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Strip a great game down to its roots, and you'll find an underlying design philosophy that drove development from prototype to masterpiece. This design philosophy can be distilled into Creative Pillars--the founding principles that guide each game's development.
Creative pillars are a set of maxims that govern game design decisions. They're your game’s foundational principles and the core of your game’s identity. They’re what make people excited about your game–and particularly your game. They’re exciting. They’re the foundation and the spice all at once.
But enough platitudes–what exactly are creative pillars? They’re three statements that define gameplay and guide design decision making. They’re easiest to understand with examples.
Let’s say you’re building an open-world camping and exploration simulator (every designer’s dream). You have a vision of players getting lost in the woods, of finding peace and solitude setting up camp and interacting with the elements. Rather than rolling up your sleeves and diving in, you first spend a bit of time considering what you want your game to be. You jot down a few statements:
These are creative pillars, and they’ll serve as guideposts for design decision making as you build out your game.
So you start developing a slice of your game. You focus on a classic camping task: building a fire. Your player will need to gather wood and construct a functional campfire before the sun sets. To add a bit of flair, wolves prowl the forest at night, so you’d really better finish your task before they take an interest in you.
You have a lot of game design decisions to make, but let’s focus on two:
How perfect does your player need to be at collecting wood in order to complete the campfire before nightfall?
How punishing are the wolves if the campfire isn’t finished?
These questions get at essential decision making around difficulty and punishment. To answer them, let’s take a look at our creative pillars:
Nature to get lost in. You want your player to get lost wandering around a gorgeous environment, not rushing through it collecting wood.
Engaging mechanics for mundane tasks. You want your player to enjoy the process of gathering wood and starting a fire, not just the result.
A way out of every situation. If the campfire doesn’t get made, you have a way to fend off those wolves.
We have our answers! The wood-gathering process should be forgiving, so the player can enjoy a beautiful and engaging world. The wolves won’t immediately rip their head off, so the player can experience options in the face of any situation.
The fun part of this is that we’ve gone from a task–starting a campfire in the woods–to a 3D idea. You might be thinking about the little twists and turns of a pine forest; a satisfying build mechanic for stacking kindling inside a freshly built log cabin; running away from the wolves at dusk and finding a treehouse sanctuary overhead.
Creative pillars also inform the disciplines you need represented on your team. You’ll need some damn good environmental art from a 3D artist (if you’re not one). Sound design will matter a lot too if you want people to truly get lost. If you’re going to make your environment the focal point of your game, make sure you have people who can do the heavy lifting.
Finally, couple creative pillars with comps to create a compelling picture for gamers and publishers alike:
“It’s like No Man’s Sky meets Forest Simulator II. You’re surrounded by this beautiful immersive world, living off the land through really engaging mechanical systems that keep tasks fresh and interesting. And everything’s possible! As long as you stay creative, there’s a way to overcome serious danger. In fact, it’s what defines your experience.”
In summary, creative pillars:
Form your game’s identity.
Guide design decision making.
Inform team needs.
What are my Creative Pillars?
It's a natural question. Creative pillars don’t just materialize out of thin air! But at this point, you’ve (hopefully) done your market research and played your closest competitors, so you have an idea what those games are doing well, and what they’re doing differently.
The first thing to know is that a genre is not a creative pillar. If you’re making a roguelike survival game, death brings permanent consequences isn’t your creative pillar. That’s just a restatement of the roguelike genre. It doesn’t explain how you’re different from any other roguelike. It’s not going to lead to a unique identity.
Instead, look at qualities of the closest comps you’ve found and think: what do I want to do differently? If the answer’s easy, you’ve probably found at least one of your creative pillars.
If it’s not, try considering a system that excites you about your game. Maybe it’s crafting–okay, what makes your crafting system special? Extract the essence of that and write about it.
Consider taking a global approach. Instead of crafting that rewards clever resource management, try gameplay that rewards clever resource management. That way you’re considering clever resource management at every turn–upgrade systems, world travel, etc.
Consider mechanics, aesthetic, narrative, challenge, and vibe. It might help to begin sketching out a game design plan if you’re struggling to generate ideas. You might find your pillars along the way.
Like everything else, creative pillars are subject to change. But make them pretty sticky; don’t let them change without rigorous testing. Sometimes you’ll find that your pillars don’t represent the game you want to make–okay, amendment needed–but otherwise, stick with them.
The next tool you'll need is a lightweight documentation system that captures your features and failures. You can find it here: A Modern Game Design Document
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