Brainstorming a Game Idea:Gameplay,Technology

andStory

“You know what’s the number one dumbest question I

get asked when I’m out at some great university

lecturing? I’m always asked ‘Where do you get your

ideas?’ For about forty years I’ve been yanking their

chain when I answer ‘Schenectady.’ They stare at

me, and I say, ‘Yeah, Schenectady, in New York.

There’s this idea service, see, and every week I

send ’em twenty-five bucks, and every week they

send me a freshly picked six-pack of ideas.’”

— Harlan Ellison

Brainstorming a Game Idea

Harlan Ellison might scoff at the idea of trying to explain

where ideas come from. Certainly, if you are a novelist

having trouble coming up with ideas, it may be time to

wonder if you have chosen the right profession.

Similarly, a good game designer, at any given moment,

will be able to come up with no less than five solid

ideas she would like to try to make into a computer

game. There is no shortage of ideas in the gaming

world.

Brainstorming a Game Idea

Aspiring game designers often think they can sell their idea

to a development company. They seem to be under the

impression that game developers are just sitting around

waiting for a hot idea to come around so they can spend

several million dollars to make it a reality. On the

contrary, selling a game idea to a company is so rare that

one should consider it an impossibility. Almost all of the

challenge in game development is not coming up with a

good idea, but in following through and being able to craft

a compelling game around that idea.

Brainstorming a Game Idea

In the arena of computer game design, the process of coming up

with a game idea that will work is complicated by a number of

factors fiction authors do not need to worry about. In part this

is because computer game ideas can come from three

distinct, unrelated areas of the form: gameplay, technology,

and story. These different origins are interconnected in

interesting ways, with the origin of the game’s idea limiting

what one will be able to accomplish in the other two areas. So

when a game designer starts thinking about the game she is

hoping to make — thinking about it in terms of gameplay,

technology, or story—it is important that she consider how

that initial idea will impact all aspects of the final game.

Gameplay

Beginning with gameplay is one of the most common starting points for game

development, especially for designer- or management-driven projects.

Thinking about a style of gameplay is often the easiest core for someone to

latch onto, especially if that gameplay is similar to an existing game. “It’s a

racing game!” “It’s a flight simulator!” “It’s a 3D action/adventure like Super

Mario 64!” “It’s a first-person shooter like Halo!” Often a game developer will

have enjoyed a game in one of these genres and will want to apply her own

spin to it. With a general idea for a game that is interesting to her, the

designer will want to work out what her particular game is going to accomplish

in terms of gameplay. What type of racing game will it be? What aspects of

racing are we trying to capture for the player?With a more specific idea of

what type of gameplay she wants to create, the designer should start thinking

about how that will impact the technology the game will require and what sort

of story, if any, the game will be able to have.

Gameplay

Depending on the type of gameplay you are hoping to create for the player, you need to

analyze what sort of technology that undertaking will require. Does the game need a 3D

engine, or will 2D be enough or even more appropriate? What sort of view will the player

have of the game-world? Will it be fixed or dynamic? Does the action transpire fast and

furious with a large number of entities moving around on the screen at once? Are the

game-worlds large or small? All of these questions and many more need to be analyzed to

understand what the game’s engine must accomplish in order to properly execute the

gameplay idea. Of course the technology you choose to employ for your gameplay must

actually run on the target system, whether it be a PC, console, or custom-made arcade

cabinet. You must also ask if the game’s programming team is up to creating the required

technology. Technological feasibility may end up limiting the scope of your gameplay. Even

worse, will the engine team’s existing technology work or will they need to scrap it and

start from scratch? Is there enough budget and time to trash it and start over? If you find

that you need to adapt your gameplay to match the engine, you really are not starting out

with gameplay as the origin of your idea, but instead with technology, as I will discuss

next. If you are starting out with a gaming engine that must be used, it is in your best

interest to not fight that technology with incompatible gameplay. Instead you should try to

conceive of gameplay that is well suited to that engine.

