Tomas and I have had a phone call to do some ideation for our game concept (Korec, T and Waters, J. 2021.). While we took this call, we had a Miro board open that we would collaboratively contribute to and add our ideas (Miro, 2021).
This Miro board can be viewed here. Alternatively, this Miro board is also accessible via the ‘Ideation’ menu that now sits on the right hand side of this page under the name ‘Indie Game Startup’.
The results of our ideation session can be viewed under a frame on our Miro board titled ‘Rapid Ideation’. All the ideas we brainstormed, as well as how they would fit with a game are listed within this frame.
Ahead of the meeting, Tomas and I searched for images, article and videos that had various topics or subject matter that we could used to develop a game concept. These were documented on Miro.
Tomas and I had agreed early on that we wanted to create a point and click adventure, but we now needed to find an idea for a story or concept for this adventure. The articles and videos we found covered a range of different areas and during the ideation session, we came up with some of the following ideas:
- A murder mystery set on a cruise/ship
- A man discovers a vinyl record, but when he listens to the record, he has visions of an alternate world
- An android escapes from a factory and needs to survive in the wild, as well as finding ways of keeping powered up during their escape
However, the idea which stuck out the most and the one we developed the furthest was about an owl who lives in a treehouse in a forest. When their treehouse is destroyed, the owl discovers that large machines are destroying the forest and extracting resources from it. The owl must mobilise all of the other forest animals to take on and dismantle the machines, as well as to save their forest.
If you look at this idea on the Miro board, you will see all of the ideas we have come up with about how the game will unfold and how it will be played. These ideas still need to be developed further with more ideation regarding the game mechanics, as well as more discussion and research about how to make the game more appealing. Tomas and I will look at this in the coming days.
Additionally, we both agreed that at present, the way we have ideated the concept seems to better fit a strategy game, but as we want to make a point and click adventure, we want to focus on how we can make this concept work for a point and click adventure.
Tomas and I will continue working together in the coming days to refine this concept. In our first lecture, the tutors advised us not to rush the ideation session and to spend some time on it. However, Tomas and I really like the idea we have come up with and we have decided to settle on this and develop it further. We also both have experience of previous projects we had done during this course in which the ideation phase lasted too long and this meant we had less time to produce this idea. Given that we need to create a prototype and a business plan, along with the fact we have been lucky enough to develop an idea between us that we both like early on, we will develop this further.
References
Korec, T and Waters, J. 2021. [Ideation session] (personal communication, 1/10/21)
2021. Miro. San Francisco, CA: RealtimeBoard, Inc.[Software]