Creative Lightbulbs

Getting the Creative Process Going

By Zane Wetzel

One of the absolute hardest things that a person may have to do may also be the one that people may think to be the easiest at times: coming up with potential ideas for a project, which means tapping into our imaginations and inner thoughts. For some, this can be as easy as knowing to eat ice cream on a hot summer day; they just do it and let the creative juices flow. For others, they may struggle for days on end trying to find that idea, that spark that they need to get themselves going. But once it happens, it can strike like lightning, and once the flood gates are open, it can be easy to get things done. The process is different for everyone, but this chapter Inside the Creative Process has a few good ideas to help get the gravy train rolling.

One way is to keep a journal that you write in as often as possible about your thoughts and ideas. It can be a safe place where a person can place their thoughts and ideas about topics or things that they think might make for a good game concept. By doing so, it provides practice in discipline by giving a person the daily training that they need to hone their skills, as safely vent about things that they may have a problem with. More importantly, though, it can be a place where you can store potential ideas that you can them come back to a later point in the development process to improve the game that you’re making.

Then there is the idea mine, essentially a place where you can write down any possible ideas that you may have. It can be a place where a person stores all the misc. ideas or thoughts that a writer may have that they want to be able to use for later. It can be used to create a cast of basic characters and locations for your game, fresh ideas that strike like lightning, or just serve as a place for your imagination to go as wild as you want without any pressure.

Whatever way you may try to churn ideas, the thing to remember is that if you don’t save it, you may end up losing it for good because you didn’t write it down somewhere.

As for me, I decided to give the idea mine concept a shot and see what sort of things that I could churn out for my upcoming game assignment.

One cool idea that I have had mulling around in my head for years is something involving the Headless Horseman: what if you challenged him to a race on a Harley motorcycle. Come on, picture it, it'd be awesome. You riding with your shades as the Horseman would be chasing you holding his Jack-lantern head in one hand and hacking at you with a sword. Oh, then maybe you dodge him and pull out a shotgun and shoot his horse like the Terminator would do. That'd be cool! Oh, I am defintley using that in my game!

Like I said, Idea Mine, place to store your ideas and mine them later for usage. I also have this idea about trying to get this lucky 7-leaf clover back from a leprechaun who stole it but claims your ancestors stole it in a crooked card game. Once I start with the ideas, it's hard for me to stop, so I write them down for later.