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[Melly]

I've heard sometimes that one of the big challenges to creativity in gaming is that everyone seems to draw most if not all their inspiration for games from other games, creating a cycle of inbreeding that makes truly unique ideas more difficult to appear.

So I was wondering if you guys knew good sources of inspiration for games that have no relation to games whatsoever. I tend to find some more abstract artists to be awesome sources of inspiration. I'm way too tired right now to enumerate them, but I'll get around to it.

[gimymblert]

just everything ?

Remind that :
http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-an-Open-Mind

[Border]

A good walk in the wood  or playing music is good for me.
it force my brain to work hard but differently so sometime it bring new perspective on old problem

[I_smell]

A lot of the people in my games are based on actual people, some stuff is just based on jokes, I made a game once based on really awesome song lyrics, and I made one game based on early 90s cartoon shows. One game was based on how people react to games, but that probably doesn't count.
Just remember a game doesn't have to be based on feelings or some shit to be interesting.

[tsameti]

Books are great. Literature or [not greek/norse/judeochristian, we see too much as it is] mythology is better.
Discovery channel is great. Goddang, I want a shark week game.

Film is crucial. Some very cool people in the Indie scene have a film background.
Music! Get your hands on some jazz, some obscure rock, trippy electronica, soulful folk, rip-roarin' country, anything and everything that makes you feel like the ground is falling out from under you.

Tabletop games have inspired a lot of people, formed the whole foundation for a number of genres.

Your grandparents are great inspiration (not joking: brain age). If you can figure out a system that gets them excited and involved, you've got a winner.

[Chromanoid]

my strategy is the following... (i don't think it is very special but i will write it down anyway:))

try to create your personal virtual cabinet of curiosities.
cabinets of curiosities are a great source of inspiration. i think their rl time is over, but you can revive them in a digital form (folders on your hd).
->
collect pictures (picdumps collected by people from foreign cultures are a good source), ebooks about stuff you would normally never read, uncommon music etc.

i personally try to focus on rl/non-fiction "knowledge", in rl there is so much interesting stuff and it is the root of inspiration. beside this our reality is where real problems are solved. this means that you may find real problem solvers in totally different areas than game design for game design.

don't hesistate to build up an archive/knowledge base about things other people would classify as not cool, offensive or evil-minded. fiction often needs evil stuff to be thrilling and things most people don't like lead to new stuff ^^.

[jakten]

Yeah I tend to listen to a lot of weird music (by normal people standards its fairly normal to me) And have huge files of pictures that are interesting to me in some way. I used to read a lot of wikipedia entries on strange things or different cultures.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/ is a website I visit often that has a lot of very interesting articles about strange and weird things that happen around the world.

[Akari]

Films, TV series, anime, wikicrawling... also, having someone else to design stuff with also works great, quite a lot of ideas that me & Zotged have in our games were born when we were discussing our other ideas and then new ones spark from the conversation.

[Hajo]

I've planned on reading fairy tales. Book is on my table, and I read a bit, but always something else seems to be more important. Still I think fairy tales can be a source of inspiration, and since I forgot so many during growing up, I want to re-read them.

[J. R. Hill]

I get most of my ideas for games and music and pictures while I'm doing something mundane like playing hackey sack or snapping myself with long rubber bands.

[nikki]

when i answer this post the way you want, aren't I creating a cycle of inbreeding too? I mean just use your sensory tools (eyes,ears,mouth,taste) and your brain. Then everything everywhere is ok as 'inspiration'

edit. The assumption that most games take their inspiration from other games doesn't sound to right to me either. Most games use genres that are already existing. But could you for example name anygame out their thats about a plumber and saving a princess and has some toads/turtles in it and isn't called Mario?

[Border]

or snapping myself with long rubber bands.

mmm i never tought of S&M as a source of inspiration. if it work it ok for me  

[jrjellybeans]

I just read a book the contained tips about how to be more creative (59 Seconds: Think A Little Change A Lot).  What I got from this book was that you can be more creative by:

- lying down
- placing a plant in your room

Great book by the way!  I'd recommend it for everyone!

[Melly]

- lying down
- placing a plant in your room

Truly this will change the world as we know it.

edit. The assumption that most games take their inspiration from other games doesn't sound to right to me either. Most games use genres that are already existing. But could you for example name anygame out their thats about a plumber and saving a princess and has some toads/turtles in it and isn't called Mario?

Themes and plot tend to vary (somewhat, and increasingly less so) between games, but core mechanics are usually very derivative. 90% of platformers since Mario use most of Mario's mechanics (jump, jump on enemies, fall on spikes/in pits, etc).

When you say that most games use genres that already exist, you forget that genres are built on a number of core mechanics, coming from the first games to spawn it, that are perpetuated in the vast majority of games in that genre, which IS taking inspiration heavily from other games.

[astrospoon]

I've actually been thinking a bunch about this topic lately. The crux of the issue is that a game's theme and its mechanics are best when they work together seamlessly.

Unfortunately, when I go looking for inspiration outside of the usual areas (games and movies) I end up with a bunch of really cool THEME ideas, but very little in terms of new mechanic ideas.

Something like: Oh.. cool.. I just learned about the underground railroad. That could make a cool game. It could be like an Stealth RPG, where you are trying to escort the slaves safely to the north, and hiding in basements etc, etc...

