It has taken me a bit to get back to the blog, what with the start of the fall season and my calendar filling up so completely as it always does. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been working. For this month's posting, I thought I'd muse a little on the process of my current projects, and touch on one of the first issues I've encountered: process overload.
I'll come back to that concept in a bit, but first I thought I'd give a brief overview of what I've got going on. As you should know from my previous posts, I am a huge fan of cooperative board games. Naturally, when I sat down to finally begin putting pen to paper, or scissors to paper, or whatever steps might come first in the game design process for me, the first ideas I've gravitated towards are cooperative games. These are the games I love most, and the ones I saw myself, in the beginning at least, specializing in.
Brainstorming
As it so happens, my first game idea came from one of my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien. I know there are a lot of games based on Lord of the Rings out there, but many of them are in one of two categories: RPGs based around custom, unique characters created by the player and DM (i.e. One Ring or Adventures in Middle-Earth); and, Lord of the Rings-based (often loosely) actual occurrences from the books or movies (i.e. LotR Risk). In the second category, the genre of the games does vary a fair bit, but most of them involve some level of details taken from the books or movies, if required by the game genre, or only utilizing the names, characters, and places, where any specific details are unimportant for the actual gameplay (LotR Stratego, LotR Monopoly, etc).
For my own game, it falls squarely into the second category, taking many details from the books and making use of those to imagine a scenario not covered in the main part of the story. I won't go into a whole lot of detail on this game (yet), as it is still in early development, but as the details began to take shape, I started to research how one becomes a licensee to actually sell a Lord of the Rings themed game. What I found, sadly, was that either I had to work directly through another publisher or company that had a license, or I had to meet a very strict series of requirements to obtain a license (understandable, to be sure, but still a bit of a bummer).
A little disheartened at the delay, It was at this point that I began considering another idea I had for a game, this one based on another theme, or rather franchise, that I love: Dungeons and Dragons. The basic story-line and setup for the game would be a unique creation of my own, to be sure, but setting this game in the Dungeons and Dragons universe seemed an obvious one, considering the basic premise for the game is rebuilding a ruined city. The novels and adventures of the Dungeons and Dragons world abound with examples of ruined cities, the rise and fall of civilizations and the adventures of heroes in those fabled places.
But before I was going to begin working on this idea, I decided I had to investigate the web of rights I would need to navigate to produce such a game. And fortunately, as I found, the ability to obtain permission to create such a game is much more open than the Tolkien estate. This isn't to say it is completely open. While the D20 system is open and free to use for any creation of your own, there is a fair bit of gray area when it comes to creating stories and games based around specific locations or characters in the Dungeons and Dragons universe. Many of them have some stipulations about using such names, but the general tenor seems to be one of a willingness to at least come to the table without a large history of game selling (which is where I am right now, as a beginning game designer). With this being the case, I began the work of designing this Dungeons and Dragons themed game, this one my second game.
Features and Foibles
Sitting down with my notebook, I began to sketch out my ideas, at first in very large and overarching details, giving a sort of overview of what my game would try to encapsulate. Questions I asked myself ran along the lines of "what are my players trying to accomplish?; how will they accomplish this?; what mechanisms do I want to put in place to make this happen?" and many other basic questions. This was very similar to the approach I took with my Middle-earth based game, with the exception that I had a pretty good idea about that game before I began (having spent several months mulling it over in my head).
Very quickly I discovered one of my own foibles--attention to detail. Even though this can often be a strength for game design, or for many other tasks, at the start of designing a game, this can often lead to choice paralysis and a brainstorming monsoon. Just like playing an open-world RPG with millions of side quests, crafting options, character options, and multiple endings (games such as Ni No Kuni II and Skyrim comes to mind), I found myself jumping off into numerous pathways. The number of features I discovered was exciting, but also a little frightening. Which ones should I pursue? How do I balance all of the options? How does one new option affect all the others which I found myself jotting down at various angles and in various sizes on my notebook pages, even down to diagramming and sketching some maps and rough card images for the game?
The truth is, I was a little overwhelmed, not with designer's block but with too many ideas. Too much data. Too many choices. At some point, I would have to move forward, or I would never end up with a complete game. And this, I have to admit, is what often happens with me and my video games. I love RPGs, absolutely love them. I play other game types, but more than any other, I am drawn to RPGs, both for the stories and for the character development as well as the adventures strategic element of combat. But as more and more games have become open world with dozens if not hundreds of side quests, my danger of being distracted by another new, shiny game has only increased. This has often been the source of my leaving a game unfinished, only to return months or even years later and wondering where on earth I was and what I was doing in the game.
To avoid this same kind of paralysis or long hiatus for my fledgling new game, I decided on a different approach, or at the least, a modified brainstorming approach. I would allow myself to pause forward progress whenever I had a new idea; I would take the time to jot down the idea in some detail, but after I had done so, I would leave it on the design room floor to push forward on the basic design. Of course, this would necessitate whittling away at the design elements I had to discover what exactly the core of the game is. Anything that feels like an add-on, that is not necessary to play through the game core mechanics, would be added to the ideas list to be dealt with later. Anything considered part of the core would be few in number but would allow me to focus on what will bring this vision of mine into focus.
I am still a long way away from a working model, even with this new approach. Designing the core of the game and creating all the core components to permit even a basic playthrough is going to be a lot of work. But what I have found is that this approach allows me to continue to generate new ideas, retain those ideas for later consideration, and still make forward progress on the game. Already I have the basic starting characters for each player in rough form; the starting buildings are formed, and the card designs, layout, and overall feel are just starting to take shape. I have decided on resources for the game, and am beginning to see a system for the rounds and phases of the game become a reality. To say all of this is extremely exciting to me would be an understatement.
Lessons Learned
As I am discovering, and as I should have known from my own creative writing process back when I studied fiction and poetry writing, every creative process is different. Each person has a unique way of viewing the world, of approaching problems, and of tackling tasks, whether that is writing a poem, filming a movie, or in this case, creating a board game. Probably the most important step of any creative process is to know yourself and your own foibles and strengths. If, like myself, you know that you are easily distracted by details, deciding on a system that permits you to brainstorm and record those ideas for later consideration, while not halting your momentum, is vital to moving forward with your game. However, if you struggle with brainstorming new ideas for the game or even are having a block when you would normally have ideas, building in time to play with other games, read reviews, or research new ideas might be vital to your game development.
Whatever system you create for your own creative process, the key element that needs to be part of any system is moving forward. Anything that stifles that forward movement needs to be considered, the reasoning why, and a solution of some kind needs to be settled on. Knowing your own weaknesses is important, and can help you to craft a process that takes that weakness, and makes it into a strength for your process. As I move forward on my own journey towards becoming a major game designer, I am sure I will encounter other steps in the process that I need to resolve in a positive manner. But I know, as long as I ground myself in a process designed around self-knowledge, I can take full advantage of those chinks in my armor, turning weakness into a boon.
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