Discouragement is a Part of the Creative Process

Have you seen those author memes? The ones where the author goes back and forth between hating and loving their work. This post is basically about that. 

There are different types of discouragement. You might be discouraged by failure or other external influences. You might be discouraged by the long wait times involved in producing games (see this post about doldrums). Those forms of discouragement are frustrating and difficult, but for me nothing compares to the internal discouragement that is bound up with the act of creation. 

This form of discouragement is disconnected from whether you have received outside validation. Your game may be doing well with playtesters, but that doesn't stop your brain from telling you that you will fail. For me, this discouragement occurs at two points in the creative process: At the very beginning and at the very end. At the beginning of the process I am excited to run with a new idea—until I look at all the work I will need to do to make the game actually good. This is especially hard if I have just wrapped up a design that I feel is pretty good. To start back at square one with a not-yet-good design can be hard. Especially when there is no guarantee that the design will ever become good. (Some design deserve to be abandoned; read more here.) 

The other point where I get discouraged is at the very end. I have done most of the creative work and what's left is the professional work needed to get the design in front of publishers. Finishing projects can be difficult because it means admitting that they are as good as you are capable of getting them (and if they are rejected, it can feel like it is because you aren't good enough.) Plus, the end of a project means you have already done the fun stuff, so now all you have to look forward to is the hard stuff. 

Whether or not this is exactly true for you, it is human nature to be discouraged by our own creative output. Artists are stereotyped as moody for a reason. So, what can you do?

First, learn when you are likely to experience internal discouragement in your own design process. Try to differentiate from other types of discouragement. Learn to recognize internal discouragement as it arises. Then learn to set it aside. This may take external motivation, like an accountability partner or a commitment to a playtesting group. 

For me, my internal monolog looks like this: "I know I feel like a failure and I don't want to work on this game anymore. BUT, I always feel this way when putting together submission materials, and that feeling has no relation to the potential success of the game. So I am going to do the thing, even though it sucks." Then I get my husband to check my work, because sometimes really not wanting to do a thing makes me worse at proofreading.

The point is how you feel doesn't necessarily correspond with the quality of your work. Every creative person feels discouraged while creating. Recognizing this type of discouragement for what it is is a necessary step to becoming a better creator. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.

Narrative Structure in Games

This topic could be a book by itself. Narrative structure is a complex subject in more traditional storytelling mediums to begin with. On top of that, mechanical game arcs are a layered topic for which there is no single, authoritative reference source. And discussing narrative arcs in games requires knowledge of both. I will leave the subject of game arcs as much as possible to other people and try to focus on some general concepts around narrative structure in board games. 

I have seen board gameplay described as 'all rising action.' I disagree, although I allow that that is a simple way to align most gameplay with traditional, three act structure. Any game with a single pivot point, like Clank!, has both rising and falling action. A boss-battler could be considered a single, climactic scene. Traditional narrative structures are easiest to incorporate into games when a game has a campaign mode or sequential scenarios, because of the ability to include different challenges and challenge levels that lead to a sense of story progression. 

There are, of course, different types of narrative structure, from slice of life to five act to absurdism. I'm not sure that translating gameplay arcs to existing narrative structures is all that useful to designers. I propose an analysis style more closely aligned with acting: scene work. I won't describe how actors go about scene work here, instead I want to jump straight to my suggested mode of narrative analysis. 

Scene work for game narrative starts with goals. The player character should have one major goal that drives them to perform the actions of the game. That goal should align with the win condition of the game. The player character will have any number of minor goals. Those goals will align with actions taken or attempted in the game. Minor goals might include completing a set of objects or achieving an objective first or claiming a card before someone else can. If the minor goals tend to fall into stages during gameplay that shift from one stage to the next, then the game has distinct scenes. If not, the game may only have one scene. Individual scenes will have different goals and strategies, but will further the major goal of the game. (If this all sounds like I am describing mechanical game arcs and not narrative, that is because acting and game design employ such similar language.)

