Creativity doesn't have to be hard...
motorcycle boy
Member Posts: 429
I was inspired to start a thread specifically for creative techniques. I hope everyone who is able will contribute so as to create a resource here for the community. If you have a hard time thinking of ideas, well let me share with you my all time favorite book, "Thinkertoys." This book is a collection of creative thinking techniques that can be applied to anything you want. They are easy to learn and easy to use. For example, using the Lotus Blossom technique, you will have 80 ideas that you can combine into countless within a matter of minutes. It's proven invaluable to me in many fields and just in general. You can find it at amazon for like $10. Think of the contents as a mental utility belt filled with amazing tools.
Comments
Here's an example of a technique. Let's say I want to create a new type of tooth pick or other type of thing to get that pesky particle out of my teeth. Well a great technique to use would be S.C.A.M.P.E.R.
This stands for:
Substitute
Combine
Add
Magnify/Multiply
Eliminate
Reverse
What can you substitute, combine, add etc. about the toothpick?
Break the tooth pick into its attributes; as many as you can think of:
-mass produced product
-made of wood
-two inches long (guesstimate)
-roundish shape
-lightweight
-portable
-etc etc etc...
-non flexible
For my example, I'll take "substitute" and I'll pair it with "roundish shape."
What if I made a tooth pick that was still round but had an added shape on the end that was thinner and could dig in deeper than the current toothpick. How about I also make that part some what flexible? I could literally think of 100 more ideas by applying substitution and/or taking another section of SCAMPER or combining parts of it with multiple attributes from the tooth pick attribute list I made.
SCAMPER is absolutely different from the other techniques in the book, but it works great for existing products. Can you see how you could substitute tooth pick for Angry Birds and come up with countless games? See how easy it is?! It does most of the work for you really. Hope this helps!
@dreichelt, thank you for this, I have been really struggling with adding innovation and creativity to game ideas, especially with the plethora of templates available on this and other sites.
I am still a super NOOB at game development, so I love the idea of using templates to get started, but I really want to make something that is unique, and not another flappy birds clone (no offense intended to the billions of flappy clones out there).