作者：Chris DeLeon

不久前的某一天，我收到了这一信息：

“我不知道如何为游戏想出一个理念。我的问题是我不能想出一个新颖的理念。我拥有许多游戏理念，但它们其实都是源自于其他人的理念。”

这是我听过的许多尝试着开始创造游戏的人们都会遇到的问题。让我们着眼于一些避免这些障碍并回到游戏创造中的方法。

你不需要非得拥有一个理念才能开始

与普遍观点不同的是，在开始后再想出一个理念非常有效。这并不是所谓的鸡生蛋蛋生鸡的问题。

开始创造某些内容。任何内容都可以！任何你能够通过直接且可预测的方式完成的简单内容。创造“一款赛车游戏，”“一款益智游戏，”“一款策略游戏，”“一款足球游戏，”“一款行动游戏，”“一款平台游戏，”等等。

问问你自己，在创造这些可识别的游戏类型中，保持一致性的最小基础是什么。

开始将其拼凑在一起。

包括如何将其变得更加特别的不同理念经常是源自细节，过程，个人兴趣，优势和局限。

理念如何出现

在你面对这些部分并观看着它们成形时，你将会开始碰到各种不同类型的理念并进行尝试。解决常见问题的方法各有不同。将其整合到游戏中的方向各有不同。让玩家做某事的决策也各有不同。

有些理念是源自不完整的执行，即在你能够明白并且更加从容应对的工作裂缝中。其它理念可能是来自你尝试着明确一种更简单或更加节约时间去完成某些近期目标的方法，包含一些近似值或接受特定的局限性。理念将不断成形，并需要以某种方式代替其它内容。

这么做将能帮你找到当前能力和当前好奇心之间可行的十字路口。通常情况下使得关键的游戏“理念”变得与众不同的元素并不是在一开始就能够轻松描述的内容，而是一些通过反复修补才能通过游戏玩法不断浮现出的内容。

做什么

第一步：如果你并未准备好致力于一个项目，那就选择一个较旧或相对简单的游戏类型，并开始尝试着执行其中的某些部分以获得一些动力。通过这一过程让你自己更进一步。创造一种情景，即你一旦拥有理念便立马去落实行动。

只有伴随着某些适当的代码和功能基础，想象力才能适应不可改变的可能性而不只是在做白日梦。有许多有趣的理念可能在电子游戏中不能发挥特别的作用，或者需要一笔巨额的预算和一支强大的团队才能完成。通过使用这种方法你将能够按照某种适合游戏，或者符合你当前技能水平的方式进行创造。

你并不是别人。你们并不会知道同样的事，关心同样的内容，或以同样的方式工作。你的工作只是不要绕进同样的圈子，除非作为一次经过深思熟虑的实践，进行训练，你便可以尽可能详细地复制一些特殊的例子（游戏邦注：当你还是新人时，这便是一种很好的实践方式，如果有商业元素介入的话这将出现更多问题）。

如何做更重要

在理念阶段反复考虑独创性，而不是过分强调理念重要性的细节和执行。直接说来，这不只是关于媒体如何运行，不管是娱乐还是艺术。当然了，该主题在某种程度上非常重要，它能够引起某种类型的兴奋感或指代与特定用户的连接。然而，它的许多影响是源自它在用户面前的表现。

Star Trek(from inquisitr)

并不是《星际迷航》创造了太空飞船和科幻小说。并不是《Quake》创造了僵尸，枪榴弹发射器或哥特式建筑。并不是《教父》创造了黑帮电影。并不是《超级玛丽兄弟》创造了平台游戏或拯救被困公主的情节。并不是《回到未来》创造了时空之旅。它们之所以都做得很好是因为能够牢牢把握住人们的想象力。

这并不只是关于电视节目，游戏或电影。《白鲸记》之所以为成为经典是因为捕鲸是个很酷的理念。《白鲸记》有效地将其组合在一起并创造出真正有趣的内容。

《蒙娜丽莎》的理念也是如此。

选择某些内容，并通过实践将其做得更好，你将会发现在这个过程中你自己的技巧能够将这些内容变得更加与众不同。

快速创建原型

想出还未成为常规的游戏理念的其它方法便是快速创建原型，这要求更高的开发流畅度并经常回到较低的生产率中。然而，这是并未源自复制品的新颖且美好事物的来源之一。我在InteractionArtist中便使用了这一方法，即我花了7个月的时间每天去创造一个试验性互动项目。这219个原型最终只创造了一些iPhone游戏。

这仍然是关于创造的思考。这不只是源自建立一个基础，接受更高的机会去创造某些并不有趣的内容作为伴随着这一过程出现的更加特别的内容的交换。

不要等着灵感自己来找你

等待着新颖理念的出现是一个无价值的陷阱。

理念是源自行动，迭代创造，并与其他拥有与你不同口味和优势的人相结合。

想要想出更多理念？那就开始创造某些内容吧。

即使一个项目是从一些并不新颖的理念而开始，但只要坚持不懈并伴随着一些实践，它将带着你走向你并未想到的方向上。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转功，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Start Before You Have an Idea

by Chris DeLeon

I received this message the other day:

“I don’t know how to come up with an idea for a game. My problem is that I can’t come up with an original idea. I had many ideas for games, but it turns out those have already been created by other people.”

