作者：William

今天，我收到一封邮件，询问我如何产生游戏灵感。这是个很难回答的问题。游戏灵感的产生是个创造性的过程，并没有结构和方法。但是，我还是觉得这其中有些经验值得学习。

善用纸笔，不依赖电脑

你需要做的第一件事情是，将这篇文章打印下来后，关掉电脑！

严格来说，你不应当坐在电脑前面构思游戏想法。一旦你得到想法，你可以使用电脑来记录、测试或发表相关博文。但是在此之前，你所需要的是铅笔和几张纸。只要你开着电脑，你就会将注意力转移到编程上。现在，还没必要这么做。

当我在构思新游戏想法时，我会选择坐在桌旁（游戏邦注：上面没有电脑的桌子）然后开始画。别问我在画些什么，因为在我真正画出来之前我自己也不知道。通常情况下，我甚至对接下来要做什么都无从知晓。但是，这并不会构成多大障碍。画了4页抽象的图形、地图和角色等东西之后，我就可以找到可供进一步探索的内容了。

如果你发觉自己在纸上构思游戏想法时仍然会不时去看电脑，那么就找个其他的地方。比如，坐在公园的长椅上。电脑真不是这个阶段需要考虑的东西，你应该动用的是笔和纸。

game prototype(from thepencilfarm)

数量优先，再顾及质量

几乎每天我都能构思出些许游戏想法来。在你开始产生“你真是游戏想法的鼻祖”这类想法之前，我应该声明的是，这些想法中95%都很差。在剩余的5%想法中，只有1/5的想法能够转变成真正的游戏。

这或许听起来很让人郁闷，但并没有你想象的那样糟糕。假设，你平均每天产生一个新的游戏想法。这意味着，每一百天的时间里你就会有个可以转变成成熟游戏的想法。也就是说，每年可以开发出3款游戏。这还算不错。

产生大量想法的技巧在于，不要过早地对想法进行监察。产生非常劣质的想法也没有关系。你当然不应该将这些想法公之于众，但是也不要因为产生愚蠢的想法就不这么做。我曾经考虑过制作横向卷轴类的汽车竞速游戏，我确实有过这种想法。我花了整个下午的时间来思考如何将其转变成真正的游戏，但是我最终认为这个想法根本不具有转变成真正游戏的潜力。重点在于，我花时间从各个方向来发掘这个想法，而不是完全将其忽视。在那段时间里，我学到了某些有关竞速游戏的知识，我或许可以将这些知识用于将来的游戏想法中。

别想得太多

如果想要构思出游戏想法，你就不应该想得过于深入。将思绪保持在头脑风暴般的状态，让想法自由流动，不要打断这种创造性的过程。换句话说，将这项工作交由你的潜意识来完成。如果你开始深入思考某个想法，那么你的注意力就会完全集中在那个想法上。记住，你首要需要关注的是想法的数量。当你构思出足够的粗糙想法之后，就可以开始发挥你的分析技能了。

这就像是在某个塞满书本的书架上寻找某本特定的书籍。你完全可以一本本地检视架上的书本，但是如果你后退一步，看下整个书架然后让潜意识指引你找到书本的正确位置，可能成功的几率会更高些。

围绕某个概念进行设计

围绕某个概念进行设计，这项技术时常让我产生大量劣质的游戏想法（游戏邦注：这并非不好的做法）。比如，我会坐下进行如下思考：我想制作一款没有玩家化身并且只能间接影响环境的游戏。由此，我得出的游戏想法是：设计一条拥挤的街道，上面有着大量汽车、行人和自行车，由玩家来控制交通灯维持秩序；或者让玩家尝试控制许多用大理石铺成的道路。

接下来要探讨的问题是，如何产生这些概念。我通常在阅读书本或玩其他电脑游戏之时会忽然产生这些概念。比如，我在玩横向卷轴摩托车越野游戏《Motorama》时产生制作横向卷轴竞速游戏的想法。我觉得非射击题材或平台游戏的横向卷轴类游戏应该会很棒，所以我尝试利用横向卷轴概念来制作其他类型的游戏。你可以看到，概念不一定要很棒，只要它能够引发你的思考即可。事实上，我在数分钟的时间里产生了两个想法：竞速游戏和某种弹球游戏。

