My best advice for game designers is to be interested in and curious about lots of things besides games, and to do lots of things besides play games. It makes you a richer person and a better artist. - ThreadSky

amabel.bsky.social • 52 days ago

My best advice for game designers is to be interested in and curious about lots of things besides games, and to do lots of things besides play games. It makes you a richer person and a better artist.

Reposted from Matt Thrower

This is also true of tabletop games.

Comments

drawnonward.bsky.social•52 days ago

I feel like one of the biggest barriers here is that relatively few designers, especially newer ones, would describe themselves as artists. And when the majority of games they play aren't flexing their artisanry it becomes easy to ignore or dismiss.

travisdhill.bsky.social•51 days ago

Yes! I think people see things like painting and film as X% mechanistic understanding and X% creativity/artistic inspiration. But they don’t see that game design is the same way. Both can be exciting. Both can be uninspired.

biffybeans.bsky.social•52 days ago

Big yes.

spanishspy.bsky.social•42 days ago

📌

motherpandaimonia.bsky.social•51 days ago

As much as I love hearing your opinions about games, those opinions only mean so much to me because I have at least a tiny idea who you are outside of making games. Not that I know you well by any stretch, but every little bit of knowledge about your other interests helps understand your points.

mattthr.bsky.social•52 days ago

I once planned out a series of pieces on how literary theory could inform games criticism. It is a bigger jump than it is to video games, but there are still points of relevance

johndubois.bsky.social•51 days ago

The only real barrier to this is the number of people who make games and insist on being unserious about their design choices being meaningful acts of communication

travisdhill.bsky.social•51 days ago

So much this, John.

jennakinkade.bsky.social•52 days ago

Desperately true.

minervatabletop.co.uk•51 days ago

I remember an interview with a script writer who said that their ability to write for their sitcom was tied to their lived experience. Eventually they would run out of natural inspiration and it was important to continue to explore new experiences so as not to become stale creatively.

scottnicholson.bsky.social•51 days ago

In related news, it's a continual annoyance when people go to my YouTube channel, where I post about pottery, gardening, games, art, travel or whatever I'm engaged with at the moment and make comments on videos that I need to post more about games.

There Is More To My Life Than Games. Deal with it.

travisdhill.bsky.social•51 days ago

We are made up of so much more.

tonymanfredonia.bsky.social•51 days ago

This has been my experience as a video game composer, as well.

For the longest time I avoided making music outside of soundtracks, despite always wanting to. There was this weird, external pressure to “stay in my lane”.

Eventually I just said F it and started making non-VGM in addition to VGM.

tonymanfredonia.bsky.social•51 days ago

As an artist, I was always making soundtracks. But I had no where to creatively put things when I dealt with grief or loss or even things like joy and excitement. That led to me creating more singer-songwriter output as part of my catalogue.

Life is so much more than games, even if we love them!

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