How to Be Creative

[soniCron]

This really should have been titled "How to Follow Your Passion." It's an excellent article over at gapingvoid about developing yourself so that you can persue your creative passions. I don't agree with everything he says, and he's a little...well, mad at "the man," but it's a solid piece of work and well worth the read.

gapingvoid: how to be creative

[Anthony Flack]

Oh, it goes in-depth? Well, I might or might not read all that, but I agree with the list anyway. It's a good, wise list.

[GBGames]

Heh, awhile back I printed it out to read later only to discover that the images hadn't all loaded. B-( Definitely a great read, though.

My favorite: 6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

It goes along with my belief that it isn't that some people have talent and others don't. "I can't draw" was one of the most annoying things I have ever heard. I had difficulty ignoring the urge to grab the person, throw them in front of a piece of paper and pencil, and yell, "LEARN, MAGGOT!"

...this is a post that is going to stick around on the Internet for years, huh? No political aspirations for me then. B-)

[mahlzeit]

6. Everyone is born creative

Too bad that lots of people are born more destructive than creative. ;)

[Andy]

Pardon guys! I just can't resist to not make a quotation. :D

"Their (publishers) business model is to basically throw the pasta against the wall, and see which one sticks. The ones that fall to the floor are just forgotten."

REM: Nice catch Daniel! Now back to work. Back to work. ;)

[Ratboy]

It goes along with my belief that it isn't that some people have talent and others don't. "I can't draw" was one of the most annoying things I have ever heard. I had difficulty ignoring the urge to grab the person, throw them in front of a piece of paper and pencil, and yell, "LEARN, MAGGOT!"

Hey! I count on those people for a living!

(snort)

[Raptisoft]

You guys forget that creativity is a serious liability. I've been sitting here four hours tweaking the way a word "bonus" appears on the screen. Four f'ing hours. That's what creativity got me today. Four f'ing hours and an f'ing headache, and meanwhile I'm suicidal because somehow all the merits of my current game have fled and focused down into one small point of contention-- this bonus animation. Without the perfect animation, the game is garbage. I think I'll go cut off my ear.

Who the hell wants to be creative? It's not like it gets you girls when you dress in black with a little beret and talk about how you're really a vampire.

[papillon]

It's not like it gets you girls when you dress in black with a little beret and talk about how you're really a vampire.

Visit more LARPs.

[Jack Norton]

Without the perfect animation, the game is garbage. I think I'll go cut off my ear.
Who the hell wants to be creative?

That's what you get when you make casual games, I agree. You have to make everything perfect.
Luckily for other kind of games I don't have to worry too much about that. For example while making a game like UBM, I have to know the rules of boxing well, but if I want the commentator to be a big fat ugly boy I can do this and I won't lose sales for that ;)

p.s. on the other hand probably your games sells 10x mine so don't complain too much

[Grey Alien]

Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

about half the threads on the forum seem to be about this one...

[Savant]

It goes along with my belief that it isn't that some people have talent and others don't. "I can't draw" was one of the most annoying things I have ever heard. I had difficulty ignoring the urge to grab the person, throw them in front of a piece of paper and pencil, and yell, "LEARN, MAGGOT!"

That's not really true, though. Most people really can't draw. It doesn't matter how long they practice, how many books they read, and how many lessons they get.

It's just like how some people don't have a brain wired for programming. They just don't. They've never understood it and they never will - and no amount of eye rolling or telling them to read a book is going to change that.

[Emmanuel]

Maybe a more accurate definition is that you get to be creative and driven if you can create something where your talent, interest, and market need all intersect.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Anthony Flack]

More accurate definition of what?

You might want to try reading the article; there is a lot of very well-written content in there. Even for people who don't really feel the creativity thing, it might help explain why those crazy people act the way they do. Why "market need" sounds absurd to someone who is pursuing a creative urge; like saying you need talent, perseverance and fish fingers. The article doesn't tell you how to be "successful", and actually gives a few reasons why you might reconsider even trying to be "successful".