玩游戏

这个技巧应该为众人所熟知，但是我还是想提一提。尽你所能玩游戏，尤其是那些创新型的游戏。游戏通常并不能给你提供有用的想法，但你时常可以从中找到你可以利用的概念（游戏邦注：正如上文作者提到的横向卷轴概念的产生方式）。你不需要花数个小时的时间把游戏玩到通关来寻找这些概念，只需要15分钟左右的时间即可。

独立游戏开发者处的共享件游戏是游戏想法的最佳来源。有两个原因。第一，这些游戏都是免费且可玩的测试游戏，因而你可以在相对短的时间内玩大量游戏而且不用花钱。当然，如果你刚好喜欢上了你尝试过的某款游戏，你也可以花钱购买。

第二，如果你想找创新型的游戏，那么与零售游戏相比，在独立游戏中花费的寻找时间可能会更少。我推荐你定期访问GameTunnel，关注最新的独立游戏。

学习游戏设计

如果你想要了解如何设计游戏，那么你就应该要学习游戏设计。但是，我必须承认，当我尝试思索游戏想法时，很少直接使用我的游戏设计知识。但是，我仍然觉得游戏设计相关知识能够在你构思想法时提供潜意识的帮助。

想知道到学习游戏设计的好去处吗？当然，我会推荐自己的网站，用RSS订阅这个博客网站。或者你也可以选择在地址栏输入www.casualgamedesign.com。网络上还有许多其他可供学习游戏设计的地方。

持之以恒

最后一个技巧是，不要放弃。无论身在何处，都尝试构思游戏想法。当你在看某个电视连续剧时，可以询问自己如何基于这个电视剧来制作游戏。当你在观看戏剧时，可以尝试构思玩家扮演戏剧中某个角色的趣味游戏。当你在吃晚饭时，也可以思考片刻，如何将这种行为制成游戏。

自从我开始发表游戏设计相关博文起，我在生活中处处都可以发现游戏设计。社交互动是游戏设计，业务运营也是游戏设计，甚至连电影制作以及整个国家的运作都可以视为游戏设计。以上这些话题都已经被转变成了游戏，生活中处处都可以找到游戏想法。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2006年1月4日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Coming up with game ideas

William

Today, I received an e-mail from someone who asked me how I come up with ideas for my games. That’s a tough question. Coming up with game ideas is a creative process without much structure to it. Nevertheless, I do think it’s something you can learn. I’ll give you some tips I think are helpful when trying to come up with an idea for your next game. If anyone else has some tips of their own, please share them.

Pencil and paper

First thing I want you to do, is turn off your computer. No, wait! First print this article, then turn off your computer.

Seriously, you shouldn’t look for game ideas while sitting behind a computer. Once you have an idea, you can use the computer to document it, or test it, or blog about it. What you need until then, is a pencil and some pieces of paper. As long as you are sitting behind your computer, it’s just to tempting to do some programming. That’s way too much focus way too early.

When I try to come up with an idea, I sit down behind my desk (the one without the computer on it) and just start drawing. Don’t ask me what, because I don’t know before I’m actually drawing it. Often, I don’t even know afterwards. That doesn’t matter, though. After four pages of abstract figures, maps, mazes, stick men, grids, diagrams and fluffy creatures, I usually have something worth exploring a bit further. Don’t let the fact that you couldn’t draw a straight line if your life depended on it keep you from using this technique; I don’t.

If you still find yourself looking at your computer from time to time while putting your ideas on paper, find someplace else to work. Go sit on a bench in the park somewhere. Really, a computer is not what you need at this point. Computer: bad. Pencil and paper: good.

Quantity first, quality later

The days that I don’t come up with a game idea at all are pretty rare. Before you start thinking ‘wow, this guy is some kind of game idea guru’ I should tell you that about 95% of those ideas are shamefully bad. Of the remaining ideas, only about one in five is good enough to be turned into an actual game.

That may sound depressing, but it’s not that bad. Suppose you come up with one game idea per day on average. That means that every hundred days or so you’ll have an idea that’s worth turning into a full-fledged game. That’s a solid three games a year. Not bad at all.

