Idea and Concept Development

When trying to come up with a new idea for games, the best way to start is to try and find some inspiration. Trying to create something that is purely from your imagination may be hard so a lot of the time it is best to gain real life sources. Playing countless games will not help as you are more likely to pick up on the same idea or story. It is far better to seek inspiration from a range of sources, literature, art, history. Pikmin was derived from the idea of a microcosm - a world in miniature. Shigeru Miyamoto had this idea whilst gardening, this shows that whatever you may be doing it can easily influence ideas and designs.

Obviously the best way to record any ideas is within a sketchbook, but it doesn't have to be just drawings. Any images that may be useful will help in designing certain aspects of your game. Whether or not you may think they are useful or relevant at the time it is best to keep a record of that idea or image. It may become useful at a later stage. Keeping everything in one place, one book will make sure you don't loose anything, keeps everything safe and organised. You will then be able to refer back to certain parts anytime you wish. A sketchbook can have drawings that are really rough or really refined, it doesn't really matter, rough ideas can be a way of experimenting and can be developed further over time.

Another way to gather information is by creating moodboards. Moodboards allow you to throw a load of images down onto a page. Images that are similar to one another, have a similar theme. They can show the type of atmosphere you want to portray in you game, the theme you want to have running through it or influences for a certain aspect. It's a good way to put images all in one place and use it as reference for when you begin drawing out ideas.

There are so many games out there, at some point you are bound to discard your idea because "it's been done before", however this may not be the case. Sure it might have already been done, yet you may be able to come up with a different response to familiar situations. Take Call of Duty 2, the designers of Activision changed the way the player would heal. Previously it was moving over a green first-aid box, however they realised this wasn't very realistic. Their solution was that when the player was injured, the edges of the screen would flash red, the player's vision would become blurred, movement would slow down and the ability to aim would decrease. Only without getting wounded again would you restore your health. By doing this the game itself became more tactical as they would have to use the available cover to stay alive if wounded; rather than rushing out to find that first-aid pack.

All these techniques will really help in aiding the idea and concept development of a game, however you can also apply this to anything you create like film or animation. These are the foundations and starting point for any designer.