Game Design: The Lens of Infinite Inspiration
To use this lens, stop looking at your game and similar games. Look everywhere else.
- What is an experience I have had in my life that I would want to share with others?
- In what small way can I capture the essence of that experience and put it into my game?
Have an open mind and a big imagination. Search your feelings and observe everything around you. Be willing to try the impossible - for surely it is impossible for a roll of the dice to capture the excitement of a swordfight or for a videogame to make a player afraid of the dark. Find the non-game experiences that will inspire your game. Your choices in the different quadrants of the Elemental Tetrad can each be united by a single inspiration, or each can build on different inspirations and blend them together to create something entirely new. When you have concrete visions based on real life that guide your decision making, your experience will acquire an undeniable power, strength, and uniqueness.
Use the Lens of Infinite Inspiration to seek and find beautiful experiences and the Lens of Essential Experience to bring them into your game.
(The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008. Page 59-60)