I’d love to brainstorm my next idea with some of you.
But… I don’t think that makes sense to post in gossip… and it doesn’t make sense to post in work in progress (because the progress hasn’t begun yet).
Is there a good forum/place for this sort of thing. I don’t have people will steal my idea paranoia… and I’m glad to brain storm ideas with others to help them with their projects.
I almost think this kind of thing is better on Skype or real-time chat of some kind.
Have any of you done this sort of thing over the Internet with other forum folks? Should I just find some local friends and buy some drinks?
Thanks!
-Carmine
Maybe the Unity IRC or a more general game dev forum.
Come join the Skype group here.
The best, and a proven effective, way of brainstorming is to do it alone. Get your friends, give them a sheet describing the type of game you are thinking about, send them away individually with a pad and pen and ask them to come up with ideas. Normally one gets a better quality of idea, the brainstorming session isn’t highjacked by a mouth all mighty, shy people who normally don’t take part, but often have good ideas they keep to themselves for fear of ridiucle, will usually contribute. At the end meet in a pub buy everyone a round of drinks and look through the ideas.
Works every time.
Variations on the above idea do indeed work well. Rather than doing it “alone”, the way I was taught was to get everyone to write down their ideas on their own sticky notes in silence before sharing them by sticking them to a whiteboard, then repeating as necessary - which is where the pub comes into it in the above.
Remember, the idea of a brainstorm isn’t to get just the first ideas that pop into people’s heads, it’s to get the collective and combined ideas of the group. New ideas that wouldn’t have been thought of by individuals are often sparked by an idea shared by someone else. The idea of the silence, or breaking the group up, or whatever approach you take, is to ensure that people aren’t socially inhibited from sharing their ideas. To the contrary, they should feel socially obliged to contribute something.