David Pennington

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30

• What is creativity
  • Creativity is mixing of different cultural influences in new ways
  • Clash and collision of disparate ideas
  • Practicable
• Substrates are the groundwork for creativity
  • Game design substrate is whats talked about in this talk
  • how they are put together
• Hierarchy of games
  • A game
    • call of duty and poker are both similar in that they are games
  • A reskin
    • lord of the rings chess is still chess (We had this set as a kid)
  • A variant
    • changes a rule of the basic game
      • stud, wild card, texas holdem are all variants of poker
  • A Genre
    • my own definition: defines a collection of standard mechanics that must be adhered to
• Advice
  • Play a ton of board games
  • Play a ton of mobile games
  • Play games in chronological order as they were released starting with mame generation
• Atomization and Abstraction
  • The way to study games is to try to break down a game into its core elements (mechanics)
  • One way to build larger games is to look at smaller games and implement them into your larger game as a feature
  • Reframing games in the a new context can allow for fresh perspectives
• Systems in games
  • Environmental story telling can be broken down into flipping over cards until you hit an ace, then moving along
  • Pattern Library examples
    • Set Packing
    • Time Limits
    • Guessing
    • Binary Search
    • Neighbor count
    • Movement rate
    • Pickups
    • Stats
    • Graph Traversal
    • Optimal Path
    • Threes Optimization
    • Exponentiality
    • Repeated Move Chains
    • Player Judging
    • Memory
    • Equipment
    • Markets
    • Triadic Relationships
    • Open Draw Pile
    • Race Tracks
    • Diminishing Returns
    • Hidden Information
    • Token State Changes
    • Knapsack Problem
    • Wild Cards
    • Combos
    • Item Association
    • Collection
    • Roles
  • These patterns could be defined as Isomorphic to each other, tackling the problem using different techniques. Game Design Patterns book recommendation Advanced Game Mechanics book recommendation
• Context Replacement
  • Most of creativity is taking a pattern out of its current context and moving it to a new one.
• Interfaces
  • A die is an interface, it can be random state, but it can also be a timer, token, indicator or a physical object
• Statistics
  • Try removing statistics, new ones are not that fun
• Change dimensions
• Force constraints to make new ideas. Topology forces mechanics

• Verbs can add interest and mechanics

  • sidescroller but you have to rescue

  • Platformer but its fast

  • Take enough disparate goals and it becomes hard to understand the game

    • roles are created by designing different goals

• Change Input Mapping

  • swap analog for binary
  • simple inputs into a complex one
  • swap instant action for a timed one
  • add more controls to a simplified action (QWOP)
  • Change Topologies
    • wrapping, shapes differentiation,

• Combine 2 games goals/mechanics

  • breakout + Space invaders

• Art

  • Define the What is it about and the Why
  • Top Down: Experience first
    • find mechanics that match the theme
    • Model an unusual system
  • Bottom Up: take the mechanics and find a theme for them
    • board games
  • meeting in the middle
    • think about the connections between systems and theme

• Make it a habit to be creative

  • Set aside time to do this
• Disordered environments encorage making random connections
  • working in a slightly noisy environment spurs creativity
• Exercise stimulates association thinking
• Get enough sleep
• Take lots of notes by hand (not doing this now :p )
• Take risks and dont fear failure
• Criticism is very important, dont just say yes
• Criticism actually generates ideas
• Play the movie out in your head
  • critique from the users point of view

Be a stranger to the familiar Learn to atomize and abstract Build a diverse pattern library Move patterns between context Give yourself constraints Change dimensions, topologies and inputs Pursue unconventional metaphors Address deaper meaning Always be working Always be failing