What do you do if your game development project lacks creativity?

Yes, play games. Explore. Experience. Exposure, exposure, exposure. Surf. Browse the internet. Create a Mood Board. Play. Offline and online. Cards, board games, play with kids, play with grown-ups, play with others, sports, puzzle games, any kinds of games. Travel. Take a walk. Move from your desk. Read, Watch, and Learn. Experience people. Experience the world. Do other things. Be inspired. Then your work will feel inspired. #inspirational #work #play #creategood

Why does it work? Benchmarking, Understand what competitors are doing right and what the market lacks. Inspiration, Discover new mechanics, narrative styles, and designs. Relaxation, Engaging in games can reduce stress and improve mental clarity, which is essential for creative thinking. Watch movies and read books, Different mediums can offer new storytelling techniques or visual inspirations. Visit art galleries or listen to various music genres: These can inspire new aesthetic directions or soundscapes for your game :)

Yes, Play various games, especially those outside your usual genre. Look for mechanics, stories, or aesthetics that you find engaging. Pay attention to what makes them fun and how they make you feel.

In order to properly identify you're game is lacking, you need to be up to date with the market in the first place. So play other games. Prioritize games in your genre, by play others as well. As long as you're up to date with the genre you're going for, creativity can come from several places from there. Movies, books, trips, board games. Study what the niche you're going for thrives on and what it lacks, and check if there's an interesting overlap of innovation vs genre pillars that you can do to be more creative.

Playing similar games to the one you are making is a great way to see how your game compares to the others. Playing them can inspire you to improve any existing systems/mechanics and even be able to innovate the genre forward. Its also important to play other types of games to give you point of views of different types of games. Maybe a problem is being solved a different way and can give you a different perspective to solve that problem in your own game.

Bouncing ideas off others can be a great way to spark creativity. If you don't have a formal team, consider joining online game development forums or communities.

Sharing ideas with others is a great way to boost creativity. You might hear something that sparks your own imagination and helps you come up with new ideas. So, stay open to listening to what different people have to say, it could inspire you!

One effective way to generate new ideas for your game is to create small, experimental versions of gameplay mechanics or features. This hands-on approach can ignite creativity and help you discover innovative concepts. Don't be afraid to fail; it's a natural part of the iterative process. Take the lessons learned from each prototype iteration and use them to refine your ideas. Be open to feedback and make necessary adjustments to breathe new life into your project.

Don't get bogged down in complex design documents. Build a simple playable prototype to test your core mechanics and get a feel for the gameplay. This can help you refine your ideas and identify areas where you can add creative flourishes.

??Prototype fast: Ditch perfectionism and build as often as possible quick playable versions of core mechanics. Test them often to identify issues, the "feel" of the game and even get new ideas. ??Focus on MVP: Build an MVP that captures the essence of your game, prioritising features that contribute the most and share it with target players for real-world feedback. Prototyping fuels your MVP and the feedback fuels further iteration. This continuous cycle unlocks creative solutions and keeps your game development on the right track.

Test ideas as early as possible and try to identify their potential. You're not trying to find the game all at once, you're probing around. Exploring game design and game mechanics. Do this for a little while and some ideas will clearly come out on top. Follow the fun.

Surveys and questionnaires, you can use tools like Google Forms and SurveyMonkey to systematically collect player feedback, making it easy to analyze large sets of data efficiently. Analytics, Implementing tools like Google Analytics or Unity Analytics allows you to monitor how players interact with the game, providing crucial insights into user behavior and potential improvements. Or any other analytics like Game Analytics. A/B Testing, we conduct A/B tests to compare different versions of game features, determining which ones maximize player retention and satisfaction.

Often in game dev culture, taking breaks is seen as a last resort or as something that you do if you're filling tired. And yes, if you're burned out, you need to rest. But! Try to not even take yourself to that place to begin with. Plan with breaks and rest in mind. Try to keep a healthy schedule throughout development. It'll be much better for you and for your project in the long run.

Having fun and being curious can spark creativity in your game project. Revisit your original inspiration and what excites you about your game. Allow yourself the freedom to experiment, and don’t be discouraged by setbacks. Curiosity can lead to unexpected breakthroughs, so embrace it. Keep the process enjoyable and fresh, and your creativity will naturally flow.

One thing that it is important to consider Creativity can comes in so many forms and shapes. So, to challenge the statuo quo, i think this question is not well framed. One could argue that creativity is not a requierment to make a good game. There is no need to recreate the wheel to create a good game. So with that in mind, combining ideas that already exist (who could be seen as a lack of creativity) could let you create something new... and then let you/ your team become creative. So the question becomes : Is creativity important to deliver a good game?

If your game development project lacks creativity, try these approaches: collaborate with your team in brainstorming sessions to generate fresh ideas, study successful and innovative games for inspiration, explore new genres or themes, and seek feedback from peers and players to gain different perspectives. Take breaks to refresh your mind, and iterate on your concepts to refine and develop unique gameplay and storytelling elements. Encouraging a creative environment and integrating diverse viewpoints can rejuvenate your project and enhance its originality.

Golden rule is "Steal well, steal often". ??Change mechanics: You might like a game but think it could have a different mechanic or detail that would change the gameplay enough, it could be enough for a whole new game (e.g "Mario Kart but sidescrolling" = Speedrunners); ??Mash games: If you like two different games/genres and wonder how they'd go together, you might create something unique (e.g "Pokémon but metroidvania" = Monster Sanctuary); ??Dig content: Find games, specially genres that are not getting the love they deserve, and think of something new you could do to give it some shine (e.g Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, Hades). You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just polishing content that deserve love can generate something huge.