Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design
- Keeping A Journal - This technique involves having a journal, notebook, or anything you can use to write down ideas, interesting things that happened to you, thoughts about a project that you're working on or would like to start, etc. Anything at all can go in this "journal", the value of this idea generating technique is that the "journal" is a safe place to keep your ideas.
- Idea Mine - The Idea Mine is a storage area for any interesting or worthwhile thoughts or observations that can be accessed later on; and when the time is right, you can use those thoughts and observations to fill in the blanks in a project.
- Record it or Lose it - The concept of this idea generating technique is that when you think of, or witness something that has "story value", you have to recognize the fact that it could be worth putting in a story and then record it. You can't afford to lose a great idea or great observation because you forgot to get it down on paper.
- Keep A Game Diary - This technique is utilized while playing a video game. While you're playing, write down the things you like and don't like about the game, parts of the game you couldn't get past, moments in the game that made you feel a certain emotion(s) or have a certain thought(s), etc. and then refer to these comments each time you start a project.
- The Creative Kickoff - The Creative Kickoff is an idea generating technique that kicks off the project and involves cooperating with your team. You and your team will discuss things you like about video games, movies, etc. and why you like them. While studying the competition from around the industry and seeing how to improve on what others have done, the entire team also gets on the same page in terms of the direction the current project will go which facilitates team building.
- Timing - Timing is an important idea generating technique because it requires that the creative person know when it's the right time to present their ideas, and how to present their ideas in a way that creates the most excitement, but the least amount of panic. This technique challenges the creative person to step outside their comfort zone by accepting the fact that there is going to be some level of panic during the development of their project. Additionally, the more the creative person shares and vets their ideas about the project with their team, the better off they and their project will be.
"Keeping A
Journal", "Idea Mine",
and "Record it or Lose it" stood out to me because these are
the idea generating techniques that I have most experience with as I usually
write down and record any ideas that I think of on a whim. Although I don't use
a journal or notebook as of yet, putting these ideas into the Notes app on my
phone still allows me to journalize my ideas. From personal experience, these 3
techniques are extremely beneficial which is why I use them frequently. In the
future, I look forward to using the "Keep A Game Diary" technique
because I always analyze games after I play them, but never during so I'm very
interested to see what kind of experience I would have. "The Creative
Kickoff" and "Timing" idea generating techniques are intriguing
as well because I want to see what it's like to work on a team on the
professional level and I very much want to experience what it's like to attain the
correct timing when it comes to presenting ideas as well as how to effectively
present my ideas so that they cause more excitement than panic.
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