There are of course, a million themes that haven't been explored well/at all in games. It is a completely valid decision to be inspired by some theme outside of games, and make a game using traditional mechanics to show off said theme.

More interesting, but of course harder to do, is to come up with unique ways of PLAYING games while taking inspiration outside of games. Of course, this essentially boils down to creating new genres or sub-genres. But of course, visualizing gameplay in your head doesn't always tell you much about how it will work in practice.

I think the best way of stumbling onto new ways to play games is just to prototype. This is how say, World of Goo was created. I'm not sure thinking about goo balls without coding would have led to the mechanics that make up the game. But then, of course, you have this kind of strange non-theme theme pasted on to fit the game play.

It is the very rare game indeed that merges new, great, and fun mechanics with a new unique theme that is best expressed using those new mechanics. That is some kind of game design grand slam. For the most part, people are satisfied playing games that only innovate in one of the two areas.

[nikki]

When you say that most games use genres that already exist, you forget that genres are built on a number of core mechanics, coming from the first games to spawn it, that are perpetuated in the vast majority of games in that genre, which IS taking inspiration heavily from other games.

I do have to disagree lightly on you here this is why; If the core mechanics is what your talking about -instead of the themes/plot. I haven't been clear. Instead of core-mechanics I thought you were talking of the stories games are built on.

But if its about the core mechanics how is any game to come new? and how is any inspiration going to help you? Aren't all computer-games family of the greater group of games we call computergames, and aren''t all their core mechanics about spatial things, reflexes, user input and showing something on a screen then?

[Derek]

Looking at cool artwork always gets me going.  The Badass Art Styles thread is a good place to be for inspiration!

Something like: Oh.. cool.. I just learned about the underground railroad. That could make a cool game. It could be like an Stealth RPG, where you are trying to escort the slaves safely to the north, and hiding in basements etc, etc...

I think one key (as opposed to "the key") might be to think slightly past a 1:1 conversion.  In other words, if you come up with the theme "underground railroad" there's no need to develop an "underground railroad" game but to think about things that are tangential to the theme. (e.g. gardening -> Pikmin)

Regarding the inbreeding of video game ideas in general, I don't think it's really an issue.  It's strange to me that even within video games it's considered somewhat shameful to play a lot of video games.  Maybe I don't know enough about art, music, or movies as am industry, but it seems to be less of an issue there... in fact, I think you are more or less expected to be an expert in those fields if you want to do anything great.

Melly, not that I am saying you are starting this thread out of shame - it's a great topic.  I'm just curious why it seems to be such a big deal to bring in "outside" ideas in video games, when there are clearly many outside ideas (or completely new, fantastical ones) already present in every game.  I'm just theorizing that at its root it has something to do with cultural shame over video games and fantasy in general.

Video games are obviously not the first medium whose creators have felt the need to defend themselves this way... I think we're just carrying the torch.  Check out "On Fairy Stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories

[Derek]

Like, the Fallout series, for example, deals with a number of interesting "real-world" topics: 50's music/architecture, nuclear proliferation, the misuse of power, the role of government, paranoia, slavery, morality...

Also, off the top of my head...

Bioshock: I've heard this is inspired a good part by Ayn Rand/Objectivism.  It also sounds like a bad game, so I haven't played it.

Sim City: City planning

Civilization: the entirety of human history, diplomacy

Braid: Time, Relationships

Aquaria: loneliness, love, the role of the creator

Cooking Mama: cooking, being a mama

Etc.

Games DO cover these types of "mature" themes all the time.  Is it the fantasy element that makes people ignore/disrespect that fact?  I'm very curious about this topic.

[Chromanoid]

Games DO cover these types of "mature" themes all the time.  Is it the fantasy element that makes people ignore/disrespect that fact?  I'm very curious about this topic.

many people believe it and i believe it too: it is all about generation conflict and cultural habituation. books, music and films (art in general, food etc.) all had to go and are going through it... some time ago all books but the bible were corrupting our souls. in many islamic countries the depiction of humans and animals is impure. the liberation of our minds is only at the beginning... I think it will just take some time to establish games in western culture.

[Snakey]

Perhaps Derek, like many creative people, we sometimes just get stuck and fall into a rut. Some game developers that spend a lot of time playing other people's games get scared into thinking that they may steal an idea. I suppose it's the idea if your game turned out being like someone else's game you could safely say "I never played his game, so I didn't copy it!". But I think it's a shame that if a game developer doesn't play other people's games, then it can lead to a lack of growth in creative development skills (i.e, I might still think that the best method to do x is always x and will always be x ... till of course someone else comes up with y.)

Anyways, back onto topic, I suppose sometimes we sit on our chairs and just sit their tapping our pens on books and get frustrated as to why that blank page is still a blank page. We used to be teeming with ideas, but now that we've got the skills to develop a game why is there no more ideas? In part, I think for me personally it has to do with me spending so much time sitting down and learning how to develop that I no longer exposed myself to games, movies, music and books which of course started the desire to make video games to begin with. It took a while for me to realize this, but I've gotten back into playing other people's games, watching movies, reading books and listening to music ... and I think the creativity juices are starting to flow again (I expect this to be taken out of context).

To be honest, it was like when I played Spelunky. I and wondered why I didn't make this before you did (since I loved most of the themes and ideas you presented).