What do you do to get your creative juices flowing?
Hi all,
I just want to know what you all do before you embark on taking on a new project? And where do you get your inspiration from? I so wanted to start working on a game this weekend, but ended up doing nothing. I guess I think of everything at once then I end up doing nothing at all. How do you get out of this, what feels like an endless loop of getting nowhere?
Thanks :)
I just want to know what you all do before you embark on taking on a new project? And where do you get your inspiration from? I so wanted to start working on a game this weekend, but ended up doing nothing. I guess I think of everything at once then I end up doing nothing at all. How do you get out of this, what feels like an endless loop of getting nowhere?
Thanks :)
Comments
Get stressed.
Whenever it is exam times and i am really stressed out about stuff I get these amazing prototype ideas that I write down on my list. I tell myself that I will start working on these items once the exams are over. But I never do. I start right away.
So i am not sure if its the stress or the fact that i have to learn all this useless information while i could be making games but I know it works.
Another thing you can do to stay productive is take walks. So every 45 minutes of working I walk around the house for about 10 minutes and think about what I will do next.
Just start. And start simple.
That's it. Stop fretting about the billions of details. Just cherry-pick the simplest, most basic interaction you can think of from that nebulous, overcomplicated game-mass floating in your head, and build it on its own. If you're doing a platformer, get a cylinder jumping about. Racing game? Get a steerable cube with a chase-cam going. I find that once I've built the most basic systems I start gaining momentum, and the remainder of the game-mass starts congealing around that core, which in turn builds the excitement and enthusiasm you need to keep going.
For my mech game, I even recorded the process. This was the result of day one - getting a crappy mech walking around. Nothing more, nothing less:
If you start small, with the simplest possible parts, you can keep yourself from getting overwhelmed and discouraged right at the beginning, and get that game a-going. And once it's going, it's hard to stop. ;)
Also: SHOW PEOPLE YOUR WORK. When I start getting down, nothing picks me up like showing off my game at a meet or something and feeding off the enthusiasm of interested parties (and if there is no enthusiasm, that's an important way to determine whether you're wasting your time or focusing on the wrong things).
Instead, I firmly believe in scheduling time for creative work. "I will be creative every day for 2 hours in the evening after dinner." I sit at a blank canvas. I draw. It looks crap. I paint. It looks crap. I sculpt. It looks crap. But on a good day, I'm really into it and don't notice the 2 hours flying by and it looks really promising. And the next day I look at it again, and it looks crap. But I just put in another 2 hours. Sometimes I get super inspired by what I paint, or sometimes I get super inspired by art I see, or things that happen in my life, or in the lives of people around me, and that reflects in my painting. But it doesn't stop me from working if I'm not inspired.
I think doing creative work is a muscle you need to exercise, and it's discipline that makes you actually do it, and that's something that's far more important to cultivate than somehow being regularly inspired.
(I have relatively obscure taste I'll admit, but it gets me pumped. I had this song on repeat for an entire gamejam once, somewhat to the bemusement of the folks sitting next to me)
I wish I could use this in the new horror sci-fi game I'm working on. Maybe they'd let me ? :)
@konman, I will definitely lurk more on this forum :) I am in the process of figuring this out. This reminded me of something I once heard somewhere, you have to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) your project.
@Elyaradine, I've seen your paintings on this forum and they are really awesome. I'll try and discipline myself to set aside at least 2 hours of my day in the evenings for creative thinking/work.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky, I was at the GGJ in January and it was loads of fun, just too bad it's only once a year. I think we all have weird tastes especially in music otherwise we won't be on this forums, lol, it is stereotyping but most of the times it is true :)
On topic, I look at creativity as something like gardening.
Step 1, prepare the right mental environment for ideas to "grow". Feed your mind with games, books, tv, music, anything that inspires and excites you. Out of the things you love will spring ideas for new directions to take them, or new combinations of old ideas. Don't stress about being completely original, remember, Everything Is A Remix.
Step 2, cultivate. You need to take your budding, half-formed ideas and develop them. This part is work. Create a game prototype, draw a design, write a short story. In building it, you'll take it from vague and nebulous to concrete. This part is hard and often painful, but vital. Half-formed ideas are lovely, at that stage they're all potential, but the real work is in turning them into a concrete, shareable reality.
If you get stuck in step two, go back to step one for a bit. Take a break, add some more "mental" fertilizer in the form of inspiring media related to the thing you're working on. I listened to a lot of Perturbator working on System Crash. :D
I mean, if the game isn't commercial then there's no reason not to use that Blanck Mass track. In any case, I'd be keen to play a game with Blanck Mass on the soundtrack!
@garethf That's solid advice. On creativity as well as listening to Perturbator :)
Makes me think a little of John Cleese's talk on creativity (which I tend to link when this subject shows up, and I'm certain you've seen)... Particularly about cultivating creativity, and giving yourself space to be creative.
