Our Approach to Brainstorming Our Next Idea

It's finally time! No no, we're not revealing anything about a next project now, or any time soon... BUT we are starting to think about it! While we work on console development and adding new stuff to Ultimate Chicken Horse, we're also starting to brainstorm for our next project, whatever that is.

I wanted to get the community's input about our prototype plan and hear about what other people are doing to brainstorm.

After a long brainstorming meeting, we decided that we would prototype a few ideas throughout the next bunch of months and see if there's one that stands out. The way this will work (at least in the current plan), is that each member of the team will pitch a concept. Each of us will pitch both a high-level game concept (that can include story, mechanics, characters, etc.) along with a prototype pitch. The prototype pitch will consist of all of the things needed to make a prototype, that is, what we need the rest of the team to help us with. 

Each member of the team then becomes a sort of "project leader" for the time when we're working on their prototype, and they have final say in creating the prototype they had in mind. Of course, we'll be giving each other feedback and surely some of that feedback will improve the design, but that's our idea for now.

The combination of the high-level pitch, "the dream", and the prototype pitch, which is more of a "steps to prove the concept", should lead to one of a few possibilities.

I'm curious to know what other developers (or non-developers!) think of this and how you go about doing the early phases of your next project, so I'd encourage going to the Gamasutra article to leave a comment.

Apart from that, we wanted to wish you happy holidays and a great new year, and we'll see you on the other side!

Thanks and see you next time!
Rich & the Clever Endeavour Team