I think the idea for any game comes when you don’t have any process. I think the original… just seed of whatever is gonna be awesome doesn’t come because you sit down and go through a checklist necessarily, it’s because you’re out and you’re hit by some sort of inspiration about what would be fun for you. And so the best thing I can say is go experience things, do a lot of stuff and then take a little bit of time at the end to reflect on why something was fun. Why something wasn’t fun. What did you enjoy about it. Who did you meet? Why were they interesting? All of those sorts of things help you then eventually have that kind of inspiration, because the more you start to analyze those kind of experiences you had, and you went out and you played tennis with your friend, did you have a good time? Oh you did; why did you? You were at the beach, and you were there all alone, what was different about that ? What was fun? What was compelling? From there, I think when you are in a situation where pretty much all of us are gonna be in a room talking to people like what could this be about, how can we make this better? You have all of that to draw on and so I would say if you’re starting on something that’s more finite like a game camp or a game jam and you’re at the beginning of it trying to oh, well what can we draw from, that’s the thing I’d be thinking about like, in the last month what did you do that you had the most fun with? What did you do that … you know, who did you talk to? Where did you go? What did you interact with? And just start from there and then be able to say, ah you know what? Ok we have these 8 cool things, can we take 5 of them and shove them together into something new and awesome? That can work. And maybe it doesn’t eventually, that’s the great part and it’s like you start and you play around with it and it’s like, oh no that’s a horrible idea but then you grab some other ideas and you keep brainstorming that sort of piece of it, don’t be afraid to throw things out but also don’t be afraid to draw from your own experience, like use that in some way. Maybe you’ve never gotten into a giant robot and flown to the moon and fought a bunch of space aliens but there’s probably something in your life that felt similar to that in some ways. Ya know, there were things that you were doing that you got dressed up, and you went and you participated in a game or a sport and did those… and there’s oh but I also enjoyed… looking out and stargazing or I loved watching that movie that was, ya know, I watched Star Wars the other day, hey maybe I can put those 2 things together. My love of football and my love of Star Wars and maybe I make a space fighting game, so hey that’s kind of how it happens in all of our brains. So I’d say just draw from that and uh, go and have fun with it.
