Artezz Wrote:Its amazing how many people are joining this project currently. May I ask you for your opinion of this? Are you annoyed, or happy about it?
Of course I'm happy about it.
I never expected so many artists to jump in and help me. (This seems to be a unique property of the LoK forums)
So many, in fact, that we've ended up doubling the number of pokemon in the game.
It makes me feel like I'm being lazy in comparison, but I've been trying to work on the game more lately and experiment with new things to refresh my interest in it.
Old projects tend to suffer from staleness. My enthusiasm for a project usually only lasts maybe 2 months, and this one's been in progress for years. (I think I started it shortly before Pokemon Platinum came out)
Fortunately, I constructed a lot of detailed plans for the game early on. These are simultaneously the solution, and the problem. Projects are only fun to create while you're coming up with new ideas. Ideas become stale the moment you write them down, and try to refer to them later instead of inventing them. If you don't have any plans, or don't remember them, then you're free to start inventing again without restrictions. But plans also provide a path to follow when you don't feel like doing anything in particular, and they concentrate a lot of really great ideas into one place. Still, I can always add new stuff like the Viridian city school, and the 3D map. And there's no reason I can't re-invent things such as fleshing out Misty's motivations and personality.
One thing I've learned from all this is that the state of mind that you're in while coming up with ideas is more valuable than the ideas themselves. As you come up with ideas, the effect snowballs and accelerates. They build off of each other, causing you to have more and more ideas, faster and faster.
This is what I call "creative momentum"
When you can no longer keep up with your ideas, it's tempting to want to write them down so you don't lose the good ones. But this creates plans, which will KILL your momentum the second you try to look them up.
First of all, you have to stop to write down an idea, which severely slows any creative momentum you might already have. And later on, looking up an idea is VERY different from getting an idea. You get no momentum from that, no exciting inspiration. Because it's memory, not creativity.
In fact, plans will make it harder to come up with new ideas because you'll be afraid of contradicting some part of your elaborate plan.
Once something is written down, you feel like you cannot change it. It feels permanent.
Ideas need to change in order to evolve and grow. This is what makes them inspiring. A new idea is an old idea that you've suddenly thought of an improvement for.
It's all about remaining in a state of experimentation.
My best projects were the ones where I simply kept ideas and minor plans in my head as I worked. I'd think about the current scene, and the very next scene, but throw away any ideas for anything beyond that. Then as I worked on the next scene, possibilities would emerge in my mind for what could happen next, based on what I was currently doing and seeing.
