Tools

Concept Frenzy

Gather a gazillion ideas in as little time as possible.

WHY USE THIS?
It can be quite difficult to come up with a game idea. Sometimes, throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks can be a wonderful way to start. To do so, we will dumb down game ideas to the following sentence:
A [thing] in a [location] needs to [achieve something] by [a mechanic].

For example:
A bread in a house needs to become toast by climbing.
A goose in a village needs to annoy villagers by moving objects around.
A cup of coffee in a dream needs to wake up by tilting the camera’s perspective.

After this you should have a broad variety of potential game idea’s. Some good, some brilliant, some horrific.

HOW TO FRENZY?

  1. Create a canvas with the columns ‘THING’, ‘LOCATION’, ‘GOAL’ and ‘MECHANIC’ as shown below.
  2. Assign each team member with a column.
  3. Hand out at least 20 post-its to every member.
  4. Let every member fill the assigned column with whatever comes to mind.
  5. Get together and make interesting/funny/creative combinations.
  6. Decide which combination sparks the most enthusiam.

EXAMPLE CANVAS