GAME DESIGN PROCESS 101: PART 1 (INSPIRATION)

I remember the first time I decided I wanted to make a video game. It was back in 1984, when I was eight years old. My father, who worked for a little company called Bell Aeropsace, brought home a Commodore 64. Contained entirely within the keyboard housing, and boasting a whole 64 kilobytes of RAM, this little baby introduced me to a world that had previously only been showcased on Disney’s science fiction adventure TRON. The world I am speaking of is the world of video games.

I remember booting up, via an old 5 ¼ floppy disk, games like Frogger, Impossible Mission (which, due to a bug at the time, really was impossible), and Wizards of Wor (which I never quite really got the hang of…). Day after day, after homework was done and dinner was eaten, I’d boot up and play these games, whiling away the hours in a world of 4-bit fantasy. But my entire life changed when I came across another game for another system, a well-known, and well-loved game for the Atari 2600, starring the world’s bravest collection of four pixels arranges in a two by two array. Yes, I am talking about ‘Adventure’.

The idea of questing through a kingdom of changing colors for magical keys and magical chalices, all while fending off three different dragons of increasingly foul temperament, just tickled my eight year old fancy. So inspired was I by the game Adventure that I immediately set out to recreate the kingdom in my bedroom using my vast collection of Lego-blocks. My parents, always the nurturing type, looked at the Lego Adventure and said, “Hey son, why don’t you try making it for the Commodore 64?”

It was like Calliope, the Greek Muse of the Epic Story, had whispered in my ear. Using the Lego kingdom that I had built as a map, and toiling through the extremely cumbersome programmer’s manual for the Commodore 64, I embarked on a year long quest to recreate Atari’s Adventure. One year later, I had something that resembled Adventure, but on the Commodore 64 and written by an eight year old that had never created a game before. Would Warren Robinett have been insulted or honored by my creation? That I’ll never know, for despite my moxy at remaking Adventure for another system, I never quite got the gumption to mail Mister Robinett the code and say ‘Lookee what I did!’.

The point of that story, and the focus of this article, the first in several about the fundamentals of Game Design, is inspiration. What most budding game designers forget, and what is often the litmus test for one’s success in the field, is that every single good idea comes from something outside of yourself that sparks something inside of you. This is because Game Design, when you step back from all the project planning, writing, graphics, sound, music, and code, is at its roots, an art form.

The first thing that they teach you in Art School, other than to practice every day, is to draw inspiration from everything around you. The true artist will be able to become inspired by simply taking a walk outside and looking at the world around him. This is clearly evident in the great artists of the past and the present. Edvard Munch’s famous painting ‘The Scream’ was inspired by a walk with a friend (Wiki Article on 'The Scream'), while Norman Rockwell drew his inspiration from his observation of everyday life (Wiki Article on 'Norman Rockwell'). The artist, by his or her very nature, must learn to both seek inspiration and allow him or herself to be inspired. Because Game Design is an art form, the same can be said about inspiration for a game.

Now, take second, step away from this article, and think about what was just said. You have to seek inspiration and allow inspiration to come to you. That means that process of coming up with a great idea for a game is an active process. No one just wakes up one morning, says “I have an idea for the most bestest game ever!”, and has it on the number one selling spot at Gamestop. That’s not to say that great ideas don’t come from dreams, for without his opium-induced slumber, Samuel Taylor Coleridge would never have given us his poem ‘Kubla Khan’ (Wiki Article on 'Kubla Khan'). But for Samuel to float through caverns measureless to man, he first needed something to set off that spark. So do the rest of us mortals.

So, how does one seek inspiration’s sweet kiss without resorting to mind-altering drugs or other dangerous and illegal substances? Well, there are countless ways to get that initial spark, and many of them are as close as your own home. To help illustrate this point, I will go over several possibilities, showing how inspiration can be drawn from them, and then give an example game idea that I personally drew from that possibility. It is my hope that you find, other than amusement at the wacky ideas I generate, a launch point for you to go out and find inspiration wherever you can find it.

Read a Book. I might as well get this one out first, since it’s probably the easiest way to get inspired. The beautiful thing about books, other than their relatively low cost, is that they, by their very nature, force the imagination to work. When you have nothing but the words on a page, meticulously laid out by the author, your mind is forced to generate some form of image to increase your comprehension of the subject matter being read. In other words, since there are no pictures, your mind makes pictures for you. This creates a nearly endless set of possible sparks of inspiration – perhaps one of the characters, the setting, a certain scene, or even a certain line inspires you. Nothing in the world created so many sparks for me as the first half of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower: The Wastelands’. From that source of inspiration comes a dark western game, where the hero, a rogue gunslinger, travels through a corrupted post-apocalyptic landscape, guided only by a strange fairy that inhibits his dreams, and an unusual marking tattooed on the back of his right hand.

Listen to Music. There was a reason why composers used to be so heavily revered, and still are in some corners of our world. In the past, the symphony and the opera were the chief forms of entertainment, where the music, not the people, were the chief actors, and it was in the layers and layers of music that the story was told. Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky are just three of my favorite classical composers, but one does not need to back to the time of powdered wigs and penny-operas to listen to good symphonic music. Yanni, David Arkenstone, and Nobuo Uematsu are three brilliant composers who are still alive, and producing wonderful, awe-inspiring music. Load up one of your CDs, or mp3s if you’re of the iPod generation, and just listen to the music. Listen to the layers of sound, listen to the melody, and most importantly, let yourself feel the music. You will be inspired. After all, one of the most favorite piece of music Nobuo ever created, One Winged Angel, was directly inspired by ‘O Fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ (Wiki Article on 'Carl Orff's Carmina Burana'). From that source of inspiration (O Fortuna, not One-Winged Angel) comes a science fiction epic in which the protagonist, a prince from an empire of worlds, clashes against his uncle, who murdered the prince’s parents and usurped the throne, after learning that the prince is destined to somehow bring about the destruction of the entire galaxy.

