Hey Everyone,

I just want to write a post about my Situation and my Problems regarding the lack of ideas and fantasy for new games. Maybe I can get some tips or a solution how to regain my inspiration.... but first the situation.

Im just a young lad (22) years old working at a sales company as an application developer for internal systems. I always played video games since the NES came out and always dreamed of becoming a game developer.

Im doing this job for 3 Years now as an apprentice and Im working on my final exam project before going to a University and study Information Technology. Its hard to find a Job here as Game Developer since there arent many Companies here in Germany...

In my free time I was working around with the XNA Framework just for fun and had alot of ideas. I always had great fantasy worlds, stories and characters in mind for RPG's but also alot of small ideas for little puzzle games.

This was about 1 Year ago.

Today I look at myself and somehow I lost my fantasy... all of my insipration is gone.... I feel like a Zombie just going to work code some Server stuff over here... change the frontend over there ... manipulate the database blah blah.

I wonder why I lost my insipration for new ideas.... and it makes me sick that I cant find a way to get it back.
I wonder if someone also hat such an experience and could give me advice.

I always wanted to be an artist (Game Developers ae artists for me)
I love music even play 2 Instruments and I love art.

Best Regards
OlafVanSchlacht

Maybe you just need to take a break from games? It may sound less than ideal, but if you find yourself being disillusioned maybe it's best for you to take a break from it. Either you'll find you are better off without it, or having taken a break you will find that you miss it. Perhaps 'being an artist' is only what you thought you wanted.

The thing is that unless you are willing to work within the confines of a framework every little thing in a game takes way too much work. If you are down for text based games with some images you can make a whole awesome and cool game in 2 months. As you ramp up the graphics level the time to finish grows exponentially. You could work with something like hero engine or c4 or unity, but you are restricted to the capabilities of the engine unless you get a source license and then you have the whole annoying complicated problem again, although obviously a lot smaller than before.

My advice is to get out of the daily routine to get back inspiration, I usually get the most ideas for coding when I'm doing something entirely different. For me it is hiking and climbing that usually does the job. A weekend out in the mountains and I get back to work with my mind full of ideas and sometimes even solutions for a particular troubling problem.
If you start studying soon this might just provide you with the change of environment you need to get creative again. Talking to people with the same interests and generally getting to know more about the stuff you're interested in will open up a lot of new possibilities and this will hopefully trigger new ideas.
Don't worry, (be happy) we've all been down sometimes.

When I was 14 my English teacher told the class that he realized that most of the class were more into sit-coms at the time but he said that the time will come where our tastes will change towards more sophisticated, dramatic shows. I tried to fight it, I still watch a few, but he was pretty much right. Tastes change as we get older and as our circumstances change. I'm 36 now and just 2 years ago I watched more sci-fi & fantasy stuff on TV but now I just can't get into it. And lately I'm kinda surprised that I have almost no taste for fantasy (sword and sorcery sorts of things) RPGs anymore. Sometimes what used to be inspiring gets old. That's just the way of things. Think of it like, how many times can you hear the story of Dracula before it looses its mystique? When was the last time anyone even tried to sell the ideas of vampires like that?

If you're looking for some way to try and spark your imagination my suggestion is to try changing your antagonists and their goals. Who the "bad guys" have been these past 5 years aren't the same as who they were 10 years ago or 15 years ago and so on. A lot of art and culture comes from challenges of the times a person lives. Maybe it's time to try for a game idea that's a little more sophisticated than save the world.

You know, as a teen I found saving the world was much more suspenseful, exciting, and meaningful a few years before we hit Y2k. Maybe the whole 2012 thing is good for another year of that sort of thing but it's pretty late at this point to get something out and everybody's too distracted with other issues than having to flip over a 5125 year long calendar.

I can totally relate. I have been asking myself similar questions before, and I think the issue is that when something is new and exciting (such as when you pick up XNA for the first time, or grab a copy of a good game, it feels fresh because you've never seen it before. This causes you to naturally connect the "new" with the "known" (the stuff you've already seen) which generates hundreds of new and exciting combinations of concepts, and you quickly take the easy ones and prototype them into some kind of game or demo (and you have fun doing it). As life goes on, you obviously repeat this process many times, and eventually reach a point where... you've pretty much seen everything.

But that's not the whole story. It may seem at a first glance that no matter how hard you try, you can't find anything new or inspiring to make. But that's precisely the case, because by definition you cannot just "think up" something completely new. It's not possible. It needs to come from something, e.g. a life experience, something you've seen before, etc. It's impossible to sit down on a chair and say to yourself "I will think of something completely new". Human's can't do that. They associate basic concepts via the learning process which then results in more complex (and usable) designs.

So my advice is, try something completely different. If you like coding games, pick a random programming language you've never used before, something esoteric (but not too much). And code anything that comes through your mind. Browse random websites, chain-click through blogs, perhaps you'll find something cool.

Perhaps you could try and sit down and just write some kind of story, of plot. Maybe it will be good enough to make a game based on it? Can you draw some concept art based on something you saw in nature?

