Digital Eel Q&A #1
As you may already know this months game in the review spotlight is Goblin Slayer.
Rich from Digital Eel (creators of Goblin Slayer) shares his thoughts in game design.
Me: What do you feel is the most important part of the game creation process?

Rich: Seizing a key idea first.  Being able to actually see a good thing when you come across it or invent it.  People say ideas are a dime a dozen, as if the field was level and all ideas are commonplace.  But in my experience that
is so not true (I can’t write Moby Dick or compose like Scarlatti or reason like Socrates) and I think if you look at the games that have really connected with people and have been successful you’ll see two or three priceless ideas there driving the interest while the other 90% of games simply don’t have that going for them.

And prototype the idea right away.  Get it on the table immediately.  Make sure the core idea or mechanic is fun alone, on its own, before any of the color or theme or details are added.  If you don’t start with something, not to mention something that’s fun right off the bat, you’re going to be waiting for fun to happen somehow, sometime along the way.  That’s weak design.  It may, I’m not saying it won’t but it is likely that it won’t because you get in the kind of murky situation a painter gets into by just pushing around the paint.

If you actually have something, the game will “design itself” from that point on.  I don’t mean that literally, but you will have taken care of the most important aspect.  All the rest should be pretty straightforward and
just about finessing and brainstorming on it and fleshing the thing out, which is truly the fun part in terms of the craft aspect.