I used to try and come up with game ideas on the computer in Word, because honestly I''m usually sitting at the computer if I''m not at class or teaching/working out at the gym, but it was always tough for me to type as fast as I thought. I even tried my Visor, but even tho I''m great with graffitti inupt, it was still too slow. So I sat down in class one day and just started writing about this game idea, with no real focus, and before I knew it I had over two pages and my hand was killing me I had totally forgotten how great pen and paper still was in this age of computers and electronics devices. Shame on me So what''s you''re favorite medium for hardcopying your ideas? _________________________________________________________________ Drew Sikora A.K.A. Gaiiden ICQ #: 70449988 AOLIM: DarkPylat Blade Edge Software Staff Member, GDNet Public Relations, Game Institute 3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002) Online column - Design Corner at Pixelate NJ IGDA Chapter - NJ developers unite!! [Chapter Home | Chapter Forum]

My favorite medium is pen and paper too, believe it or not. I like to scribble down hundreds of completely abstract ideas then sort them out on the computer when I finally get to it later.

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Herb M. (mdfmKoRn)
www.sky-meyg.com
s3202@attbi.com

quote: Original post by Gaiiden
So what''s you''re favorite medium for hardcopying your ideas?

Sitting in my car in a quiet parking lot with a pad of paper and a couple pens and pencils and possibly a few books and printed articles. The parking lot provides a non distracting environment. I can really focus on the problem at hand. At home, I''m likely wasting time on the internet (like right now) or if I try and sit down and work something out away from the computer, it beckons for me to use it to solve a problem, but that never works, because then I will just get distracted using it.

Pen and paper at the spur of the moment, but I later transfer my ideas to computer. Paper is a lot easier to manipulate with a sturdy pen, than computers with keyboards/mice.
But paper has a tendency to get lost in my room

Well, when I am thinking up ideas, I find it easier to "draw them" then to write them. When I write things down, the position of the things is really important, and I can''t do that on a PC -_-

Yea, I agree also. I use pen and paper when I am not in class, teaching, saving the world, making porn or on the can also.

For me, nothing beats pen and paper in a brainstorming session. But after I drew up everything I needed, I transfer them to the computer for a more "permanent" storage and better organization (I tend to draw up tens of pages of stuff every session - the library is a really amazing place to help you come up with ideas). Like Ronin mentioned, drawing up stuff is part of that brainstorm, and it''s just too difficult and time consuming to do that on a computer.

Yep, same here... I have one of those important-looking A4 clipboard thingies... I carry it with me wherever I go, as soon as its full I sift through the collection of ideas and filter out all that which is useful. Then I fire up the computer.

Index cards!!

Take care,
Bill

I think I''m going to have to buy a laptop...

I used to scribble everything down, but never find time to transfer it to a computer. So now I have hundreds of papers laying around, with no system in place.

But the fact is that ideas come up when a computer is not around. I now use paper to write down the original idea, work out the problems and solutions, then days later I''ll be able to type something out on the computer.