inspiration comes from, you know, I think inspiration comes from both what you find exciting in terms of problems that you want to try and solve within our field. Um, for example, for me one of the little nuggets that’s always fascinated me is the relationship between rules and play. So that, um, when we talk about game rules, which are really the raw material that game designers make. If you think about, when you buy a board game, what are you really buying? Well, you’re buying a set of materials and rules that tell you how to interact with those materials, right? So, it - even the - the number of squares on the - on the grid of the - of the game board and the - the exact composition of the card deck. And the number of dice that you roll each turn, those are all the rules, what you do, how you win. Um, but rules aren’t that much fun. When you think about them in the abstract, because they’re kind of scientific and super logical and closed. And it sounds like you’re now entering this fascistic state of rules just in order to play a game. But, what happens when you play a game is the opposite of rules. It’s play. And while rules are rigid and fixed and scientific, play is improvisational, and creative, and joyful, and spontaneous, and the amazing thing to me is that - that rules only, uh, rules facilitate play in games. Right? They’re the opposite of play, but - but play emerges out of them. It - so they have some kind of wonderful amazing paradoxical relationship to each other, rules and play. And that, to me, is really a deep mystery of the universe. And that’s - that’s one of the things that I am continually fascinated by. It’s sort of like my [olive] if you know the - the [Bores] story, the - the one little point through which you can kind of see the whole, whole universe. Um, um, so - so I think that it’s important for game designers not to try and, uh, explain away what they do, but to find those paradoxes and embrace those enigmas that - that can sort of drive them creatively. So, that’s one of them for me. On the other hand, I also think that game designers shouldn’t just be inspired by things inside of games. We also need to be inspired by things outside of games. And, um, that means, for example, not just experiencing games as your main form of cultural consumption or participation, right? Whatever it is, in the arts, music, other interests that you have, or whether it’s travel, um, I think it’s so important that game designers really are renaissance women and men who have a whole range of cultural interests, um, and social interests, and political interests that they bring into their work. Directly or indirectly. Um, much like other kinds of cultural producers. I think that for a long time games were made by and for gamers and it’s part of a little bit why we have in the history of games sometimes a focus on very genre-fied content. I think that that’s changing now, but I think that game designers would do well to be more inspired by things outside of games. I know in my own work, for the last few years I’ve been collaborating with architect Natalie [Potsey] on a series of large scale game installations and working with someone who is completely outside games. I’m not saying a game designer collaborates with a game programmer. And together they make a game. That’s great. I’m not talking about someone who really didn’t even have that much of an interest in games but for our collaboration and really getting someone else’s completely different point of view on what games are has been amazingly inspirational to me creatively. So, so that’s also important is finding great collaborations and - and - and people to work with that can expand your - your idea of what games are.
