Feature

RD’s Take on Creativity Priest: Good ideas are surprising, novel or unexpected!

PlayCoo Product R&D Department

Senior Game Designer CHENG, Ching-Lun (Priest)

R&D subsidiary PlayCoo has been producing games that did well in the market in recent years. From Lucent Heart to Divina, these games have won over countless players. What keeps these players coming back? The design team undoubtedly spent a great deal of effort on designing the game content. G!VOICE has invited the Cheng, Ching-lun ("Priest"), the lead designer for Divina, to share with everyone his experience with creativity in R&D.

G!VOICE：What is your source for creative inspiration in game development?

Priest： If we are talking about creative ideas, my main source of inspiration is thinking about all of the people and experiences in my life and then giving them a new spin. What you learn in an everyday setting is therefore very important. You can't just look for creative ideas by playing a lot of games. You must look at all the different things around you in everyday life such as the news, movies, music, TV shows, group gatherings etc. You then convert and apply the information you absorbed through these channels into the game. So don't just look for ideas in games.

G!VOICE： How do you usually generate your creative ideas? What's the hardest part?

Priest： My ideas sometimes really do just come to me as a flash of inspiration. You might be stuck with nothing for several days but then one day, it suddenly comes to you and you wonder why you didn't think of something so simple before. The best ideas are a simple concept that doesn't require several pages to explain to everyone else. If people go "Yeah, that's pretty good" when you lay it out then it's a good idea.

The hardest part about creative inspirations is not being able to think of something new. Completely original ideas are very rare because there are so many people on this planet thinking about the same things. Someone might have thought of your idea 800 years ago. So, most creative ideas are based on something that already exists. Apart from keeping your ears open and your eyes peeled, chatting with your other team members in a more casual setting using media as an aid may also help set off sparks, such as watching movies, TV shows or playing other games together.

G!VOICE： How do you encourage creativity in you team?

Priest： I provide guidance to my team by throwing questions at them instead of writing the issue down. For example: Do you think our game is social enough right now? Or do you think that our current players don't need the glue of social networking? By using this approach, I can point out current deficiencies in the game and also get everyone's input to bring people up to date. Rather than telling them the conclusion directly, I try to stimulate their thinking and give them something to think about. Interestingly enough, once someone takes the lead then everyone will get involved. If someone is too shy to speak their mind openly but is instead discussing it in a small group off to the side, I intervene and ask them to share their thoughts.

G!VOICE： Please briefly describe your creative process.

Priest： I begin by setting a general direction. Since it's really hard to be completely original, I would start by going through what we already have. For example, my game might lack an interactive social event. I would then look at group events to see if there are any suitable interactive games because all the ideas in single-player and online games have pretty much been done to death. I would combine it with some real-life elements to come up with something creative. Sometimes though, a really good idea does come to you as a flash of inspiration and you must make good use of it. Ask yourself: why do I think this idea is interesting, and then extract the interesting part. Now fuse a lot of interesting parts together and you end up with a new creative idea that you can call your own.

G!VOICE： How do you identify good ideas?

Priest： If you need to go to a lot of effort to explain how an idea should be realized then that idea is probably going to take a hit. With great ideas, you can usually convince the audience in just a few sentences. I personally prefer ideas that are surprising, fresh or unexpected. For example, back when jump didn't exist in online games, after someone puts in jump for the first time a player presses the jump key and finds that "Hey, I can jump!". That's a completely different experience. A side-effect of that experience is that from then on, whenever you enter a game you would see if there is a jump key. And when you discover that there is no jump then you feel the game is a little weak.

Of course, being weak on the creative side is not necessarily a bad thing. A creative system is best but a good system doesn't necessarily have to be creative. Nevertheless, you can't ignore the fact that something creative not only sucks the player in but also has more oomph when it comes to marketing. The idea might even become a standard feature. Good ideas will be imitated and by a lot of people, so innovation is very difficult. It's easy to come up with something that nobody else has tried before but whether it is fun and feels fresh to the player is a whole different matter. If the players don't like it, even good ideas can end up being useless.

G!VOICE： Please provide an example of your creativity.

Priest： In Divina there is a treasure hunting mechanism. Players can use a dowsing stick to search for treasure in the maps. It's easy for us to hide 100 items on the map but game balance means we can't allow the system to keep generating items. On the other hand, we don't want players to dig up all the items on the map in one go. Once I set this as my general direction, I suddenly thought: If we can't keep giving items away, why don't we let players bury their own items? The buried items will get mixed up system items so you won't know if the item you detect came from a player or the system.

Allowing players to change the game ecology is a current gaming trend. It not only reduces the cost of development but also boosts the players' sense of involvement. The system eventually led to a lot of players burying strange items for a joke. We even added a message function so the player can leave a message when they bury an item. Some players now leave a humorous message laughing at people who find the strange rubbish they bury. The idea not only solved the problem of the system generating too many items and players not having enough treasure to dig up, but also allowed players to create a new way to have fun in the game.