Game Tuning Workshop

Creativity Exercises

Or, how to give your right-brain

a kick in the pants.

Tim Stellmach,Instructor

Game Tuning Workshop

What is a Creativity Exercise?

• For our purposes, anything that changes your way of thinking about a problem (or opportunity)

• Especially techniques to cultivate new ideas

• Applicable at any stage of the process.

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What is That Good For?

• Analysis is not a very good means of generating ideas.

• Intuition is, by definition, not responsive to systemization.

• What cannot be commanded might still be coaxed.

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Things You May Already Do

• Many activities change what parts of your brain are working, and encourage other parts to relax.

• Identifying these triggers and exploiting them on purpose can be powerful.

• Not usually a great thing for groups, though.

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Things You May Already Do

Examples:• Exercise• Change of scenery• Driving• Showering• Toys• Sleep• Music

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Six Thinking Hats— Edward de Bono

Knowledge possessedor needed

Type of thinking being used

Risks, drawbacks, criticism

Opportunities, possibilities, alternatives

Advantages, benefits

Feelings, intuition

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Effective Brainstorming

“The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”

— Linus Pauling

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Tips for Better Brainstorming

• Sharpen the Focus

• Playful Rules

• Number Your Ideas

• Build and Jump

• “The Space Remembers”

• Stretch your Mental Muscles

• Get Physical

– Tom Kelley, The Art of Innovation

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The Least You Need to Know:A Simple Brainstorming Format

• Present a clear statement of the problem at hand.

• Everybody gets enough Post-It™ notes for more than the obvious answers. Go! (stretch, number counts)

• Put the notes on the wall. Everybody move them about putting like with like (get physical, use spatial memory).

Game Tuning Workshop

The Least You Need to Know:A Simple Brainstorming Format

Sift (build and jump):

• Which ideas are very common, which rare or unique?

• What does that mean? Does what that means suggest new ideas?

• What are the combinations, gaps, intermediaries, or components?

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Randomization Exercises

Select a theme, element, or piece of advice from some random source.

• Get you past a blank slate.

• Encourage very unexpected thought patterns

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Randomization Methods

Possible sources:

• Dictionary

• Card Draw (e.g. Creative Whack Pack, Oblique Strategies)

• I Ching (or Ouija Board)

• Boggle™

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Example: Oblique Strategies— Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt

What would your closest friend do?

Try an old idea.

Look at the most

embarrassing details and

amplify them.

Go outside. Shut the

door.Tidy Up

What mistakes did

you make last time?

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Exercise: The Epigrams of Heraclitus

• Heraclitus was an Ionian philosopher of the late 6th century B.C. This is great because his stuff is way out of copyright.

• His epigrams make a pretty good “oblique strategies” type deck

• Idea copped from Roger Von Oech. For his translations, you want Expect the Unexpected or You Won’t Find It.

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Go!

• Break up into groups.

• If others in your Three Musketeers group are here, you probably want them at your table.

• Start by posing questions or issues.

• Pretend to trust and believe an epigram. What does it mean?

• Repeat.