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[baconman]

garudoh's YouTube channel, "The Music of Video Games."

Old-school and "middle-school" (8-bit/16-bit) gaming concepts, when it comes to core gameplay. But I also can't deny, some semi-modern titles like GTA games (San Andreas especially), Mario Party/Smash Bros., and Need For Speed titles have given me some "games about gaming" concepts, too; along with an adventure-favorable approach to gameplay and character development. Fighting game trope characters are a big inspriation to my character personalities too, as well as popular movesets. Musical games like DDR and GH/RB have nearly educated me on music theory singlehandedly; and this combines with the old-school/middle-school gaming love rather adeptly. Recent Marvel Comics games, a bit as well.

TIGSource itself is a huge pool of inspiration, as semi-regularly well-polished titles are produced after many months, sometimes even years of hard work. It's also great to see what fun titles are produced during compos like Ludum Dare and Jams here, as well. It's also endlessly fun (and distracting!) to discuss lots of neat stuff here, like games and design, programming futziness, and things like this thread. It's also great to try new titles and provide feedback.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. On a tremendous number of levels. Yes, I mean the novels, the movie, AND the game here, not just one or another. The SPvTW Game OST has been stuck in my head for 3 months now, and it's not going anywhere. It also illustrates something important and relevant to my main project - that it's completely possible to mishmash a metric asston of coolness into a seamless, cool experience that also brings a sense of originality to it as well as paying much tribute to many sources of coolness.

[Cheezmeister]

I don't see how inspiration and motivation are related any more than are creativity and productivity. Sure, they're the two most important ingredients for dynamite final products, but decidedly independent ingredients.

Seeing others' games and talking to devs about what's in the pipeline motivates me to fire up my own development more than anything else. As for inspiration, I couldn't say. Creatively, I'm not the type to stand on the shoulders of giants; I tend to experiment and generally screw around until I find an idea, mechanic, concept or whatever, that I've never seen before.

[s0]

I'd really like to get all pretentious here and say I'm inspired by existentialist philosophy and advanced mathematics or something, but I'll be honest: My inspiration for making games comes from playing games.

And from music. As a huge music geek, I often start designing my games from (the idea for) the soundtrack upwards. Thinking in terms of music gives me a nice sense of what sort of "feel" I want the game to have, if that makes any sense.

[Theophilus]

And from music. As a huge music geek, I often start designing my games from (the idea for) the soundtrack upwards. Thinking in terms of music gives me a nice sense of what sort of "feel" I want the game to have, if that makes any sense.

I think this is a bit of a controversy. When composing, many say that you should have graphics done first, so you can look at the whole game's visual and match it with sounds. I feel it would be very difficult designing a game from music up, maybe because I don't have an ear for it, but it's much easier to describe something in terms of visual rather than aural.

[gimymblert]

I'd really like to get all pretentious here and say I'm inspired by existentialist philosophy and advanced mathematics or something, but I'll be honest: My inspiration for making games comes from playing games.

It is sad that if you genuinely like those thing it is automatically pretentious.

[eiyukabe]

I'd really like to get all pretentious here and say I'm inspired by existentialist philosophy and advanced mathematics or something, but I'll be honest: My inspiration for making games comes from playing games.

It is sad that if you genuinely like those thing it is automatically pretentious.

Sad truth is that, nowadays, if you exhibit any attempt to think/speak/or produce art above and beyond the murky waters of pop culture, then you are "pretentious" 

I nominate the word "pretentious" to be thrown away as overused to the point of worthlessness, along with "racist", "terrorism", and "mysogyny".

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

others are 'pseudo-intellectual' and 'over-educated'

there is a class of words just used to attack people who haven't done anything wrong other than to try harder at life than someone else

[mirosurabu]

I think this is a bit of a controversy. When composing, many say that you should have graphics done first, so you can look at the whole game's visual and match it with sounds. I feel it would be very difficult designing a game from music up, maybe because I don't have an ear for it, but it's much easier to describe something in terms of visual rather than aural.

Music is one of the powerful visualization techniques for me. (:

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

konjak has said he designs from the music as the starting idea, and that noitu love 2 is based on an ocremix of a megamanx song he heard once

[dek]

What keeps me going back to programming, drawing, art in general, is mainly the emotions and feelings that I was able to get in my younger years by gaming. I only need to listen to certain pieces of background music from games back then, and I am so filled with the need to recreate this feeling by myself, it can keep me going for weeks.. after that I usually have abit of a less creative time, until I have such an experience again.
To be honest, I think it is a tiny bit like that with most of the people that are into any kind of creative "craft" that goes into the gaming direction. Its pretty much nostalgia rooted (re-)creativity.

[Nitromatic]

konjak has said he designs from the music as the starting idea, and that noitu love 2 is based on an ocremix of a megamanx song he heard once

Wow, that's quite a story. Also one of the mindblowing things was when I discovered that Noitu Love is Evolution backwards.

[eiyukabe]

konjak has said he designs from the music as the starting idea, and that noitu love 2 is based on an ocremix of a megamanx song he heard once

Wow, that's quite a story. Also one of the mindblowing things was when I discovered that Noity Love is Evolution backwards.

Mind == blown.

I usually try offhand to read things backward if they just sound random to see if it's a backward message, but this never occurred to me for Noitu Love :X

[Alec S.]

