6 Secrets To Great Game Ideas

hey hey this video is brought to you by Squarespace thank Squarespace yay Hey Wow hi my name is Thomas brush and the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called never song that's releasing in May is it already May it's May so it's releasing sometime this month and it's not me is it I don't know what today is but yeah I click the link in the description to wishlist those games they're gonna be on pretty much every platform you can think of pinstripe party is and that would be cool thanks guys so I'm running out of ideas and that's not surprising considering I'm almost 30 and I feel like the older I get and I know that that's not that old but the older I get the harder it is to come up with game ideas and story ideas and and I guess feel stuff right it's weird you just sort of you have family and you have bills and and things just sort of start to get a little bit dry and gray and

that's just the nature of I guess getting older and I'm not worried about it it's just the way it is and so I want to sort of discuss openly and honestly with you guys what that's like and maybe some solutions that I've been thinking about about how to come up with aggi with game ideas and story ideas or whatever that your creative project is yeah it's yeah it's a it's gonna be a weird video cuz I don't really know what I'm gonna say but I have some thoughts okay guys before we get started this video is brought to you by Squarespace believe it or not I've been wanting Squarespace as a sponsor for so long mainly because Squarespace is awesome I've been using Squarespace for I think six years both my websites Thomas brush calm and at most games calm where I host my games in my portfolio my resume all that cool stuff is hosted on Squarespace it was created with Squarespace Squarespace is cool because you can look amazing you can have custom designs and

pretty much do anything you need to do for your business or your own personal brand always Squarespace and you don't have to know how to code so if you guys are interested in creating a website with Squarespace click the link below squarespace.com slash thomas brush and use the promo code thomas brush for 10% off yay yay I love Squarespace I really do thank Squarespace there's a couple things that I've realized before I get into like six tips about how to find game game ideas I kind of want to just on the at the beginning of this tell you my thesis I think basically the more comfortable you get in your life the harder and harder it is to express yourself and feel anything honestly so you know I'll be honest with

you guys I've been pretty comfortable lately I'm not struggling financially like I used to things have gotten a little a lot better actually in the last couple months weirdly because the economy is seemingly collapsing but when it comes to games I'm actually doing alright so I'm not really as nervous as it used to be about life and my relationships are pretty good relationship with my wife is great my family is great I have friends and a community and nothing is really problematic really there's been some recent struggles but overall things are pretty good and I've noticed that when things get really good the quality of my work declines and that's a shame because

it means that in order to have good work good game ideas good story ideas you need to remain in turmoil and I know that that sounds what's the word masochistic I know if that's the right word but it's true if you're not emotionally connected to the world if you're not plugged into the world you might feel comfortable but you're also not going to be able to express the world to other people express what you're feeling so I've found that and I talked about this in my previous video I found that it's important to be emotionally connected to the world in some way and that means doing things and experiencing the world in a painful way and a way that you're not necessarily comfortable with the common phrase is

getting out of your comfort zone right and I've been pretty comfortable lately and I'm learning that that's not a healthy way to be when you're a creative person so that's my thesis right the thesis is if you want to be a good creative you need to be experiencing pain and you need to have an emotional connection and turmoil with the world because quite frankly we're all we're all experiencing the world in probably a painful way to some degree most people experience the world in a painful way the world is not easy for most people and so if you find yourself in an easy situation it's kind of not real because the truth is is that we're all going to experience the world in a very painful

way and honestly the world takes everything from us eventually right and so it's important to remember that and try and connect to that in expressing yourself so I've got six ways to trigger new ideas with that thesis in mind so the first one is you need to change your environment I live in the suburbs in South Carolina it's a beautiful day outside I hang out with my family every day my wife is act actually just down the hall my daughter is playing with her toys in the next room it's it's very important especially during this virus to safely get out of your little bubble and experience the world so I've found that if I go and just ride my bike so I bought a new motorized bike a couple days ago and if I just ride that around and experience you know a mile down the road experience what is a mile down the road outside of my little bubble suddenly I think new

