Anyone read the recent thread "Games that teach design"? I feel that everyone is looking at game ideas from the wrong angle. Sure, you can (and should) learn from the mistakes and successes of existing games, but you can''t just limit your research to that. We''d be living in a world of remakes if every game was based only on areas explored by other games. Inspiration can be derived from anything - buildings, places, plays, operas, animals, people, paintings, books, anything. So what inspires you? here are a few of the things that inspire me. Cragside (huge victorian house in North England. The first in the world to be lit by electricity. Full of strange stuff, definitely worth a visit) SS Great Britain (First screw driven steamship, built by IK Brunel. Laid the first telephone cable across the Atlantic) Classical music by: Berlioz (esp.Symphonie Fantastique), Tchaikovski (1812, romeo&juliet), Grieg (Peer Gynt), and others Music by Aaron Copland English folk music (there''s a good variations compilation out there by Vaughn Williams) Strange/archaic machinery- 78 record players, rexaphones, steam engines, cine projectors, televisors, Lorenz and Enigma code machines Old/strange weaponry - matchlock&flintlock muskets, sword sticks, crossbows, suits of armour, combination sword and musket weapons (the Maximilian Mask) (check out the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds) Strange vehicles: Airships, Ekranoplans , Coleopters, autogyros, the atmospheric railway(IK Brunel again) The Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol (Brunel) Bristol (loads of beautiful old buildings, arranged in Crescents) Follies (bizarre and usually pointless structures. Check out "Follies" by Gwyn Headley & Wim Meulenkamp, and "Crypts, Caves and Catacombs" by Graham McEwan) Clocks and chronometers, especially seafaring ones built by John Harrison (look him up) Barometers and other meterological instruments. Bletchley Park (WW2 codebreaking centre) The Mark 1(Lovell) radiotelescope at Jodrell Bank the Roman bath house in Bath Folk Legends (one book you could try is "mystery animals of Great Britain" by Graham McEwan) The Baby (worlds first stored program computer, built by Manchester university) Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift (this sounds corny, but it''s an excelent book. Actually a fascinating satire on contemporary British politics, but mostly read for it''s fantastic worlds. Make sure you read all 4 parts) Kidnapped, Treasure Island & Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux & musical by Sir Andew Lloyd Webber

Well if I were to list every movie, game, place, experience, etc that has inspired me this message would go on for several pages and after reading it you would know my life.
If I had to pick the top things..well I can probably do that but I''m being fairly general here.

Ancient Civilizations and mythology from Egypt to Norse.
Aviation, especially WW2.
Harry Turtledove and Glen Cook books

Okay I''m not even gonna try to list anything else, there''re even hundreds of "top" influences =p

Isn''t this what I''ve been saying for over a year now? Stop getting your inspiration from other games and start getting inspired by things in the real world, or at least from other''s works that are different from the medium of games.

I said it here a year ago. And I kind of said it here two days ago.

I am in no way trying to steal your thunder, Captain Insanity. I am wholeheartedly agreeing with you. Given your interests, you might find the inventions of Tesla interesting.

There''s nothing more important than to be well-rounded...Just like DeVinci wasn''t just a painter.





...A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

well nothing wrong with artists, level designers, writers, etc... being inspired by these things. Atmosphere is no substitute for a game though. If you want to be inspired by things other than games you have to look at what people do. People brawl, they go to war, they hunt, they herd, etc... those are the things game designs can be inspired by.

I am inspired by experience, people, and events... Anything comes into that category. Mainly because absolutely everything that occurs has an effect on your mind in one way or another. Every person you meet changes your conditioning just slightly. It is for this reason that we are all individuals. Individuality in itself is an inspiration.

But Landfish, Nazrix, Runy, Wav, RTS, MKV, etc are some of my inspirations here

Thanks, dwarfie
You''re inspiring too. You''d be more inspiring if you showed up more often though



...A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Sorry, short holiday break. I haven''t been doing any IT units over the semester, but I will be next semester. I got dragged in by my TV and programming. I am making the Non-linear event Web into a template for C++ but other than that a massive partitioning problem wiped all my computer and so I am left starting from scratch with everything. That is something that is NOT inspiring TV and Crashes

But now that I am back for a while, lets see what ideas we can get out played

Different kinds of inspiration work for different people, but I don''t mind sharing my list in the off-chance that someone will find something they want to explore too.

I''m not just a game designer, I''m an anything-that-does-not-require-lots-of-math designer, so some of my refrences are for art, some for writing, etc. I can provide internet links to any of this stuff if someone''s interested. Likewise, if you know of something that''s in the same style as the stuff I''m listing, please tell me about it.

Architecture: I particularly like the works of Antoni Gaudi.

Fashion Design: I like the things that have been coming out of the Christian Dior company in the last few years, retro clothing, mideival clothing, raver clothing, goth clothing, and Las Vegas showgirl/San Fransisco showboy clothing.

Fine Arts: I like Louis Comfort Tiffany, the T''ang dynasty, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali, Nene Thomas, Franz Marc, heraldry, carousel horses especially by Illions, and various stained glass windows.

Books: I could never list all the books that have influenced me, but my ''uniques'' list is:
Don''t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee
Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh
Ender''s Game by Orson Scott Card
The Sugar Trilogy by Paul Park
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss

Games: FF7, Sanitarium, Myst, Tender Loving Care, Woodruff and the Schnibble

Movies: The Game, Center Stage, The Lion in Winter, War of the Buttons, The Chocolate War

Ah... I watched Fight Club last night, and it was still the best. It is inspiration.

I think that TV in general is NOT an inspiration at all. I found that it started sapping my mind and my creativity. As soon as I started reading again I started getting imaginitive. Books are the imagination of what I need... Music is good for creating mood and for getting the creative juices flowing.

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - The future of RPGs Thanks to all the goblins in the GDCorner niche