Take a Walk in the Park. Believe it or not, there is still enough ozone and oxygen to make a trip outside enjoyable, and depending on where you live, you may be privy to some still beautiful weather. You’d be surprised at how inspiring Mother Nature can be when you just let her talk to you. Try watching a chipmunk forage for food, or a couple of doves build a nest, or a stray cat hunt for its meal. Learning to stop and just watch the world around you, free from the trappings of the electronic drugs of Wifi and cellular technology, can give you inspiration you’ve never dreamed you’d receive. One of the most memorable moments I’ve ever had was watching a pair of squirrels engaged in what only can be described as a domestic dispute. I’m pretty sure that if Mrs Squirrel had been able to hold a rolling pin, Mr Squirrel would have had quite a headache. From that source of inspiration comes an adventure game about a young Native American who is an outcast in his tribe due to his disregard of the ‘old ways’, and yet is forced to both learn and embrace his heritage as a brave when an ancient evil is awakened in a nearby mountain, threatening the safety of the entire tribe.

Take a Walk in the City. The other side to taking a walk is doing it in your own backyard. Try walking around your own town or city some time, and look at the various buildings and other types of architecture, and see what inspires you. My hometown, New Orleans, prior to Hurricane Katrina, was a perfect place to find inspiration. A lot of the buildings there have small doorways that seemingly lead downstairs or into alleyways, little nooks and crannies that not only beg to be explored, but spark the imagination as to what could be down there. My favorite place to visit is the ruined Falstaff Brewery Building, located near the Traffic Courthouse. (Wiki Article on 'Falstaff Brewing Company') A simple run down brewery, with doors on the third and fifth floors that appear to just open up to the outside, an external freight elevator that goes to the top, where a huge conical chimney proudly displays the name ‘Falstaff’ in all capital letters. From that source of inspiration comes a survival horror game, taking place in a gothic industrial city, where a detective explores an abandoned building and adjoining factory, only to discover that the old buildings contain doorways to a mirror-image world where the dead continue the last day of their lives over and over again.

Observe other People. You wouldn’t normally consider watching others as a source of inspiration, but being the funny social creatures that we are, we humans often do some the most interesting things, even when in public. I recall a time, not too long ago, where I was getting lunch with a coworker, and the restaurant we were at had the twin daughters of the manager helping the waitresses set the table for the afternoon lunch rush. Every time one of the two girls started to get distracted, the manager would say ‘Hup Hup!’, the little girl would get back on track. From this source of inspiration comes a World War II action game where you play one of several super-soldiers programmed to respond instantly to verbal commands, until one day you break free of your mind controlled state and fight back against your masters.

Look around your Home. A lot of times, one can get inspiration from just walking about one’s own home. Even if you live with your parents, something is bound to pop up that inspires you. Take the attic, for instance. What kind of wonderful treasures can one discover up in the storage area of one’s own home? Of course, magic and mystery can take a backseat to the mundane, and even the most normal things can give the most extraordinary ideas. There was a time, about a year ago, when my house had a problem with ants. And before I had the exterminator come over, I tried laying down some bait of my own to kill the ants. Apparently, ants aren’t attracted to roach bait, and the little buggers just waltzed right around the alleged trap. From this source of inspiration comes a puzzle game where one has to traffic a line of worker ants from the anthill to the food source, and back again, while avoiding hazards, predators, and traps.

Read Comics, Watch Movies, and Play Games. You knew it was coming, but I saved this for last because with this final example comes an inherit danger – you may constrict yourself solely on the material you have just read, watched, or played. For example, watching ‘The Dark Knight’ may inspire you to create a vigilant video game, but will you automatically make too much like Batman? Or, even worse, make a Batman fangame? Not that there is anything wrong with fangames, an indeed fangames can be a great way to break into Game Design, but ultimately, at some point, you are going to want to create something that is not a derivative work. So let’s take my all-time favorite movie, Labyrinth, and see what it can inspire me to create. How about an RPG where the entire world is encased inside of a very large maze, with the roads and countryside between towns being parts of that maze, and the main character, tired of his or her boring life, goes adventuring far into the maze to discover what lays beyond? Okay, not bad, but it did take me a bit longer to think that one up without reverting to love-stories, goblins, and missing children.

As you can see, the first, and often most difficult step in the Game Design Process is the generation of an idea that you, as the Game Designer, feel inspired to create an entire game about. This is the most important step, because unless you love your idea from start to finish, you will never complete your project. Without that love, you will lose interest, get discouraged by the sheer magnitude of the work involved (especially if it’s you and only you on the team), or start another game before the first one is finished. And it doesn’t matter how good your team is, how good your idea is, or how good you are, if you’re not inspired to complete your game, it will never get completed. Or even worse, it will get completed and be something less than what it could have been.

Ponder that for while, then go out and get inspired! Meanwhile, I think I might just make an RPG Maker version of Adventure…