Also, I found this music video pretty damn creative:
Goldfish have some awesome stuff man.
I was on a vicious deadline of largely menial work, it required an intense amount of focus, but not actual thinking. I say this because I don't think this technique would be nearly as effective for real creative work that required thinking/designing, this is more of a thing for focus itself. It was the kind of deadline that needed 4 days of timing minutes VS brushstrokes to complete and 22.5 minute naps (25 minutes if you include bathroom break and coffee). One of those "I should have just said no" weeks in my freelance career. To help myself achieve the focus I needed, I picked out music that kept the intensity going without adding angriness/negativity, so I chose some melodic metal. Then, whenever I stopped, even if it was just a pause to check my ftp uploads, I would pause the music, mid-track preferably. The tension of that interruption would help me want to jump back in and stave off any other interruptions. Which was what I was aiming for, adding a little almost subconscious, almost external "you've stopped" to interrupt the train of thought before it heads down the track of distraction, right? An interesting thing happened though, by day 3 I was using the audio space almost in place of willpower. And yeah, I was faultering, and straining by then but I tried to stay completely diligent about the music, Zone=Music & NoZone=Silence.
I made the deadline, client was blown away. I slept for week.
Later, mostly because it was already a playlist in my media player and because I was sort of missing it after it had become my superhero theme song, I played the music again....BAM-ZONE!- I wasn't even doing anything at the time, it was very uncomfortable. I think I ended up cleaning my room or something. I honestly hadn't expected my little aural hack to have that effect. It was just supposed to help me go back to focus within a session, not trigger "MUST COREL PAINT/PHOTOSHOP RIGHT NAO" at any given time. Don't mind, find it useful.
I think that was about 6 years ago now, and it's still something I can reach for when I need it. I've worn it down a little by using it when it wasn't the right kind of work and lately I've found it less effective because I haven't been reinforcing it.
Cons:
Doing that to your body and brain isn't fun or recommended, nobody should ever be in a place where sleeping so little is the only 'allowed' course of action, it's poop. I just got a silver lining out of a poopy experience.
If that music plays on TV or radio, especially radio while driving, it makes me very uncomfortable. Like leave the room uncomfortable, which is not very compatible with driving
But I feel that confidence is tied to creativity. Like when I KNOW I can pull something off, I find it much easier to be creative (as well as much more motivated obviously).
Confidence is certainly strongly tied to motivation, but I think it can be hard to even think about something when you're doubtful about whether you can achieve it.
In that John Cleese talk, he talks about requiring space and time away from other distractions to create the conditions for creativity. In a very real way he's talking about mental space and a mental sense of time. We don't always have the opportunity to retire to a fortress of solitude and be creative, some of us work in teams etc, but it's a mental thing anyway.
So, while its a bit of a logical stretch, feeling confident probably helps us have that sense of "we have enough time" that's necessary to be creative.
If that's the case, then there's loads of things that help with confidence.
Like exercise (which wouldn't normally be thought of as a tool for game development). Exercise is definitely good for motivation, and helps improve willpower, but I think the release of endorphins it triggers, providing a sense of well being, can also reduce the sense of time pressure, and so enable more creativity.
And by extension getting plenty of sleep and eating right.
Also surrounding yourself with people who are positive. Negative people lead to those around them expecting negative social rewards, and so negative people demotivate others to produce work and negativity encourages risk averse behaviour.
Writing lists (to break the job down into more manageable tasks, which you should be doing anyway).
A harder one perhaps, but learning to be less self critical. A lot of this comes from lowering your desired outcomes. If your desired outcome is to receive an IGF award you're going to have a hard time matching your production to your goals. But if you instead have your goal as having your game displayed at Amaze Johannesburg... or just make some people laugh at a community meetup, you're going to put less pressure on yourself, and probably have more fun and make a more inspired game.
Maybe I'm conflating playfulness and confidence. Not sure.
I'll add that messing around in FLStudio or playing on my blue friend here is also very helpful:
I guess this has made me used to focusing on the process instead of the time.
The characters and their personalities are what drives me to bring them to life.
Some people teased me about this kind of familiarity with the characters (as if they were real...)
But it doesn't bother me that I feel some kind of connection with this fictional world. It allows me to relate to it, and to enjoy the work.
Long story short, by having an emotional link to the "world", I automatically feel inclined to make it real...
I realize though that a superfluous deadline is not a luxury that everyone can enjoy.
If I were you, I would focus on the things that I enjoy (not "games" but rather what it is ABOUT the games you enjoy, if it is even related to games at all) and then slowly start working on how to recreate it from there.
http://makegamessa.com/discussion/3074/gdc-vault-picks-for-2015
I've just finished watching a couple GDC videos tonight and it's given me lots of stuff to think about.
These guys did the Max Payne 3 soundtrack. Easily some of the weirdest and most talented musicians making music for games today.
I think I might have gotten a bit carried away suggesting music :/