Often a good game doesn't even need to be complex. In fact the best games are often very simple. It may seem like all the simple games have been made, but they really haven't. There are new simple games made everyday. Can you pick two random games you like and merge them together into a new, completely fresh design? How about a tetris, breakout, and space invaders combination, where you have tetris shapes falling vertically and you need to blow them up breakout-style before they touch the bottom? Not very innovative nor inspiring, until you add actual aliens into the mix!

How about playing all those old ATARI or DOS games tucked away in a truck somewhere, I'm sure you've got some of those lying around. Playing the original Lemmings for the first time since 10+ years ought to bring back some memories and perhaps some inspiration. A game you used to like doesn't work anymore? How about "remastering it" (if you will) so that it can be played on modern computers, you may get some ideas on the way, and it will keep you busy (and some happy souls on the internet will thank you for your work, too).

If you're looking for some way to try and spark your imagination my suggestion is to try changing your antagonists and their goals. Who the "bad guys" have been these past 5 years aren't the same as who they were 10 years ago or 15 years ago and so on. A lot of art and culture comes from challenges of the times a person lives. Maybe it's time to try for a game idea that's a little more sophisticated than save the world.[/quote]
I agree with this. Look at common features in recent games, and trends: ten years ago shooter games were into aliens (doom, quake, that sort of stuff). Today the only thing I can see is "you are American (good guys) and you must kill Russia/Arabia/China/stereotypedcountry soldiers (bad guys)". Says much, doesn't it? If you move away from that people will be interested because it will be different and they will thank you for making a game which kept them interested without them knowing the whole plot in advance (you can practically guess today's games' plot just by looking at their franchise). Hell I would probably play a WW1-style game just to get away from what's available today. I mean, Iron Storm wasn't that bad.

Perhaps instead of the stupidly overdone "nuclear war" scenario, perhaps you can think up something esoteric, such as "the moon fell out of orbit and bits of it are falling on the earth" and build a plot around that with the appropriate technical jargon to set the mood (sorry for the time machine movie ripoff, that scene was just cool)

Have you ever played Terraria? This game uses light as a fairly big gameplay element. There may be a game waiting to be designed completely around the concept of light? Perhaps using lasers or something (actually, probably done before, but you can always merge with some other game, like that game which I've forgotten the name of did. some 2D game where you solve puzzles with contraptions including lasers, it was a fairly old - and addictive - game - EDIT: google win, SubTerra).

Here's a base concept you could use, if you're into physics - you start with a 2D board in which crystals of various colors are randomly dropped. You play against a human opponent. Each of you has the ability to drop one laser beam anywhere on the board - the beam is then refracted/scattered depending on which crystals it hits. The color of the crystal also determines how it interacts with the beam and how it alters the beam's color. After both players have dropped their laser beam, whoever has the longest/most colorful beam wins.

I think its normal to go through periods of feeling disinclined to create. Sometimes the problem is you have too much stress or aren't getting enough sleep or are depressed by a recent event or your situation. Sometimes you have changed and you have to get to know yourself over again to figure out what the new you cares about creating. Sometimes creating really isn't what you want to do anymore or for the moment; that's ok, do something else.

This is a sign of burnout. Probably your working too hard at your day job. Programming esp burns people out quickly, since it requires intensive mental concentration. This burns out the mental fuel ( neurochemicals ) which your brain needs also to be creative. Normally you replenish them during deep sleep but if your not getting enough sleep either this also exacerbate burn out problem.

Several things you can do about it. You can engage in exercise, this helps replenish the neurochemicals and promotes regular sleep and also cut back on your work load in your day job. It's all a question of balance, right now your giving your day job your all, but is that really what you want? Ultimately you have to decide what is more important, a successful career path in your current job or your dreams of making fantasy games and art.

Good Luck!

-ddn

Thank you everyone for your opinions and advices. Yesterday I was thinking back what made me happy about 3 years ago. That was where I was in School and I remembered one thing which was giving me alot of inspiration: "Drawing"

Sometimes when I had boring lessons I was drawing for 2 Hours alot of fantasy stuff, characters, faces and what else. Now I realize that I have not drawn one picture at all in the last 3 years.

I also gonna make holidays soon. I think its about time to get out of this cage and just be in the nature or go to other cities visit old places.

Your advices really helped me! Special thanks from my side!

Best Regards
Olaf

Im doing this job for 3 Years now as an apprentice and Im working on my final exam project before going to a University and study Information Technology. Its hard to find a Job here as Game Developer since there arent many Companies here in Germany...

No? That's sad. Looking at http://www.gamedevmap.com
there seems to be quite a few.

Today I look at myself and somehow I lost my fantasy... all of my insipration is gone.... I feel like a Zombie just going to work code some Server stuff over here... change the frontend over there ... manipulate the database blah blah.

It's difficult times dude. Are you paid? Think positive, take it the other way around. That's the best you can do for now.
Consider changing your routine. Perhaps more physical activities, or perhaps less. Try to change something you can change with ease first.