A word on stealing ideas. Why it's crucial to originality, quality and good business. Why you should do it, and how to do it well. How it is an essential part of processing your grand game idea into a workable design. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dz5ny8m2g4m6ncr/On%20the%20shoulders%20of%20giants%20-%20takeaway%20version.pptx?dl=0

1. ON THE SHOULDERS
OF GIANTS
K A C P E R S Z Y M C Z A K
A word on stealing ideas.
Why it's crucial to originality, quality and good business.
Why you should do it, and how to do it well.
How it is an essential part of processing your grand game idea into a workable design.

2. mail: szymczak.kacper@gmail.com
twitter: kacper_s
Lead Designer @ CFG

3. Ancient Space
ujeb.se/astrailer

4. Hard West
ujeb.se/hwtrailer

5. If you don't steal design,
you're lazy and ignorant.

6. this is stolen mostly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
The indigenous people of Melanesia never ventured far off their islands,
Because of lousy science advisors, they didn’t invent seafaring.
Hence they haven’t had much contact with any advanced civilizations.and were technologically stuck.
But during WW2, combat moved into the pacific.

7. These people observed the largest war ever fought by technologically
advanced nations.
First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of supplies
and later the Allied forces did likewise.

8. Vast amounts of military equipment and supplies were airdropped to
troops on these islands on both sides.
These supplies meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders,
many of whom had never seen outsiders before.

9. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents,
weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities.

10. The soldiers often shared some of it with the islanders
who helped with wounded, and were their guides and hosts.

11. With the end of the second world war,
the military abandoned the airbases and stopped dropping cargo.
This created vacuum.
The tribals missed the supplies they now lacked.

12. CARGO CULTS
In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute from planes again,
islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers use.

13. Cult behaviors usually involved mimicking the day-to-day activities and
dress styles of US soldiers,
such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles.

14. The islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting
in fabricated control towers.

15. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways.
They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.

16. Many built life-size replicas of aeroplanes out of straw
and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract
more aeroplanes.

17. When making your game, you observe the highly successful games.
You take these magnificent, complex systems.
You want to make something as good.
You look at them from the outside.
Take some of the visible parts of it.

18. You say: I want a dialog system, open world, nukes! Put it in together and you expect it to work just as good.

19. If I have seen further it is by
standing on the shoulders of
Giants.
Isaac Newton

20. = discovering by building on previous discoveries
see: ujeb.se/phdexplained

21. Nothing of me is original.
I am the combined effort of
everyone I've ever known.
Chuck Palahniuk

22. Originality is the fine art of
remembering what you hear
but forgetting where you
heard it.
Laurence J. Peter
(of Peter Principle fame)

23. Designers are lunatic
kleptomaniacs.
Your originality is a myth.
You already are using your memories and references.
You are thieves.
You just don’t know it.

24. 1337 designers You just ain’t 1337 pros about it.

25. There are many great games that aren’t like that.

26. If you want to be original,
go all the way.
Do a truly original game.
Do something you can’t find a reference for.
If you don’t need a paycheck to feed your family and pay the mortgage,
Do something you seriously doubt you will earn money off.
I salute you, that’s how the boundaries are really pushed forward.
But unless you do that - don’t bother; don’t pretend.

27. Don’t confuse your
ignorance for creativity.
Working through the references is hard, hard work;
probably the most boring of design tasks - because you don’t get to make shit up.

28. First, stop making shit up right from the start.
All you need is a grand idea. But that’s it.
And within that idea, find a scope you think
your team can handle.
Be warned: your mind simplifies the games
to wrap itself around them;
it will make shortcuts, simplifications, it will
omit less important information,
it will make simplified mental models, and it
will automatically digest some information
without you noticing.
So if a game was made by a 100 people,
and you’ve got 10, drop it.

29. Pick a great game, and find
out how it’s done.
The only way to find out is to find out.
Reverse engineer, put it apart. Measure the scope.
Write the full design document, know it until the last nut and bolt.
Embark on a journey not in the complete dark, but navigate with your
eyes set on a lighthouse.

30. Don’t start with a blank sheet of paper.
Get your feet on firm ground.
Have help through the hard times of steps
2, 3 and 4.
Chances are, you’ve modded games back
in the day.
Remember, how simple it was to change
a game that was already working?
It was so much easier to do something on
top of something established.
It is so much more difficult to build out of
thin air.
Get off your high horse back to your
modding years.

31. Embrace the power
of stuff that works.
Skip the prototype, and do this is fast and safe design.
Improve on a tried and tested formula, as if you were the one to make the
sequel.

32. When you get down to work basing on other people ideas, you may feel a
slight sting.
That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.
You fight through that shit.