And from music. As a huge music geek, I often start designing my games from (the idea for) the soundtrack upwards. Thinking in terms of music gives me a nice sense of what sort of "feel" I want the game to have, if that makes any sense.

Same here, man.  I've currently got a couple games in the works where all I have for them are a song and some design docs.

I'd really like to get all pretentious here and say I'm inspired by existentialist philosophy and advanced mathematics or something, but I'll be honest: My inspiration for making games comes from playing games.

It is sad that if you genuinely like those thing it is automatically pretentious.

Sad truth is that, nowadays, if you exhibit any attempt to think/speak/or produce art above and beyond the murky waters of pop culture, then you are "pretentious" 

I nominate the word "pretentious" to be thrown away as overused to the point of worthlessness, along with "racist", "terrorism", and "mysogyny".

I've pretty much started self-identifying as "pretentious."  In the same way many of us probably started referring to ourselves as "nerds" or "geeks" at some point in our lives.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that seems ridiculous to me. existentialist philosophy is a major school of philosophy, that's what it's called. what else would you call it? continental philosophy, i guess...? but there's some continental philosophers who aren't existentialists

i think pretentious actually means 'i don't know what you are talking about but i'll make fun of you for being stupider than me for knowing things i don't know'

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i saw the original feynmann interview where he talked about that, yeah. but remember that he never read philosophy, and failed his philosophy class in college (i believe it was the only class he failed). so it's natural that he has a grudge against the field

also, to me, a lot of what feynmann did *was* philosophy, he just didn't call it that. one of his books was entirely about epistemology, he just didn't realize it. a lot of his anecdotes also deal with philosophical subjects, such as the distinction between names and the objects named (where he talked about his father teaching him about birds and other kids' fathers teaching them the names of birds) -- to the degree that i'd have no problem with calling feynmann one of the major philosophers of the 20th century

but yes, it's part of my point that it depends on who you are talking to. basically i think that if you (you in general, not you specifically) do not know anything about a subject, you tend to look down on people who know about that subject, and your eyes glaze when they talk in detail about those subjects. but that doesn't mean those people are trying to sound smart, or even that they are using complex words to talk about simple things, it just means that they're talking about something you don't know about, using jargon you don't know, but which is perfectly plain and simple to them

i also do tend to agree (controversially, since i'm a fan of u.g.) that the *only* use for philosophy is mental gymnastics, or mind-exercise, that it does not deal with real things, and that it deals entirely with made-up things. but i think it's very very good at that exercise utility, and those who don't do philosophy (not just read it, but actually do it) are at a total disadvantage when it comes to mental gymnastics and clarity and organization of thought compared to those who have, even though the subject matter of philosophy itself isn't useful for much. at the very least i think everyone would do well to take a basic philosophy course in logic, in high school rather than college, it'd help a lot

[Alec S.]

but yes, it's part of my point that it depends on who you are talking to. basically i think that if you (you in general, not you specifically) do not know anything about a subject, you tend to look down on people who know about that subject, and your eyes glaze when they talk in detail about those subjects. but that doesn't mean those people are trying to sound smart, or even that they are using complex words to talk about simple things, it just means that they're talking about something you don't know about, using jargon you don't know, but which is perfectly plain and simple to them

This.  Gabriel, you said the distinction for you would be between someone saying they're "inspired by philosophy" and "inspired by existentialist philosophy".  But if I heard someone say they were "inspired by philosophy," my first thought would be "any kind(s) in particular?" and if they couldn't answer that, I'd think they didn't know what they were talking about.  It would be like if someone said "I'm inspired by science," rather than "I'm inspired by Astronomy/physics/chemistry/ect...".  Or people who claim to like "all kinds of music but rap and country" but, when pressed, couldn't name a bebop, baroque, space-rock or trance artist they like.

[Theophilus]

Another thing that inspires me~

All the j-pop/whatever-it-is in the DDR games. I like that music.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

re u.g.; u.g. is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti

he's known as an 'anti-philosopher' who disbelieves in everything in philosophy, religion, and in all human thought. he's currently the "philosopher" i like the most (i've gone through a couple of phases over the years, and this is my current phase). he's famous for saying "crazy" things perfectly seriously, like 'a cabbage is more alive than a human being' and 'the sounds of a coffee machine making coffee make more sense than the words of me or anyone else'

and i agree you need to consider the audience of course, but this is tigsource, we should assume that everyone around here is at least moderately well-educated, so i don't think referring to the existentialists is that out of place here, it's basic knowledge anyone should know. he wasn't referencing a specific work or something -- if he had said something like 'i'm inspired max stirner's rejection of hegel' then that would probably go over most people's heads here. but i don't think simply knowing who the existentialists are and what their basic message was is over anyone's head

besides. this is the age of wikipedia. if we don't know something, today we can just as easily look it up rather than call out the person saying the things you don't know. this is particularly true on internet forums, where you can highlight a word, right-click: search, and it's done.

[bento_smile]

I am inspired by the darkness in us all.

Also, poop.

(Actually, I am serious about that first one, only because I find motivations for doing bad things interesting, and like to make games about bad things in an attempt to understand them. I'm just mocking myself by phrasing it in that way.)

All this talk of pretention... I gave up reading books and watching films for quite some time as I heard too many derisive comments about it.

[Jesse]

Another thing that inspires me~

All the j-pop/whatever-it-is in the DDR games. I like that music.

You're crazy XD

I love the music for dancing to (I play DDR every day) but I couldn't stand actually listening to it.