Sifting

Ideas have no value I was told once by a game designer, because everyone has ideas, and everyone thinks that at the moment of conception their idea is the greatest in the world. That it could change everything…

So the first thing that all game designers need to learn is to be able to let go of their ideas, to be able to admit that there could be something better. One of the ways we condition ourselves to do this is to develop hundreds of them, to not nurse a single thought for too long, to move on and explore alternative thought processes.

Even after committing to a design, we must be able to know when to retreat. Often in production, due to time pressure, or team stress, or a hundred other problems we get locked into a particular mindset, “this level can only work this way!” and sometimes that mindset is just plain wrong, we have to be able to set back, breathe, examine our work critically and reassess in certain circumstances. Sometimes the best course of action is to scrap it and start over.

So how do you know when an idea is good if you spend so much time try to distance yourself from it?

For me it’s a feeling, one of those gut instincts.

It’s when the design just unfolds itself; you don’t need to force it. And one of the best signs that a design has promise is that even in prototype form, when it’s just squares and circles and Google images it is engaging, fun and different.

So here is a teaser, an image from the prototype I have been working on for about a week. I don't want to jinx it, but I have a good feeling about this one.