Plan for Paul Malyschko

I did not have the pleasure of going to this year's IGC, but I was eager for a synopsis of Jeff's speech. Thankfully, Dan provided us with that.

Coincidentally, I was drafting a document on how to foster innovation, documenting the ideas I've implemented within my own nascent team, and many of which Jeff mentioned in his game design speech, which leads me to believe I'm headed in the right direction. However, one important difference I've noticed was our stance on innovation.

I believe Jeff is right in saying that as a whole, game design is about fun, not about innovation. Clearly innovation does not always lead to fun. However, given the right environment, innovation will come about on its own.

People may need to rethink the the meaning of innovation, since it is such a loaded term. Innovation can grow in any part of the game development process. We are seeing it all kinds of things: the component system, the Looking Glass, the very concept of Content Packs. As far as game design goes, there are plenty of crazy ideas being developed out there too.

So in a roundabout way, I agree with Jeff. DON'T worry about innovation... it will arise naturally if given the right environment. So I present for your pleasure my Guides for Creating an Innovative Environment. I have to pay credence to my major influences in regards to these ideas: emergent systems, agile development methodologies, Jim Collins' "Built to Last", Seth Godin's "Unleashing the Ideavirus", and my game design and business heroes, Ion Storm's Harvey Smith and Relic Entertainment's Alex Garden.

I should note, these are only guides, and they certainly won't suit every indie team. I love the concept of innovation, so I want to make innovative games. The golden tenet, "Make The Game You Are Passionate About", holds forever true, so if these ideas rub your team the wrong way, you're best off forgetting about it.

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Guides for Creating an Innovative Environment

1. Establish a breadth of ideas

Ideas are your bread and butter. You need to establish a breadth of ideas as opposed to the depth of one. The depth of an idea can be worked on at any time. The important thing with this guide is to encourage others with different viewpoints to contribute, and not to strike down ideas. Implement an obligation rule with idea criticism - if someone criticises an idea, they should be the one to propose a solution, however preposterous. Hold regular idea development sessions, where team members champion an idea another member's idea to develop. Remain detached from those ideas.

2. Set achievable goals regularly

Goals give a team direction and confidence. Since time is something of a rare commodity for indies, that time really needs to be productive. If at the start members are setting monstrous goals for themselves, they'll become frustrated and the time will be wasted. Encourage small steps, challenge yourself and start striding. Goals also need to be explicit, as in "I'll do all the exercises up to Chapter 3 in the book Python Game Programming this week", as opposed to "I'll learn a bit of Python this week".

3. Challenge yourselves

It's a challenge just keeping a team motivated and informed. If you can keep that energy up, you've overcome the first challenge. The best time to challenge yourself is when you're beginning to feel comfortable. Learn to recognise when you're cruising, work that groove for a bit, then challenge the team before that groove becomes a rut. It's important to recognise too, that in the case of challenging yourself, it's not always a case of "bigger is better". It works for well in some cases, but only up to a point. Throw around different ideas for challenging yourselves, both in the short-term and especially in the long-term.

4. Don't wait to innovate

Time, as I mentioned before, is short for the indie. If you want to innovate, do it with your first release. It needn't be huge; it may be as simple as doing a game from a new perspective, e.g., as play the role of a supersheep herding shepherd (winks at Phil). You can challenge yourself on later projects (see Guide 3), but you need to make a conscious decision to innovate right from the very beginning. There aren't many game developers who realise how influential history is until they try to do something against their grain. There are countless anecdotal examples: my local commie developer, Ratbag Games, is one. All they've ever made is racing games, and the one time they tried to do an FPS title, it got canned. They have a dedicated R&D department, and the best they can come up with is another racing game.

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Innovation is something I'm always interested, so I'm always up for a debate. These guides are a work in progress, as I experiment with new ways of working. My team has only been established since the September 1st, and we are getting closer to alpha testing our first product. Only time will tell if my theories on innovation are pertinent.