How do you start creating a new game?

DIT — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:47:47 +0000

For G, it was like an intuition, a flash of images and shifting concepts coming from somewhere in my mind. But G it’s just a little game; intuition and the right amount of luck were enough to build a game experience that somewhat worked.
When we started the development of The Night of the Puppets, we knew we wanted to make a challenging project. But we lacked the experience to build such a larger project and ultimately we failed.
Failure is bad. Failure breaks motivation and the coesion of the team, and without a super-motivated team you can’t build games moonlighting. Also failure spawns fear and a fearful designer spawns crappy, soulless projects.
I’ve come to understand that creativity is somewhat an act of courage, you just have to be brave if you want to create something meaningful.

Now we have this new game concept. And it’s bold and challenging (and it’s still to early to talk about). But is this new game concept actually some good? Being brave does not mean blindly rushing forwards like we did before.
This time we have a plan: 1) Find an awesome idea (We’are almost there). 2) Have a consistent team organization and workflow (we’ve adopted an agile method and it’s working great).
3) Keep our minds healty, feed our intellects and skills with tasty informations and experiences 4) Wirte code / Do art. 5) Dont’ stop. 6) Win.

Gamasutra recently translated in english and interview with Jordan Mechner and Eric Chahi.
If you don’t know those two guys, they designed two of the greatest games of my childhood (and probably two of the greatest games ever), Prince of Persia and Another World.
There is a part of this interview that really helped me change the my perspective. Asked about where they take their inspiration for games, Jordan Mechner says:

“[...] A game should be about something, not just about other games“.

So, how do you start creating a new game? I’m really no great designer but … Find an expereince, find something you want to communicate. Dont’ start looking at other games, look elsewhere, be brave, and DO that game.

StudioEvil » game design

How do you start creating a new game?