Monday 23 March 2015

My game idea was inspired by a magpie in a tree, you heard me - 22/3/15

It's not funny, I'm serious.

So there I was, hopelessly waiting for some epiphany-like game idea to reveal itself to me, but nothing came to mind. How do I think of a game that implements trust in an interesting way as well as being inspiring for me personally to make? Lots of ideas came to my head, but none that were at all relevant to the term trust.

"God damn it." I thought, "Why is trust such a complicated thing to put in a game?

"Well," my creepy split-personality other half retorted, "it wouldn't be much of a degree if you didn't actually have to think outside the box."

"Good point," I said, "but shut up."

After continuing like this for a good 15 minutes, I eventually retired to my trampoline where I'd spend the next hour staring at the trees and the sky above me. After some more questionable and irrelevant ideas, I eventually allowed my mind to wander. My eyes wandered across the nearest tree. I noticed a magpie had landed on a branch and had started to make a nest.

"I wish I were a bird so that I could just fly away.. but.. perhaps that's not something you'd even want if you were a bird.." I remember thinking.

5 birds sitting on a tree branch.
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"I suppose you'd have a mate? I don't imagine you'd want to leave him behind." I thought again, rudely assuming that the magpie was a woman.

Boom

"There's my idea!" I thought aloud. Diving off the trampoline and tripping over on the way to my room, within 30 seconds I had already began writing down my idea for the game which turned out to be the game I now call Birdlife. I will write a blog about what the game is about in the future but for now, all you need to know is that it is a survival game that involves finding a mate and protecting your kids in a 3D, third person environment.

So in essence, my idea came from staring at a magpie and wondering about whether or not it would want to fly away into the distance. To me, that's a pretty cool way to find inspiration and this is definitely the idea I've had this term that I am happiest with. I really hope the game turns out well.

A literal angry bird.
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Thanks for reading and I hope you can appreciate the humorous overtone of the blog. If not, please forward your complaint to: jacksoncoll@live.com and I will respond to you there with a sarcastic remark and a picture of my cat.

Also, here's a video of a Magpie making R2D2 noises:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0T_4MO_v0o

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