How to make an “Innovative” game

Now then, I’m the least-qualified person on the planet to write this post, but everyone’s entitled to an opinion, right?

Anyway, Innovation (with a capital I) seems to be a current buzzword floating around the gaming community recently, along with emotion and graphics (ahh, more GLSL please…). It’s nothing new, but I think it’s being appreciated more now that we’ve gotten tired of seeing the same-old-space-marines in cooler-looking gear.

How does one make an Innovative game, though?

Well, first I’d like to make a mandatory statement of what I think Innovation is, so here goes…

Innovation is an creation or change that inspires new gameplay and design.

It’s not a brilliant description, but I think it fits in the context of game design. There are many games that introduce new mechanics in their gameplay, but in the grand scheme of things these changes may be small and not drive the concept of the game in new directions.

Now, here’s something that I think Innovation is *not*…

Innovation is generally *not* a change in the content of a game.

If you take an existing game concept, say Pong, and change the theme so that it’s two ducks bouncing around a lily pad in a pool, that’s not innovation - that’s content change. For the purpose of this blog post at least, artistic contents of a game is not innovative unless it is somehow fundamentally linked to the game mechanics.

“How do you make something new, though?” you ask…

Games are essentially input-output systems. It takes a bit of thinking, but once you figure out how these systems work it’s relatively easy to figure out how to use them to create something new.

For example, lets take a typical first-person-shooter and break it down into its basic elements (even more basic than shooting).

Input

• Keyboard
• Mouse

Output

• Sound (including footsteps that change whether you’re running/walking, enemy sounds, environmental sounds - you get the picture)
• Visual

This is where the player gets most of their input in modern games. Aside from the obvious factors of how much ammo you have left and where enemies are, there are a lot more subtle areas that can be exploited.

• • Areas/what you see on the screen can be altered. Portal is a good example of what I mean here.
  • What if you could warp the position of enemies instead of shoot them?
  • Gravity, time (of day?), weather - all are things that are typically represented in computer games, but could make interesting games by themselves if focused on.

Ultimately, I can’t tell you how to innovate, but hopefully you’re getting the idea. If you want to look at it from a programmer’s point of view, you’ve got a number of important variables within the game like the XYZ of the player, their rotation, camera angle, gamma adjustment, object size, etc that can all be made into effective games by themselves. Go open your favorite computer game and try to deduce all the different variables within it, from whether you’re driving or walking to what color each pixel is. Could a game focused around a specific one or more of these variables be fun?

Also consider the rules of the game, and how these might be changed to create something fresh. It takes a little sleuthing, but you’ll be able to see quickly that the “rules” are a lot more complicated than “shoot at the baddies”. For instance, most games require you to *look* at the baddies to aim. What if there were consequences for looking at certain things? (In the context of variables, this is the player’s rotation we’re talking about)

So, I hope I’ve helped you to get a few new creative ideas for your next game. If you’ve got any comments, suggestions, or think this doesn’t make sense, please leave a comment below. If there’s interest in these sort of posts, I’ve got more where this came from, so please let me know!