Also, I'm yet to meet someone who couldn't "learn to draw" - if learning to draw is learning to turn something you see into something on paper with the proportions and shading accurate. There are techniques you can learn and practice that will give you this ability if you want it. However, that doesn't really get you any closer to drawing something good.

[paulhuxt]

Maybe a more accurate definition is that you get to be creative and driven if you can create something where your talent, interest, and market need all intersect.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

curiously, according to this more-accurate-definition,
copying existing creative works (paintings, games, ...) would be "creative".

For example, a forger making a copy of a Picasso or Rembrandt painting would meet all your requirements (talent, interest, market) and would be "creative", isn't?
I don' t think that this is what the word "creative" means...

[steve bisson]

haha i like number 14 " Dying young is overrated. " :D

[mahlzeit]

For example, a forger making a copy of a Picasso or Rembrandt painting would meet all your requirements (talent, interest, market) and would be "creative", isn't?

Go ahead and try to forge a painting from that time. It's more than just copying the pretty picture. You have to use the same paint the original painter used, you need to account for decay in the materials, etc. Some forgers have even created new paintings and pretended they were painted by Van Gogh (or whomever) even though Van Gogh never painted that.

[Artinum]

Creativity is fun. It's brilliant.

The problem is that the brilliant idea you start with is then followed by a load of hard work to actually do anything with it. I mean, I've been inspired recently by an idea for a rather different way to play a role playing game. But I lack any ability to construct it, so the idea is largely useless to me. I could pass it to someone else and they may even look at it, but even assuming it got made it would be totally different to my vision.

What a pain.

[turbo]

To me it's a priority..

Creative means working with original material you create yourself,
and when working with and meeting established standards at least putting your own spin on said work.

True it takes tons of time and hard work but nothing great is achieved without that.
Also, if you don't have the skills you can put in the effort and acquire them.

There is absolutely nothing more addicting and fulfilling than the creating of
and watching the evolution of a project developed under these conditions.

[impossible]

I've been inspired recently by an idea for a rather different way to play a role playing game.

I'm curious now, what is it?

[Artinum]

I'm curious now, what is it?

My notes - I write them down just to empty my head - are now up to about ten pages. It would take a while to expound them all here. But the fundamental differences to regular rogue-alikes are:

(1) It's realtime. I'm somewhat inspired by Flatspace here (which is in turn inspired by many Rogue-ish elements) in which all the other ships have their own tasks. You can follow them around - mining ships actually mine, and when full they find a space station to unload before going mining again. Pirates do similar, sucking up cargo and selling it. Anyway... in most RPGs the monsters just seem to sit around waiting for the player to wake them up, and this seemed odd to me, so I liked the idea of monsters wandering around doing things and maybe even fighting each other.

(2) You have a band of adventurers, but only one main adventurer (and if they die, you lose). Control is more limited but more intelligent - if you use a potion the game knows you mean drink it, not throw it or unlock doors with it. You control the other characters in your band indirectly, giving them basic instructions like "stand guard" and behaviour patterns like "aggressive attack", "protect leader" and "run away from danger". Otherwise they act fairly independently.

(3) A variation on the item structures of the Final Fantasy games - I rather like the concept of collecting certain items from certain places/monsters and then using those to construct useful equipment (better arrows, say). Just not quite as bizarre as some of the Final Fantasy items...!

Here I go, talking about it like it exists...

[Vorax]

Artinum - are you describing what is out there or what you are going to make? See comments

(1) It's realtime. I'm somewhat inspired by Flatspace here (which is in turn inspired by many Rogue-ish elements) in which all the other ships have their own tasks. You can follow them around - mining ships actually mine, and when full they find a space station to unload before going mining again. Pirates do similar, sucking up cargo and selling it. Anyway... in most RPGs the monsters just seem to sit around waiting for the player to wake them up, and this seemed odd to me, so I liked the idea of monsters wandering around doing things and maybe even fighting each other.

EVE Online does all those things - (so closely it sounds like you are describing it acutally)

(2) You have a band of adventurers, but only one main adventurer (and if they die, you lose). Control is more limited but more intelligent - if you use a potion the game knows you mean drink it, not throw it or unlock doors with it. You control the other characters in your band indirectly, giving them basic instructions like "stand guard" and behaviour patterns like "aggressive attack", "protect leader" and "run away from danger". Otherwise they act fairly independently.

