AdviceToolbox
How important is thinking time in game development?
Howard explains – with a little help from René DescartesThe principles
of game design
background processing. Serendipity is a valuable
asset in game development, and it can only show
up when given the opportunity. Rumination time
allows one of nature’s most dominant forces
to come to our aid: entropy. I find it a delicious
irony that the randomness of the universe can
improve the structure of our design goals and
game content.
I think the best way to illustrate the value
of tuning and rumination time is an actual
demonstration of the creative process, and I can’t
think of anyone better to exemplify this than one
of the great creative minds of the last millennium:
René Descartes, the famous French philosopher
and mathematician of the 1600s.
By the way, philosophers are people whose
job consists of coming up with sparkling nuggets
of insight and wisdom that convert nicely to
marketing slogans. This is not to be confused
with advertising executives. Ad execs frequently
employ philosophers, but strictly on a work-
for-hire basis. And don’t be fooled by titles:
mathematician is simply old-school slang for
nerd. That said, I would now like to share with you
the story of one of Descartes’s more noted (and
now storied) developments.
Among Descartes’s many contributions to
humanity, perhaps the most famous is the phrase:
‘Cogito, ergo sum’, which is Latin for “I think,
therefore I am.” (In the 17th century, nothing
counted unless it was in Latin.) We’re all familiar
with this quote (at least I think we are, therefore
we must be). But precious few know the story of
how Descartes arrived at this gem. It wasn’t some
random flash of insight – it evolved over several
rounds of an ongoing creative process. AUTHOR
HOWARD SCOTT WARSHAW
Howard is a video game pioneer who authored
several of Atari’s most famous and infamous titles.
onceuponatari.comI
t’s no secret that one of the greatest
stumbling blocks facing my E.T. video
game development was an appalling lack
of time, with a mere five weeks for the
entire project. But the real casualty was
the loss of tuning and rumination time.
Thinking, tuning, and rumination are all part
of a healthy development process. In the grand
scheme of design, thinking is what gets us the
initial plan for a game, tuning is where we react
and respond to what’s there, and rumination can
provide new components.
Tuning is all about refinement; tweaking what
we have in order to make it look and feel better.
This is important, but it’s focused exclusively on
what is already there.
Rumination can open new possibilities,
and previously unseen ideas and elements.
Groundbreaking innovations can result from
the serendipity of stray thoughts and mental The formidable Howard
Scott Warshaw, who knows
a thing or two about the
importance of rumination
time in game development.
28 / wfmag.cc