Gameplay

The type of gameplay your game will employ similarly limits what type of story can be told.

An RPG can tell a much more complex and involved story than an action/adventure game,

and in turn an action/adventure can tell a more substantial story than an arcade shooter.

Certain types of stories just will not fit with certain types of gameplay, such as the Greek

mythology in a flight simulator example discussed previously. Similarly, a romantic story

might not fit with a strategy game, and a tale about diplomacy would not fit so well with a

fast-action first-person shooter. Since you made the choice to come up with your

gameplay style first, you need to ask yourself what sort of story is best suited to that

gameplay, and try to tell that tale. Sometimes a designer will have both a story she wants

to tell and a type of gameplay she wants to explore, and will attempt to do both in the

same game, even if the two do not go well together. Do not try to cobble an inappropriate

story, either in terms of complexity or subject matter, around gameplay that is ill-suited to

that type of narrative. Save the story for a later date when you are working on a title with

gameplay that will support that story better. And while your technology is limited by what

your team is capable of accomplishing in the time allotted, the story is limited only by

your own ability to tell it. You should pick the story best suited to your gameplay and go

with it.

Technology

Going into a project with a large portion of the game’s technology already

developed is also a fairly common occurrence. If this is not the development

team’s first project together at a new company, then it is likely that there will

be an existing technology base that the project is supposed to build from.

Even if the project is to use a “new” engine, this often only means an older

engine updated, and as a result, the style of game best suited to the engine

will not change significantly. Even if an engine is being written from scratch

for the project, it is likely that the lead programmer and her team are best

equipped to create a certain type of engine, be it indoor or outdoor, real-time

orpre-rendered, 3D or 2D, with a complex physics system for object

movement or something more simple. The programmers may be interested in

experimenting with certain special lighting or rendering effects, and will

create an engine that excels at these objectives. The designer is then

presented with this new technology and tasked with coming up with a game

that will exploit the sophisticated technology to full effect.

Technology

Other times it is predetermined that the project will be using an engine licensed

from some other source, either from another game developer or a technology-

only company. Though some of these licensed engines are becoming more and

more robust and as a result can allow for a fairly broad number of games to be

made with them (Criterion’s RenderWare is certainly a good example of this),

many licensed engines are still developed with one game genre in mind, and

no engine is without its fundamental limitations. Sometimes the project

leaders have enough foresight to consider the type of game they want to

make first and then pick an engine well suited to that. Sometimes the engine

licensing deal that seems to deliver the most “bang for the buck” will be the

one chosen. Then, with an engine choice decided, the team is tasked with

creating a game and story that will fit together well using that technology.

Technology

Without the ability to have large numbers of moving units on the screen at

once, it will be impossible to tell a story where the player must participate

in epic, massive battles between armies. The game designer needs to

consider how the story line will be communicated to the player through the

engine that she must use. Trying to tell a story with an inadequate engine

isjust as likely to compromise the game as tying a particular story to

inappropriate gameplay. Again using the example of Half-Life mentioned above,

if the team at Valve had tried to set their game in Death Valley and involve

the player battling gangs of twenty giant insects at once, the Quake engine

would have ground to a halt on the machines of the day and the game

would have been miserable to play. In the Death Valley scenario, Valve

might have been telling the story they wanted, but no one would have

cared since the game would have been miserably slow and looked

horrendous. For the greater good of the game, the story and the technology

must be compatible with each other.

Story

Finally, it is certainly possible that the brainstorming for your game may start

with asetting you want to employ, a story you want to tell, or a set of

characters you want toexplore. This is probably a less common starting point

than technology or gameplay.Indeed, since many games have no story

whatsoever, the very concept of a game starting with a story may seem

strange. At the same time, it is not unheard of for a game designer to think of

a story she wants to explore, and only then start exploring what sort of

technology and gameplay will be best suited to telling that story. Frequently, a

particular setting may inspire a game designer, such as the adventurous world

of Errol Flynn or the dark and gritty crime world of Sin City. A designer may not

care too much about the specifics of the plot, but may have a strong desire to

work in a world filled with swashbucklers or grim private detectives. For my

purposes in this chapter, I consider these inspirational settings to fall under

the definition of starting with story.

