Often, even the best ideas fall at the first hurdle, 'the next day test'. Whenever I have an idea, I am so emotionally attached to it and so thrilled to have connected the dots, I succumb to a deep subjectivity that can only be assuaged by forgetting about it - at least for a night - and coming back to it fresh. When waking up the day after, and really thinking about an ideas qualities and flaws, I can usually separate the wheat from the chaff. Commonly, there is a lot of chaff.
It would seem the idea is lost if it's apparent values the day before were hollow. This would leave me deflated, and even if there are some notes made or an image drawn, this fragment of an idea will become useless over time. But, could one of the components of the idea have been usual in the future? Might I have found a different medium to explore it and suddenly the misgivings melt away? Would someone else have heard about or read my idea in a years time and deemed it perfect for their needs, or had input to iron out its imperfections?
As a diligent designer, I have developed a three step pipeline for ideas. Each stage is in itself designed to record aspects of the idea, show the development from the core principles into initial details and allow a foundation for practical work to be born from.
Step one: GID (Game Idea Document)
This document starts life with a template that is no more than two pages in size. It opens with the basic high level details like genre, title, platform and hook that give you a seed with which to work from. Next, you make space for the game overview, a simple sentence or two that summarises what the game is and what you need to do to play it. A section on game-play follows the overview, which may be a bit chunkier and include the occasional technical reference that emerged in your initial brainstorm, but essentially is still concise and high level. Here you should include the single component that is your 'hook' - usually the bit that got you excited in the first place. Also include where the player begins in the game, what obstacles they need to overcome to progress through it and how they are able to gain reward - often by completing the game, however this is becoming less important to the player these days. From writing these first two sections, and likely a mechanic or two that the game-play will hinge around, you now have a foundation to include a 'wrapper'. This wrapper (game world/setting/narrative) only needs a line or two, and is often the most changeable of the idea, but is the jumping off point for the more creative side of the project.. Finally, leave yourself some space to include additional notes, maybe on user interface, visuals and audio etc, essentially any other offshoots of your idea that seemed to pop up or fit well during the initial conception.
Once the document is saved, file it away somewhere and move on. Don't try to hash out details or construct elaborate ways that you'll receive a BAFTA when it takes the world by storm. Just take a break from it. After some time has passed, take the idea out again and give it a once over. Does it make sense? Do you still get a little flutter of excitement? If not then put it back in the folder - for it may contain something useful for another project later on down the line. If yes then take it to the next step, the GDDO or game design document outline. Here you can set up all the categories that you'll need to write up a full GDD for the final step, but without being bogged down by research and technical explanations. This is again something you can easily do in a single sitting, so is unlikely to become a useless fragment. But I will get to that next week...