This is a common source of paralysis that I hear variations on pretty often from people trying to get started. Let’s look at some ways of bypass these barriers and get back to game making.

You Don’t Need the Idea to Start

Contrary to popular belief, it often works out pretty well to come up with the idea after starting it. This is not the chicken and egg problem that it appears to be.

Start building something. Pretty much anything! Anything simple enough that you realistically could finish in a straightforward, predictable way. Make “just a racing game,” “just a puzzle game,” “just a strategy game,” “just a sh’mup,” “just an overhead action game,” “just a platforming game,” etc.

Ask yourself what’s the bare minimum basics needed to be coherent as one of those recognizable game types.

Just start piecing it together.

The different ideas, including what’s going to make it special, will often develop midway from the details, process, and personal interests, strengths, and constraints.

How the Ideas Emerge

While dealing with those parts and watching it take shape in stages, you’ll begin bumping into all kinds of ideas of different things to try. Different ways to approach common problems. Different directions to take the game in. Different things to let the players do.

Some ideas arise from incomplete implementation, a discovery in the cracks of work that you can latch onto and grow into something deliberate. Others may take form while trying to figure out a simpler or more time efficient way to accomplish some immediate goal, involving some approximations or accepting certain limitations. Ideas can also take shape as just needing to fill in for something in a way that you’re able to do well (or well enough!).

Doing this on the fly helps find the workable intersection between current capabilities and current curiosity. Often the key “idea” of the game that really sets it apart isn’t even something easily described at first, but is instead something subtle in the gameplay that only arises from back and forth tinkering with the machine.

What to Do

Step one: if you’re not already actively working on a project, pick an old or otherwise relatively simple type of game or two and start trying to implementing parts of it to get some momentum. Get yourself further along in the process. Create a situation in which you can have ideas that you’ll be able to promptly put into action, in a context that’s at least partly functioning.

Only with the foundation of some code and functionality in place can the imagination begin to orient itself in concrete possibilities rather than random dreaming. Plenty of concepts that are interesting to think about might not work particularly well in a videogame, or might need a huge budget and large team to get it done. Using this approach you’ll always be building in a way that necessarily fits in a game and – just as importantly – within (or just at the edge of) your present skills.

You’re not someone else. You don’t know the same things, care about the same things, or work the same way. Your work simply isn’t going to wind up the same, unless as a deliberate practice and learning exercise you go out of your way to specifically copy some particular example in as much detail as possible (a fine way to just practice when new, though of course that’s more questionable when business gets involved).

How Well It’s Done Matters More

Concern over originality at the idea level, rather than in the details and execution, stems from overemphasizing the importance of the idea. To put it bluntly that’s just not really how media, whether entertainment or art, works. Of course the topic matters to an extent, it can drum up certain kinds of excitement or imply connection to certain audiences. However much of its impact resides in how well it’s done in the eyes of the audience that it reaches.

Star Trek didn’t invent space ships and science fiction. Quake didn’t invent zombies, grenade launchers, or gothic(-ish) architecture. Godfather didn’t invent mob films. Super Mario Bros. didn’t invent platforming or saving captured princesses. Back to the Future didn’t invent time travel. These are so well done that they captured people’s imaginations.

This isn’t just about TV shows, games, or movies. Moby Dick didn’t become a classic because the idea of whale hunting is cool. Moby Dick is so well put together that it creates interest in what it’s about.

The idea of Mona Lisa is… well, you get the idea.

Pick something to do, practice to do it better, and you’ll discover your own tricks along the way to make them more personalized and unique.

Rapid Prototyping

The other approach to come up with gameplay ideas that haven’t yet become a common pattern is to rapid prototype, which requires a high degree of development fluency and often returns a relatively low yield. However it’s one source for original and decent things that aren’t evolved from things that began as clones. I took precisely this approach for InteractionArtist, when I built an experimental interaction project daily for seven months. Those 219 prototypes yielded… just a few iPhone games.

That’s still thinking by building. It’s just not starting from as established a foundation, accepting a higher chance of producing something uninteresting in exchange for a shot at coming out of the process with something more unusual.

Don’t Wait for Inspiration

Waiting for an original idea to just happen is an unproductive trap.

Ideas grow out of action, iterative building, and through collaboration with others that have different tastes and strengths than your own.

Want to come up with more ideas? Start making something.

Even if a project starts out as totally unoriginal, with persistence and some practice it’ll soon lead to directions you wouldn’t have thought up otherwise.(source:gamasutra)