ideas start to pop into my head and I think it's because our mind knows how to be comfortable it figures out its like its default instinct is to find the most comfortable mental state and when you put yourself physically outside of your current situation so you go in go on a walk or you go to a new place or experience a new city your brain suddenly has to reroute and figure out a new comfortable place to be so I think it's really important it's not a huge Long Point but I think it's really important for you guys to go on a walk go on a run go on a bike ride get out of your house safely right and following the law which is unfortunate but I think it's really important to get out of your house get out of your comfort zone and go to a new place and suddenly you're gonna find it the ideas are just a little bit more a

little bit more energetic and a little bit more unique the second thing that I've been learning is this is really actually super relevant to me right now throw out all of your plans for your for your game or if you're writing a script or you're doing some kind of a piece of artwork or any creative project get rid of the plans get rid of the financial goal in your head that's so concrete I mean it's good to have a financial goal of what you want to make off of your project but if it's so solid and it's so important to you you're going to find that it just ruins your whole paradigm of creativity I'll give you what's been happening to me lately there were several publishers that I had in mind for my next game and they were throwing out financial numbers to me over email about what they were thinking the game might cost and that was exciting to me because it meant that I

could make a really big game and and I could release it on this massive platform and with this massive publisher and that would be so cool what that did for me is I started to cater my's at the word yeah I just thought about Chipotle being catered to me and I got hungry I don't I don't know if that's the word I started to cater my designs and my story and the gameplay mechanics that everything was based around what that platform and what that publisher wanted from me so honestly it kind of turned into an employee employer relationship it's not always a bad thing it's it's definitely okay to to create projects for publishers but for me personally this is a big no-no because what it did is it made me create a game that I didn't want to make so you guys have probably noticed in my live streams I'm sort of going all over the place with my game I'm sometimes it looks a different

way in other days it looks a different way sometimes the stories one thing and then it changes the next day and that's because I'm literally in a battle between what I was told might be important to a specific platform and then also what was in my own heart what I wanted to make the intro sequence for my next game in my head has always been a businessman walks up to an edge of a building and jumps off the building suicide is very dark very deep and challenging introduction to a game and the audience if it was children the game would not sell right but what I've learned is if I avoid that introduction for my game I'm not telling the story that my heart is connected to I'm not telling the story that I think is probably the only story I've got

currently in my heart that I want to tell I don't really have any other options so if I try and cater myself to what a specific platform wants from me I'm not probably not gonna find an idea out there that I'm willing to spend my time to tell so I've pretty much thrown out the idea in my head I've thrown it out the idea of signing with specific publisher or specific platforms right now I just don't care I just want to make a great game and so I've pretty much decided I'm not gonna think about the money I'm not gonna think about the publisher or the platform I'm just gonna make what I want to make alright the third way to find ideas is to find some kind of emotional turmoil but it's important to remember that you need to also find your security in games now I'm not saying make your complete identity in the games you're making or the creative project you're making that's that's a recipe for depression I think what I'm trying to

say is find emotional insecurity in the things in life that you would expect but try and keep the confidence in security you have currently as a game developer and that obviously is a huge ask the reason I say that is because it's really important to be emotionally connected to something that might be painful meaning don't just ignore your family if they make you feel pain right if your family hurts your feelings or your friends hurt your feelings or I guess people in your life make you feel pain I mean some time it depends on what I guess your therapist tells you but in my opinion it's important to try and stay connected to people who give you a little bit of pain because they connect you to the real world and they make you feel things that you're not gonna feel otherwise it's gonna help your work to be connected to painful people in painful situations I mean that's just the way

the world is however it's important to not let that pain cause you to have insecurities in your dream of making games and making great games so experience the volatility of the world over here but also try and ground yourself in confidence about your game so you can confidently pursue the expression of the pain that you have in this world I'm not saying be a masochist and just go cause yourself emotional turmoil I think plenty of us already have that without even trying but if you're in a situation where you're really comfortable playing video games watching Netflix drinking beer eating pizza going to the bar with your friends that's not really experiencing the world experiencing the world is going to be painful and uncomfortable but that's honestly the only real way to create great content because in the end the content you create is an expression

