Improve your design abilities adapting this writing method by Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin was born poor and he stopped being educated when he was 10 years old. He developed a method of self-education and became great at writing informative texts. Here there is his method:
“I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.”
Can this be adapted to game design?
Try this:
- Find good videogames and make hints of every interesting part you see. Start from the brickfile.
- Wait for a few days and then come back to the hints. Who is the target of this game?
- Try to reconstruct the features and mechanics that you can reconstruct. Focus on the simple things, don’t overcomplicate it.
- Wait again for a few days and then come back. Does that make sense? Is the audience the same again or you are looking for other kind of Players?
- Repeat 3 and 4 until you are happy with your result
- Prototype just the things you improved!