Story

Any good game designer who thinks up a story or a setting will have a tendency

to think of it in terms of how it would translate into a game, how the player

can interact with that story, and how the story may unfold in different ways

depending on the player’s actions in the game-world. Indeed, not all stories

will translate very well into games, and thinking of gameplay possibilities early

can help you rule out settings that simply will not work out in games. So a

designer may not be thinking solely of the story but also of the gameplay. But

the story can be the jumping-off point, the central vision from which all other

aspects of the game are determined. Of course the type of story to be told will

have a dramatic effect on the type of gameplay the project will need to have.

If the designer wants to tell the story of a group of friends battling their way

through a fantastic world full of hostile creatures, a first-person shooter with

teammates might be appropriate. Any sort of story that involves the player

talking to a large range of characters and going on “quests” for those

characters might be addressed with more RPG-style mechanics.

Story

Of course, the technology will have to match up with the story as well, primarily

in order to support the gameplay the designer decides is best suited to telling

that story. If conversations are an important part of communicating the story,

the programming team will need to be able to develop a conversation system.

If world exploration and discovery are a big part of telling the story, perhaps a

3D engine is best suited to the gameplay — one that allows the players to

look anywhere they want with the game camera. The designer may find that

specifically scripted events are important to communicating aspects of the

tale; players must be able to observe unique events that transpire at specific

times in different parts of the world. In this case, the programmers will need

to give the level designers the ability to implement these scenes. The

technology is the medium of communication to the players, and thereby the

story is directly limited by what the technology is capable of telling.

Working with Limitations

Experienced game designers already understand the limitations

placed on the creation of games by the technology, gameplay, and

story. When they take part in brainstorming sessions, these game

designers have a good gut sense of how making certain choices

about the game in question will limit its creation further down the

road. For each decision that is made about the game, many doors

are closed. When enough decisions about the nature of the game

have been made, it may be that there is only one type of game that

can possibly accomplish all that the designers want. The stage for

making major decisions is over, and now all that lies ahead are the

thousands of smaller implementation issues.

Working with Limitations

In many ways, developing a game is all about understanding your limitations

and then turning those limitations into advantages. In this chapter I have

discussed how the designer must understand where her game idea is

coming from: gameplay, story, or technology. With this understanding, the

designer must recognize how this limits the other attributes of the game—

how a certain gameplay calls for a certain type of story and technology,

how one story requires a specific technology and gameplay, and how

technology will lend itself to specific types of games and stories. One

designer may consider these requirements to be limitations, while a more

positive designer may consider them to be simply constraints. Indeed,

many people do their best work when operating inside constraints; having

limitless options can be quite intimidating and confusing. It is the designer’s

job to establish what constraints the project has, find the perfect parts that

fit within those limitations, and finally make all the pieces fit together in a

compelling game.

Working with Limitations

In many ways, developing a game is all about understanding your limitations

and then turning those limitations into advantages. In this chapter I have

discussed how the designer must understand where her game idea is

coming from: gameplay, story, or technology. With this understanding, the

designer must recognize how this limits the other attributes of the game—

how a certain gameplay calls for a certain type of story and technology,

how one story requires a specific technology and gameplay, and how

technology will lend itself to specific types of games and stories. One

designer may consider these requirements to be limitations, while a more

positive designer may consider them to be simply constraints. Indeed,

many people do their best work when operating inside constraints; having

limitless options can be quite intimidating and confusing. It is the designer’s

job to establish what constraints the project has, find the perfect parts that

fit within those limitations, and finally make all the pieces fit together in a

compelling game.