The trick to coming up with a lot of ideas is to not censor too early. It’s perfectly okay to come up with ideas that are complete rubbish. You shouldn’t flaunt them to the world of course, but don’t think less of yourself because you came up with a stupid idea. I mean, I once thought about doing a side-scrolling car racing game! Really, I did. I was trying to figure out how to make it work all afternoon when I finally decided that the idea had less potential than an ice-cream stand on the South Pole. The point is that I took the time to approach the idea from different angles instead of outright dismissing it. I learned something about the nature of racing games that day and I might be able to use that knowledge for a future idea.

Don’t think too much

You shouldn’t think too hard if you want to come up with an idea. Put your mind in brainstorm mode, let the ideas flow through you and don’t interrupt the creative process. In other words, let your subconscious do all the hard work. If you start to consciously think about an idea, your mind will focus on that idea exclusively. Remember, you want to go for quantity first. When you have some rough ideas of the approach you want to take, then you can start releasing your analytical skills.

It’s like finding a specific book on an over-stuffed bookshelf. You can look at all the book one by one, but you’ll probably have more success if you take a step back, look at a lot of books at once and let your subconscious mind guide you to the right spot.

Designing around a single concept

One technique that always allows me to come up with plenty of bad game ideas (and remember, that’s a good thing) is to design around a single concept. For example, I might sit down and think: I want to come up with a game where you don’t have an avatar and can only influence the environment indirectly. This results in stuff like: a busy street with cars, pedestrians and bikers where you control the traffic lights. (I know you’ve been thinking about that one, too. Have you figured out that it’s a bad idea, yet? Well, it is.) Or having the player try to control the path of a couple of marbles just by raising and lowering the terrain. (I thought of that one on the spot! See, it isn’t so hard.)

Next question is how to come up with those concepts. I usually just run into them by reading a book or by playing other computer games. For example, I got the idea for the side-scrolling racing game by playing Motorama, which is a side-scrolling motocross game. I thought it was kinda cool to see a side-scroller that wasn’t either a shooter or a platformer, so I tried to come up with other games that use the concept of side-scrolling. You see, the concept doesn’t have to be brilliant, as long as it gets you thinking. If you’re curious, I actually came up with two ideas in a couple of minutes: the racing game and some sort of pinball game on a big field with lots of flippers and without a sink.

Play games

This one should be kind of obvious, but I’ll mention it anyway. Play as much games as you can, especially ones that are innovative. It’s pretty rare that a game will give you an actual idea for a game of your own, but you will find a concept you can use (see above) from time to time. You don’t need to play games for hours on end to find those concepts, just fifteen minutes or so will do.

Shareware games from independent game developers are your best source for ideas. There are two reasons for this. First, these games have a free playable demo, so you can play lots of them for no money at all in relatively little time. Of course, if you happen to like the game you’re playing, you have a moral obligation to actually buy the game, especially if it that game happens to be Trichromix.

Second, if you’re looking for something innovative, you will sooner find it among the indie games than among the retail games. As a starting point, take a look at the finalists in the category Innovation In Game Design of the Independent Game Festival Competition.

I recommend visiting GameTunnel regularly to keep up-to-date with the latest indie games.

Learn about game design

If you want to learn how to design games, you should learn about game design. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I have to admit, though, that when I try to think of an idea for a game, I rarely directly use my knowledge of game design. Still, I believe that your subconscious benefits from knowledge about game design when you try to come up with ideas.

You want to know a good place to learn game design? Why, this very web site, of course! Just subscribe to this blog by RSS. Or just surf to www.casualgamedesign.com regularly, if that’s what you prefer. There are lots of other sources, too, obviously. I can’t name them all here. I will add a seperate section to this web site with links to articles, blogs and books on game design in a couple of days. If I don’t, just spam me until I do. (Be nice, though.)

Keep at it

The final tip is to not give up. Think about games everywhere you go. If you’re watching a television series, ask yourself what a game based on that series would play like. (Charmed is a nice starting point, since that show has a concept that lends itself perfectly to a computer game.) If you’re watching a play (you know, theatre) try to come up with a game where the player is one of the actors and that’s actually fun to play. If you’re eating dinner, ponder for a moment how you could make that into a game.

Ever since I started blogging about game design, I see game design everywhere. Social interaction is really just game design. Running a business is really just game design. Making movies is really just game design. Figuring out how to run a country is really just game design. And you know what? All of those topics have been turned into games. Ideas are everywhere. (Source: Casual Game Design)