of what you've experienced so there's really no way getting around it if you're gonna plug yourself into the world you're gonna feel pain but that's a good thing because you can express that pain to other people who are also experiencing that pain but again remember be confident in your game so that you can express those negative feelings step out of security go do something that scares you go do something that's interesting go jump out of a plane right I went skydiving actually this is funny because I decided to do something that terrifies me which I'm pretty much scared of heights probably not as bad as most people who are scared of heights but I am scared of heights I wouldn't just jumped out of a plane last year I think it was and that terrified me but my next game has skydiving in it so that immediately an idea came from doing something terrifying and it was that simple so think of something right now what is the last thing you want to do right now go

do that thing and you'll probably get some ideas for your project that's the unfortunate truth you guys are probably hearing an echo of that thesis from the beginning of this video which is if you want to have great content you probably need to experience a little bit of jolt of pain or discomfort or insecurity and your body and your mind well in this sounds woowoo but it's not your body will immediately start to produce some kind of feelings and emotions to deal with that pain and those feelings result in good ideas all right so the fifth tip to come up with good ideas for your game or your creative project talk it over with someone you trust think about some people you trust right now not necessarily people who are good with making games or anything just people who have your best interest in mind really care about you it could be your grandmother go talk to her about your game ideas it's not necessarily that she's gonna give you ideas it's that she's going to

affirm what you're thinking and maybe even help you feel confident enough to pursue an idea that you think might be stupid but in reality is great sometimes I think about knotch you know talking to his grandma and saying I have this idea where you place you know squares and then you break the squares and you collect the squares and then you do it again and again and again it sounds like maybe an idea that you'd go that's a terrible idea I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make a game like that but all he needed I don't know what his story was but all he needed was someone to go that's kind of cool you should make that game and you should call it minecraft you know sometimes we just need some affirmation about an idea I can tell you I've got like six or seven ideas that I'm really insecure about right now that I just don't want to pursue because I think they're stupid but sometimes I'll tell those to my parents or my family or my wife and they'll say I really like that idea that's a cool idea and in my head I just

I wasn't feeling secure about it but now I have that security to move forward and take the next step to making that that idea come to life all right the sixth and final tip about coming up with great ideas is honestly guys just consume content you're not used to over all this tip isn't you know there's nothing really to flesh out here other than just consume content that you don't necessarily approve of or that you're used to and this is just gonna sort of stretch your mind a little bit I found that it's important to just consume content in general and for some reason I don't know why I'm this way but it's really hard for me to consume content I like to make my own content but it's really hard for me to sit down and play my Nintendo switch or sit down and watch a Netflix series it's kind of like hard work for me in a weird way mainly because I get jealous right I get jealous of what I'm looking at but I find that if I consume that content

especially content that I don't fully understand content that my I guess my emotional predispositions are used to if I consume that content I find myself the next morning considering making a game that has some of the aspects of that content in it a good example of this is what's that game called yeah kali army Calot calamari weird Nintendo switch game tell me in the comments there's this game where you're on these islands it's recent it's unattentive switch and you can wear this hat and explode the Hat and make these little creatures and critters on the island laugh at you and it's all about exploring this Eiling island and getting to know characters on the island and it's very bizarre it's very childish it's definitely not my style or my sensibilities very very abstract but I just watched a let's play of that game

for like three hours oh one day when I was sick I was kind of forced to just watch it let's play and that single three hour let's play is what sent me into a sort of a brainstorming session about a game idea that I was having about islands in the sky and I was having this idea but this game helped sort of fortify that are this sort of helped solidify that game idea and so just consuming three hours of content that's weird that I'm not used to helped build up a new idea and who knows maybe it's gonna be a million dollar idea I don't know but guys that's basically all of the tips that I've been thinking about over the last couple years about how to create good game ideas if you guys like this video leave a comment subscribe you [Music]