In 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas Mitch Ditkoff gives readers a “quick hitting tutorial of what you can do to conjure up brilliant ideas.” He starts by explaining that there are two schools of thought that deal with the subject of new and innovative ideas. The first he tells is based on the origin of ideas being conjured up through “a series of purposeful mental processes”, by individuals, to create new and different ideas. The second he explains “ascribes the appearance of ideas to a transcendent force.” In this approach he says ideas are not created but already exist in some form of collective unconsciousness and all we have to do is dig the ideas up. Ditkoff goes on to give 14 different ways of getting good ideas. For the most part a lot of what he talks about is ways to keep and nurture ideas and ways to almost train your mind and get in the right mind set for ideas to come to you and to mature.
One way of getting a breakthrough idea that Ditkoff gives is to “define the right challenge”. By this he means that in order to get a break through answer you have to ask the right questions. You have to know what you want to discover and you have to know what you want. He says you must spend time to frame your challenge in a meaningful way so you know exactly what the challenge is. He uses the metaphor of a GPS, saying that someone who does not define the right challenge before looking for a breakthrough answer is like someone who leaves on a trip without getting the right address to enter in the GPS. I think this is an especially good way of getting started at coming up with a breakthrough idea. If I were to implement this into my own life I would likely find myself writing out exactly what it is I am trying to accomplish and what I am trying to achieve in certain projects. I might use it to clearly define what certain problems there are with my game designs so that I can address those problems more efficiently. Instead of just trying to figure out what I could do to make a game better I would first figure out what it is that is specifically wrong with my game and what could be done to fix the problems.
Another good way of coming up with breakthrough ideas that Ditkoff gives is to fantasize. He explains that many breakthrough ideas get their start from fantasizing and that people should fantasize more often. This is a more self-explanatory solution to getting good ideas; it is really just saying to let your mind wonder. I think this is a very good idea as well because of its simplicity and its ability to be a powerful way of coming up with new ideas. If I were to implement this into my own life I would probably try and set aside time in my day to just let my mind wonder. I would purposefully try to come up with absurd and out of the ordinary solutions to problems. This is especially helpful to me because in animation and video games anything is possible and things are not even limited to the physical laws of the universe. If I want an army of microscopic balloon animals to be the reason we see color than that can actually exist in a video game.
My personal favorite way of coming up with ideas that Ditkoff talks about is to brainstorm. He talks about not only brainstorming on your own but to brainstorm with other people, and to brainstorm in groups. I think this is a good idea because this is already something I will be doing for the rest of my life in teams of people. The more people you have throwing out ideas the greater the chance you are to have a worthwhile idea that might turn into something great. I already do this while I am working on team projects for game design. A way I might do this more often is to actually do as Ditkoff says to do and facilitate group brainstorming sessions and to think wisely about the people I invite and the topics and questions we brainstorm about.
In one of Ditkoffs exercises he says to “State your most inspired challenge or opportunity as a question beginning with words “How can I?” Then write it five different ways. Which is the real question?” I am going to try this out so here it goes.
How can I…?
1.) Have the main character in my game relate more to the player?
2.) Help the players of my game relate more to the main character?
3.) Get the players of my game to feel more attached to the main character in my game?
4.) Get the player to empathize with the main character in my game?
5.) Make the player want to be like the main character in my game and therefore want to play the game more?
I think that the real question is number 4. How can I get the player to empathize with the main character of my game?
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