Believable goals, especially minor goals, are the key to compelling characters. If I believe that a character is acting in accordance with their desires, that character comes alive. As a player, if character motivation makes sense, then I will be emotionally invested in my character. In a game without characters, I can still be invested in actions that further my goals thematically. However, I increasingly believe that it is interesting characters, not interesting stories, that matter for emotional investment. Interesting stories will arise if attention is paid to what characters want and what they are willing to do to get it. 

Of course, scenes are not just made up of goals, but obstacles and actions and resolutions. All of which should be pushing the player toward the major goal. Thinking in terms of goals and scenes can help ensure that the game narrative is thematically satisfying. 

You may find it helpful to think in terms of three act structure. You may find your game narratives naturally want to shape themselves into traditional structure, because that style of storytelling feels satisfying. There is nothing wrong with that. But designers do not need to feel limited by traditional structures (unless the game is text heavy, in which case different rules apply). 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.

On Success

I have two small games signed but not yet published. I am under no illusions that I am the next big thing in game design. That isn't what this post is about.

There are two big factors in success: putting in the work and not being so attached to your own ideas that you can't grow as a designer. The second factor is a state of mind that, which while important, can be hard to develop. So many, many people rely on the first factor as a way to brute force success. And it can work. 

My problem is that 'putting in the work' has had scope creep to match up with certain ideas of success. Some of the ideas of success are untrue; some merely raise expectations higher than I believe is healthy. Ideas such as "success looks like designing indie games as a full time job" (untrue) or "success looks like signing a game at least once a year" (too high expectations). 

Popular advice says that if you want to work in the industry you need to go to conventions. Multiple per year. The right conventions, too, so your local con might not cut it. You need to network. You should be playtesting regularly in a local group. You should also be online, in forums and playtesting discords. You should be playing lots of published games and listening to design focused podcasts. You should give back to the community through playtesting (at the very least), but really there's so much more you could be doing. 

And you just have to get over any hang ups you may have about doing any of that because that is how you become a successful designer. 

Just to be clear, I think this attitude is highly ableist. 

Let's start over. What is success? 

Success is achieving a goal or goals that you set for yourself (or that you consent to but were set by others). Setting healthy goals is an important step in the process. Healthy goals are achievable if you put in a healthy amount of work. What is healthy for you may not be what is healthy for someone else. 

What is the minimum amount of work to get a game signed by a publisher? You need to playtest with both designers and non-designers. That can be local or at a convention or online. (If online, also playtest some physically if at all possible.) Your game needs to be as done as you can get it. You need to research publishers who take submissions and what kinds of games they want. You need to submit, either via an online form or an in person pitch. That's it. You should also playtest other designers games whenever you get the chance. 

That's not to say that there aren't other ways of getting published, other routes to success. The route you take and the goals you set should be tailored to what you can reasonably accomplish. 

I have a hard time pushing myself to attend all the things I could otherwise fit into my budget and schedule. I don't like traveling alone, so I try to make any cons I attend have as high an impact as I can. Unfortunately, I have a harder time with online events. Online playtesting events send my anxiety through the roof. My skills are not as a community organizer, so when my local group has a hard time meeting in person, I just don't get playtesting done. I am not complaining. I am explaining that I have to prioritize what I have energy for. I end up prioritizing the events that will put me closest to achieving my goals. My industry presence looks like 2-3 cons a year (one of which is local to me), local playtests when they happen, a semi-active presence in online forums, and this blog. And it's apparently enough, because I'm reaching my goals at a speed I am comfortable with. I don't have the capability to fully design more than one small game a year (excluding shelved games) and I've been doing this for almost four years. Two games are signed, and I have two more I'd like to find homes for. That's good enough for me. 

If you find fun and/or fulfillment by being constantly active in the design community, that's great. But if you're like me, it's valid and okay and healthy to slow down and focus on manageable goals. You might find that some things you're told are important to do don't actually forward your goals at all (like participation in design contests). What's healthy for you may be significantly less than what I manage in a year. That's okay. I have found I get more done by working within my limits than by constantly trying to exceed them. 

Of course, there's the other factor of not being too attached to your own ideas and also luck to take into account. But I think you can get 80% of the way there by setting healthy goals and healthy expectations of how you will meet those goals. 

You don't have to do everything. Do what works for you. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.