MODCAST: Where do you get your inspiration? Thread

As stated on this weeks Modcast which should be out very soon, we want to know about where you guys get your inspiration from, this can be anything at all. You could be drunk and think up the worlds best platformer or while your on the crapper deigning the next Halo we want to know all about the weird times you were struck with the idea lightning bolt. On the next show we will read out your answers just as our way of involving you guys in the weekly show.

I'll get you all started, I was recently at a kinda boring 18th Birthday party kinda drunk when I developed possibly the best RPG ever, sure I might not ever develop the idea but it was a weird moment for me to get an idea like that.

Erowid.org

did you really have to henley?

Now all the 17 year olds get to come out of the woodwork and ramble about how "one time i smoked a joint, and then came up with THE BEST MOD IDEA EVAR1111"

That having been said, ill try to keep this discussion on track and somewhat credible by saying i tend to find myself most creative in the evenings, with some good music. Also, travel and sightseeing is a good stimulus, i usually come back from vacation with some interesting thoughts. Was recently in poland, and visited auschwitz....needless to say, it was a pretty sobering, and deeply disturbing experience. Not to cheapen what happened, but it gave me some pretty powerful ideas for environment design.

Now that's out of the way,
Let the drug / alcohol / e-peening begin.

Edited by: AJ_Quick

I think a lot of inspiration comes from recombining other people's ideas. While playing games, you go "hmmm I wonder if this had been different?" or "what if this game mechanic blended with that game mechanic? how would that work?". Nothing is truly original to me anymore (unless you count gems like Katamari or Portal) but when you get different game mechanics to mesh together, sometimes great things come about. Certainly has been proven countless times, though, for example Natural Selection.

i sometimes have a dream about something, and then wake up in the middle of the night and think "wow, that would be great for my mod." And I'm truly am impressed that my feeble mind can come up with such visual delights, so i quickly jot them down before the ol' brain does a u-turn on me and i have my usual nightly thoughts (probably not a good idea to discuss those ones here) and i wake up in the morning/early afternoon/evening the next day and think, "wow I'm gonna put that into my mod..." Then read my notes and realise that soldiers on elephant back firing marbles from converted muskets while wearing turtle shell armour, is a really bad idea... it also reminds me not to eat cheese before i go to bed. On the odd occasion though, i have a dream that is a mish-mash of things. I dreamt i was trying to get across the river thames once, but it was like the opening scene from Enemy at the gates, so that has now been worked in, I used to have reccuring dreams of drowning in a puddle, and again im working that in... you can work things you dream/see/hear or read into the mod in the most subtelest of ways.

On another note, where my mod is based in London, I get a lot of inspiration just walking the streets, and looking at the older buildings.

Edited by: Hendrix

modcast is out yo Moddb.com

Mr.Kadish wrote: did you really have to henley?

Now all the 17 year olds get to come out of the woodwork and ramble about how "one time i smoked a joint, and then came up with THE BEST MOD IDEA EVAR1111"

Well if it worked for Natural Selection...

You know there's actually a lot of research done on when people get inspiration. The latest findings I heard was that people get the weirdest, most profound thoughts during a brain phase transition known as "N1" stage of sleep, where brain waves go through what's called "theta waves". En.wikipedia.org It's especially interesting to note that people can and do very often go into this "theta wave" state without going directly to sleep. The most common time when this happens is right before you sleep, or right after you wake up, or in a state of deep relaxation or meditation.

A lot of music composers are known to purposefully do this. They clear out the room of any distractions, noises, or lights, then attempt to fall asleep. Right before they feel they are to fall asleep, they actually enter this brain phase and ideas begin to come very fluidly and rapidly. This way, they can come up with melodies and rhythms that are not normally thought of.

I almost always experience this when I can't fall asleep and my brain is simply abuzz with ideas, or in the shower right before work. It almost always relates to what I was currently thinking about the day before, either it be technical or creative problems that needed solving.

Surprisingly, a lot of ideas also come when I'm sitting on my toilet. You may think this is a joke, but it's true. I guess I'm just comfortable there.

Edited by: mflux

I get the best ideas while playing other games and Mods or while im sleeping.

I get the best ideas late at night, or when im at work slacking off, hehehe

I get the best ideas

there shouldnt be a specific place or time you get inspiration... i get inspiration from everything... no matter how obscure.

Inspiration, hits me ... pretty much anywhere at anytime :/ ... ive had map ideas through dreams, from daydreams in class, from listening to music, watching movies etc, in the shower etc etc ...

i get alot of ideas, just yesterday i was thinking of a way of making a 3D printer using an epoxy for "ink" and some old scanners in my class

sometimes i have a specific look for a map, sometimes i have a specific gameplay aspect i want to make and i build the map around that ...

But to refine my ideas i normally use aspects i find from results in google images to refine my idea ...

Almost all ideas come when I'm at work....eight hours of nothing to do, gives you a long time to think.

tsv_Hendrix wrote: there shouldnt be a specific place or time you get inspiration... i get inspiration from everything... no matter how obscure.

then you're not getting inspiration...if you're getting it from everything, then how do you know its 'inspiration' and not just a 'random thought'

who is to say that random thought isnt inspiration?

inspiration |ɪnspɪˌreɪʃ(ə)n|
noun
1 the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative

It doesnt say that you can always feel inspiration

its funny when you previously said

"there shouldnt be a specific place or time you get inspiration.."

what i meant to convey... and what some people may of missed is... there is a specific place or time that gives you inspiration, there is many, I'm saying that everything has the potential to inspire someone.!

could of implied it better

Meh...I seem to get a lot of inspiration or...creative thoughts when im in the kitchen, strangely.
Though they're more of a writers creativity than a modding one.

Mr.Kadish wrote: Now all the 17 year olds get to come out of the woodwork and ramble about how "one time i smoked a joint, and then came up with THE BEST MOD IDEA EVAR1111"

I don't smoke, but I find that oddly offensive.

To be honest, my initial inspiration for everything involving my
project was movies. I am a huge movie fan. The entire theme of my project was based on movie style dramatics. Though before it was a 3D project, it was a comic.
I'm sure everyone here has heard the story of how my project evolved from a comic, so I won't repeat it.

I get my insperations in many places but the most common one is lying in bed listening to music. I guess it starts off with just a brief ten second game play segment and then it grows into a full idea which has me back at my computer hacking at my keyboard into the night.