33. So, you’ve got your design doc ready. May be 10 pages long for a match-3
game, or as long as 100 pages for a strategy.
When you’re done with that, transition it to your new setting.
Put it underwater, in the future, in the wild west, steampunk, whatever is
your grand vision.
Be consistent about it.
That’s where the stability of your concept will wobble the most; and you
need to take greatest care not to lose it.
Next, put it back together and see if it still works. Implement it all and make
it work; make it good. See if it’s up to par with your reference.
Only then is the time for unique elements. Not as the founding stone, but
the cherry on the top. Add your features; your unique selling points.
The optimal bet for originality is on top of something feasible.
This way the base of your game will be made fast, cheap and safe, and the
risk of uniqueness will be mitigated.

34. clones =
ill-understood business safety
Where is the sweet spot between originality and ripoff?

35. game industry = chance for wild success
Games are known for fast growth and loud success stories out of nowhere -
without connections, without million-dollar investments.
There are no union bribes needed, no mercenaries or diamond mines. Easy!
Imagine that they’re used to gaining low risk 10-20% off canned pickles or
umbrellas, but want to raise the risk bar a bit. So if you were to approach an
investor from the outside, and say “fund my game, it’s unlike anything
anyone has ever seen!”
How do you expect them to react?
That’s why they are usually the guys burning money on clones and ripoffs,
never quite knowing why it doesn’t work.
If, on the other hand, you were to say It’s OLD BUT NEW, that’s a whole
different story.
Some say that’s allegedly the best way to sell; anything, to anyone.

36. OLD + NEW
For one, old means something people are used to.
Second, they are ever excited by the new.
Make something relatable, but make it look, feel and play fresh and
different.
But above all else - make it in high quality.

37. homework assignment!
Take an old game that’s been rated highly
because of it’s originality.
Put it side by side with newer counterparts.
Or take a classic from your pile of shame; and try
to play it today.
Is it good? Is it approachable? Bug-free? Easy to
learn, difficult to master?
Most probably - not really.
Chances are that back in the day, you had a lot
of time to kill, and a whole lot less to pick from.
Also, you had less experience and less to
compare your experiences with.

38. In all fairness and respect - Longest Journey with its pixel hunting, pace-killing red herrings,
puzzling dream sequences and exposition shoved down your throat
doesn’t come close to the rollercoaster of emotions in Heavy Rain.
So while your reminiscences from the past might tell you otherwise -
please, take my word for it - yesterday’s games are rarely stand the test of time.
Innovation is not equal to lasting quality.

39. quality != originality
It is safe to assume that your game doesn’t have to be all original to be
high quality.

40. There are a lot of games not precisely original,
but are milestones of game history because of how high quality they
achieved.
There are also highly original games that never made it to the press
because of poor quality, low production value, lack of polish.

41. Holy Genre Mausoleum
Be warned, though, of what I call the holy genre mausoleum.
You need your setting to catapult you far off the original.
Because you can’t win the war with good memories.

42. Is DXHR as good as Deus Ex? I think it’s often better.
Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely love the original,
and I like it more than the new part of the series.

43. The art direction of DXHR is way, way, way better.
Many levels of the original were confusing, and not that rewarding.
The new one brings the experience of openness and freedom, without
it’s burden.
Skill progress is far better designed.
Hacking is actually a game instead of a progress bar.
These guys made a massive work, and you can’t tell from what’s been
written that it made as big an impact.
Although, I was quite surprised by the fact that both games hold a 90
percent metascore.

44. Ancient Space
We’ve released Ancient Space in september.
Plays quite well. But when compared to Homeworld, it didn’t stand a chance.
For one, because it’s a different genre. It’s a modern style rts (like Company of Heroes),
while Homeworld is a rts-ish experience with more confusion than tactics.
Two, it was too close not to be compared and devoured.
Internet said: like Homeworld? No way. Homeworld was perfect.
Of course, it wasn’t. I dare you to try and play it through till the end.
Most steam reviews ≈ “not homeworld”.
Still, for Ancient Space to truly succeed,
it would have to be a breakthrough in the same direction and in greater magnitude than Homeworld.
Good luck with that.

45. Hard West
Now a few months ago, we’ve had a successful kickstarter campaign for
Hard West.
A tactical western.
Internet said: like X-Com, but the wild west? That’s great. Proof...

47. 1. Take a great game apart.
It must be high quality, not necessarily highly original.
1. Move it somewhere else.
Avoid the sacred grounds of the mausoleum.
1. Expand it with great new stuff.
On top of it, not as the foundation.
1. ?
2. PROFIT!

48. End.
szymczak.kacper@gmail.com