Panel
Paul Stephanouk - Design Director of Candy Crush. Previously EA, Zynga, Bossfight, Schell Games, Big Huge Games. 20 years experience building and running creative teams.
Kelly Tran - Co-founder and Game Designer at Evolved Play. Previously, Game Design Professor researching games and players at High Point University. PhD in learning and tech. Solo Twitch - Group Twitch - Website
Xelnath - Game Designer World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Snackpass Tochi. Founder Game Design Skill.
Ian Schreiber - Senior Game Designer Oxide Games, previously Assistant Professor Rochester Institute of Technology.
Dan Felder - Lead Game Designer Riot Games. Previously Abrakam, Blizzard, EA.
Brandon Dolinski - Level Designer Eidos Montreal. Previously Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age.
Christopher Ory - Lead Designer Rec Room. Previously PerBlue, Ignited Artists, EA Maxis, The Playforge.
Michael Austin - Chief Creative Officer and CTO at Hidden Path Entertainment. Previously, Xbox Advanced Technology Group.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik - Co-Founder and Game Director on Tut at Karnak Studios. Consultant on Nightscape at Mezan Studios.
Notes
Creativity is teachable.
Designers tend to think linearly or mathematically which sometimes makes it hard to come up with new ideas.
Roles titled “creative” are harmful and untrue as the language assumes that other roles are not and cannot be creative.
There is social baggage to creativity.
Definition: Ability to come up with unexpected ideas.
Finding connections between dissimilar things
Interesting = unexpected or novel
Wouldn’t have come to that solution linearly.
Framing the questions of how you’re trying to solve it makes a difference.
An example shared by a designer was being asked Do you have concerns on the current build? vs. What are your biggest concerns about the project?
There is a gatekeeping persona around creative people.
You can develop creativity into a skill.
Embracing situations through curiosity not judgement.
People can start off with a small set of tools and ideas and emerge allow the creativity to emerge from that starting point like a tree unfolding. One node and scaling it up. This is called Emergent Creativity.
Another form of creativity works like a kaleidoscope, you need a baggage of experience to combine into your final outcome. This is called Convergent Creativity.
Creative exercises sometimes are the creative pushups you need. Examples include:
Improvisations creates social confidence.
Working with something limited.
“Yes and” is a great thought process to have.
Pointing out problem isn’t useful, finding a better solution is valuable.
“I have a deliciously terrible idea” is an incredibly liberating phrase:
Plausible deniability.
Still shows enthusiastism.
Drugs don’t make you creative. Psychosomatic magnifier.
The rulesets of Gamejams force you to move forward. Rapid iteration and ideas.
Accomplishing three design solutions is easier than one
What does our genre do to accomplish that?
What does another genre do to accomplish that or another medium?
Questioning assumptions and getting rid of assumptions.
List your assumptions and ask what if one of these isn’t true.
Putting constraints on yourself is enormously beneficial.
Three problems with the talk of creativity:
Betray sense of creativity if people go off-track from the constraints.
Cult of creativity be focused on the objectives and not for creativity’s sake.
The concept of being an artist is lost. They shy away from improving existing ideas.
Incremental rather than radical creativity.
Loud experienced people take up space, making other people feel they have to be like that. It’s important to give space to other people.
Creativity is an outcome with two main processes, collecting pegs and defining the shape of the holes in the pegboard.
Then you select the right pegs for the right holes.
Chef will look at the ingredients and use them to their advantage to improve/try new recipes.
Be introspective about how you feel as you go through real life experiences.
Find the playfulness of creativity and embrace the ripple effects.
Taste without talent is the worst.
This is a great design dive, I've been following for a few weeks and there are great articles !
I'm actually a cognitive psychologist and had a class at university about creativity and a lot of what you said was there!
In this class, I also liked the quote that said "there is a difference between teaching creatively and teaching creativity", because I guess it can work with design too. Is creativity used by the designer, the audience or both? In a back and forth, iterative way or with a particular structure?
Anyway, I like in your article how creativity is near a playful experience itself.
Thanks for making those design dive!