Check out Jade Empire or Knights of the Old Republic.

Drones in EVE or Pets in games like SWG, EQ, etc (though not quite characters) are allso controlled in a similar way.

(3) A variation on the item structures of the Final Fantasy games - I rather like the concept of collecting certain items from certain places/monsters and then using those to construct useful equipment (better arrows, say). Just not quite as bizarre as some of the Final Fantasy items...!

Numerous games have this it's generally called 'crafting' (almost every MMORPG - EVE, EQ, SWG, WoW, etc, etc.)

Here I go, talking about it like it exists...

But it does! ;)

[Anthony Flack]

Also worth noting - the article mentions fairly early on that being creative involves masses of hard work, probably for little reward. And if you want to make a go of it, you need to find a way for all that hard work to fit into your life in a way that won't kill you.

[Christian]

Very nice article, there are a lot of things to say about creativity, this one says many truths, im gonna keep reading it. Thanks for sharing it.

Masses of hard work are needed to achieve own goals. Your own goals come from creativity. Creativity comes from beign a bit brave, you have to be brave to pay attention to what you really want and to want to get it no matter the odds.

[AVataRR]

Oh man that article is loong. But I found these point to be particularly poigniant:

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
----
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.

and this

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
----
"Well, the target market are middle class houswives," I rambled. "They're quite conservative, so I thought I'd better tone it down..."

"You can tone it down once you've gotten the job and once the client comes after your ass with a red hot poker and tells you to tone it down," he laughed. "Till then, show me the toned-up version."

very encouraging. ^_^

[Artinum]

Artinum - are you describing what is out there or what you are going to make?

EVE Online does all those things - (so closely it sounds like you are describing it acutally)

And there you have it. Any good idea I've ever had is then instantly copied, developed and sent back in time to before I came up with it! I can honestly say that I've never heard of EVE Online - I don't normally go for RPGs but they can occasionally catch my eye. I rather liked Moria but I couldn't get into ADOM at all...

Oh well. Safe in the knowledge that it's already been done, I can stop writing it all down! :-)

[Grey Alien]

"only the good die young, all the evil seem to live forever" - Iron Maiden

[mahlzeit]

Oh well. Safe in the knowledge that it's already been done, I can stop writing it all down! :-)

This happens to me (and probably everyone else) all the time. I come up with a great idea and ten minutes later I find out it already exists. Except that it really doesn't. Often ideas are similar only on the surface. Dig a little deeper and you'll find out that they are really not the same as your idea.

[soniCron]

That's what happens when you don't get your ideas out there. Now, go read the article and use it as a guide to get yourself out there.

[Artinum]

Fascinating article, and those pictures vary between "strange" and "hilarious".

I thought I'd share a quick snippet here that I didn't see mentioned on this article and which I am currently trying to live by. As you may have noticed elsewhere in these forums, I'm starting up a proofreading service (currently obtaining feedback on the website). While I do not doubt my ability to proofread, I know that my webdesign skills are limited and that I can't draw decent images in any medium, but I've uploaded a website and invited criticism. That can sting sometimes.

(As for crayons in kindergarten - I, like many people who claim they cannot draw, are not lazy. We are suffering from a mental condition. We can picture the image we want to draw, we can see what's on the paper, we just can't make the mental connections to get from A to B...)

All my ideas for... well, anything a bit risky like this, have always remained just ideas. I'll spend so long planning them, working out what's needed or getting the details sorted that they never actually get anywhere.

This time I'm doing things a little differently. Instead of planning the descent and uncoiling the rope, I'm jumping off. I know already that this isn't the best way to go and I'll make plenty of mistakes as I go - but if I don't jump, I'll be up there forever working out how to get past that first crag.

So I'd like to add to this fellow's suggestions - "Screw it, just jump. Or you'll be waiting forever."

[Savant]

Or in terms of another book I read, "Ready, fire, aim". Figure out what needs to be done, start doing it, make course corrections along the way. You don't have to be perfect to start doing it.