GDCNext 2014: Practical Creativity slides

Today I delivered a lecture at GDCNext that was my tips for “practical creativity.” Basically, it’s a collection of techniques, habits, and ways of thinking drawn not only from lots of reading and research into creativity in general, but also my experience in visual, writerly, musical, and ludic arts. It touches on breaking down craft elements in games, on choosing ambitious and unusual themes, on simple lifestyle habits, on the power of “scenius” and collaborators, and much more.

I wanted this to be deeply practical. I myself have been using these methods a lot in the last year — maybe slacking a lot on the “get regular exercise” one. And it’s been very fruitful for me, almost too fruitful, pushing my prototype hit rate over 90%.

I really wanted to emphasize the fact that in all this, the craft is inseparable from the art, too. Creativity in craft drives creativity in art, and vice versa.

The talk was recorded and no doubt will appear, given time, on the GDCVault. In the meantime, here are the slides, presented without notes or anything. So you’ll miss out on the many times I interrupted the presentation and put the attendees directly on the spot to create new ideas on the fly using the techniques presented. My favorites: the game that actually taught dancing in psecific dance styles like the tango, and the game about learning how to ride a bicycle.

The eagle-eyed may spot a slide with the description of a new boardgame of mine that is testing really well so far, a romance novel game…