb Raider search from google
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In focus, avoid referring to other games

• If your game is like Mario
• Break down and find the focus of Mario.
• Delete what your game does not have from the
  focus of Mario.
• Then add your own focus.
• You must do it this way in order to focus on the
  good points of Mario.
• Otherwise, you may lose track and just make a
  Mario clone, with just minor things added on.

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Notes

• If your game has many modes
• One focus should apply to all the modes.
• If you are working with a small team
• You still should write things down.
• Because writing is always in front of you.
• Talk to your team and change focus until everyone
  reaches an agreement.

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When will we use focus?

• Put the focus in front of your desk. Look at it
  now and again to check if your prototype, coding,
  or testing break it.
• Change focus when necessary. For example, when
  the game is no longer fun while the focus still
  exists.
• If the game is nearly finish, we cant normally
  change things in time. Just do your best.

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Using focus (apart from keep referring back at it)

• Give it to marketing people.
• But must also gives comparisons to other games,
  or the marketing people may not get the picture.