Snowflaking with an Idea

“But the truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do with it."

I've been chatting off and on with a fellow who's been trying to break into video games.  Amusingly enough, he's always asking opinions about one thing or another, but the only time he accepts the opinion is if it's of a superficial nature.  He's rather stubborn that way.

A problem crops up though, where he'll often ask an opinion on something and the only correct answer is, as with most things relating to subjective matters, are "it depends".  The only way to get a sense of whether it would be better to have a character who swings a slow attack strongly or a weak attack quickly, is if you can actually quantify what's exactly strong, weak, slow, and fast.  For what purpose would the attack serve?  Is it for the player character, a faceless mob character in a sea of enemies, or the final boss?  What type of game is it anyway?

The last question is the most important and the game as a whole hinges on it, but to truly understand what exactly he's going for, I need to actually look at all of the material and plans for this marvelous game idea he has, so that it makes sense.  If this fictional character is an old decrepit man, having quick energetic attacks don't make sense.  Unless he's an assassin in disguise, in which case it does.  Unless the way he assassinates is via kidnapping his target and setting them up in a bizarre trap while he very very slowly attacks them with a powerful attack.  It just depends.

Unfortunately getting information out of this guy is pretty tough.  He'll give the bare minimum and not much besides that.  He is intrinsically afraid that someone will steal his idea.

It is a ridiculous fear.  Making a game is far more time-consuming than writing a script and drawing some art assets, so the amount of time saved for someone to do that is laughable.  Not to mention, someone stealing your idea doesn't mean that they will actually implement it well!

How many times do you remember a game with great design, a fine story, good art, but it's still somehow just not fun to play?  You could have a nice innovative design for a puzzle game, but if the levels are lackluster, the whole game is a farce.  You could have a gripping story being told through an expressive RPG, but if the game is a buggy unplayable mess, who's going to care?

If you want someone to take a look at your hot new game idea and you really want good feedback, show them everything.

Everyone has an idea.  Those ideas are never truly new.  What matters with those ideas, is what you do with them, so stop putting your ideas on a pedestal.

"What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has been already
in the ages before us."
-Ecclesiastes 1:9-10