The art of giving up (in time)
Many young designers are told that it's incredibly important not to give up. One of the most important skills I've learned is exactly the opposite: being able to give up - in time.
I just spoke with a fresh game designer who thought that you have to save every idea at all costs, because "game design is there to find solutions". Of course, she is right about the mere statement, but a solution does not always mean the convulsive adherence to something.
Ideas are like waterdrops in the ocean.
Ideas are worthless unless they have been implemented.
A good designer has so many ideas in his thinking drawers that he can never implement even a fraction of them.
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Another annoying feature of ideas is that many are difficult to implement, most even impossible and many are just bullshit. And to make matters worse, ideas can very easily wrap us around our finger, which is why you quickly fall in love with something and start to be unrealistic.
But ideas have ONE good feature: they can be composted incredibly well and used as a breeding ground for new, better ideas. You discard something and it is precisely because of this that three new flashes of inspiration suddenly emerge from the fragments of the old goals. It is therefore very good to overturn thought patterns, even if the implementation process has already begun.
And this is where the small but powerful words "in time" comes into play. Because if you discard an idea too late, you don't have time to grow new ones and if you throw them in the trash too early, you might regret it later. You always have to weigh up how useful it is to keep, optimize or completely drop an idea.
If you get a feeling for timely tasks, you will very quickly surpass yourself and achieve much better results, no matter in which discipline.
I would like to add: Most ideas are stupid. Looking upwards in first person view and a seagull will poop on your camera view? Sounds childish and stupid, yet is one of the many genius easter eggs, which made Metal Gear Solid 2 such a classic! So while all ideas are stupid, it always depends on implementation, whether or not they could work out in the process. Discarding ideas too soon, because they don't work first try, is also bad. Instead iterate, change the original concept of the idea a little bit. It is pretty much like you said, getting away from your initial idea, will create new ideas. But in my opinion, discarding the thought that led to said idea, just because iteration no. 0 didn't work on the spot, is just as unhealthy. It is kind of like in cartoons like Tom and Jerry, when Tom is trying to catch Jerry and he has a fool proof plan, but something incredibly unlucky happens, which will foil Toms plan. Usually Tom will completely abandon the idea, instead of trying a modified version. Well, we know how successful Tom was all these years... So it is kind of... giving up on the idea, but not giving up in the same time.