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It's almost impossible to imagine the game
Ape Out without an ape.

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And yet, that's exactly how it started life.

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According to designer Gabe Cuzzillo, this
was supposed to be a time-looping stealth

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game where you'd use push and grab
mechanics to slink along walls.

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But if there were going to be guards in the
game, then naturally you should be able to

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use those same mechanics on them, leading
to gameplay that has you holding guards hostage

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and chucking them at walls.

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This turned out to be the most interesting
part of the game: and so Gabe decided to wildly

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change direction and actually build the game
around this core concept.

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He removed everything that didn't need to
be there, like stealth and time-loops.

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And did whatever he could to emphasise this
idea - most notably, by swapping the bald

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guy for a rampaging, 300-pound gorilla.

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This is an example of a game design methodology
called "Follow the Fun".

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It’s the deceptively simple idea that designers
should ignore their plans and preconceived

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ideas - and instead look to the game itself
to find out where the development should lead.

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So take the microscopic tactics gem, Into
the Breach.

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This game started life as a pretty standard
Advance Wars-style game, where enemies chose

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attacks at random and hid their intentions
until their turn.

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But one foe in the game would show you exactly
what they were about to do on their turn,

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by highlighting the tile they were going to
attack.

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The developers at Subset realised that this
was the single most enjoyable part, and so

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decided to focus the rest of the game almost
exclusively on these telegraphed attacks.

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And this actually helped dictate the rest
of the design decisions that the studio had

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to make.

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Because, if you know what the enemies are
going to do, can't you just move your own

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units out of their attack zone?

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Alright, maybe the game is actually about
protecting static buildings.

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And so now it's about pushing the enemies
around so their attacks will miss.

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But actually, you could use this to trick
the enemies into killing each other.

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You can probably see why the designers who
use this method often say that their game,

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to some extent, designed itself.

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Here's Sam Coster from Crashlands-developer
Butterscotch Shenanigans.

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SAM COSTER: "We like to think about this process
as the game discovering itself over time.

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Because as iterators, rather than designers,
it's our job to simply play the game, listen

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to it, feel it, and kind of feel out what
it seems to want to become - and just follow

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the trails of what's fun."

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Now, the idea of a game designing itself is
surely rather exciting for those looking to

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make the next big hit.

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But, it's not like amazing game ideas just
appear from the ether.

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So, where do they come from?

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Well, let's look at the origins of the rhythm-based
roguelike Crypt of the Necrodancer.

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Designer Ryan Clark wanted to see if he could
put Spelunky's quick-fire decision making

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into a more traditional turn-based dungeon
crawler.

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So he made a quick prototype of a roguelike
where you only have a second to make your

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next turn.

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When he played it, Ryan realised that it had
an almost rhythmic-like quality - and it became

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obvious that the game should be set to music.

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Or perhaps we should take a look at the iconic
mid-air movement of Rocket League.

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When Psyonix was working on the game's predecessor,
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

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- they've learned a lot about marketing since
then.

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Uh, they had built a game about battling cars,
but wanted to add a speed boost mechanic.

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So the devs simply applied a physics force
to the back of the car.

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In testing, they discovered that players could
use that force in mid-air to rocket about

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the arena.

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That wasn't the plan, but the developers realised
that this actually added enormous depth and

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a whole extra dimension to the game - so they
kept it.

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The studio says “we developed this mechanic
almost by accident”.

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In fact, there's a whole history of games
where bugs, glitches, and accidents in the

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development process were turned into features.

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For example, Hideki Kamiya found a bug in
Onimusha: Warlords that let you juggle enemies

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in the air by repeatedly slashing them.

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It was fixed in Onimusha, but Kamiya developed
it further, and turned it into the premiere

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game mechanic of Devil May Cry.

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The point being, this process involves taking
some initial idea - however loose, fuzzy,

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or unoriginal it might be - and actually building
a working prototype.

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And it's here - during the process of coding
and playing - that new ideas can spring up.

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And so it's up to the designer to be open
and attentive to what the game is saying.

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To realise what's interesting, and be willing
to explore those aspects… even if they don't

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totally align with what you originally had
in mind.

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That's how Gunpoint went from being about
a robot in space who drops fridges on people,

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to being a puzzle game about a spy who re-wires
buildings.

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That re-wire mechanic was just one possible
idea for a hacking mini-game in a side-scrolling

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Deus Ex-inspired game.

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But as soon as designer Tom Francis started
prototyping it, the game that would eventually

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become Gunpoint started to emerge.

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Here's Tom:

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TOM FRANCIS: “It just immediately became
obvious that this should become a puzzle game.

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That was just a puzzle mechanic.

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And so Gunpoint just kind of told me what
it wanted to be.

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It just wanted to be a puzzle game, just obviously.

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And I just rolled with that, I just expanded
the hacking mechanic to a crazy extent.

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I built the whole game around it."

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So this process generally causes the most
significant changes towards the beginning

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of a game’s development - which is the point
that Sam Coster describes the game as a white

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hot ball of malleable magma.

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But it can still be used as development goes
on, and the game starts to form and settle

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into rock.

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Like, for content generation: Jonathan Blow
has said that the puzzles in Braid were simply

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a showcase of the unexpected consequences
of his time-travelling game engine.

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Blow says "I had a curator role, cleaning
up the answers and presenting them in such

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a way that they could be enjoyed by the game’s
players.”

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More on that in this video.

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Or, it can be used for listening to player
feedback.

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When Chris Hecker made SpyParty, players found
all sorts of exploits and unintended ways

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to play the game.

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Instead of fixing these “bugs”, Chris
leaned into them and made them an official

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part of the game - pushing the experience
towards being more about

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mind-games and psychological tricks.

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And it can simply be used to help guide the
general development of a game.

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Here's Subnautica designer Charlie Cleveland:

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CHARLIE CLEVELAND: "You kind of think you
know where you're going.

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You have some place on the horizon.

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And there's many paths and you don't know
how to get there.

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But if you listen to the game it will tell
you where it wants to go."

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That's how his studio made a horror game,
without that ever being the intention at the

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start of the project.

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Now obviously, this sort of design process
can make it very difficult to predict how

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long a game will take to make.

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This is one reason why the methodology is
more popular in the world of indies - rather

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than the fiercely regimented world of blockbuster
game production.

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Like, when Tom Francis made his second game,
Heat Signature, he hoped that the fuzzy idea

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of “you go inside spaceships” would magically
lead to good stuff - just like had happened

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with Gunpoint.

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But… it just didn't. 
At least, not for a very long time.

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In truth, Tom realised that he had to make
a butt-load of stuff in order to find out

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what made the game interesting, which lead
to a protracted development where he made

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a ship generation system, artificial intelligence,
a combat system, a whole galaxy map with an

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economy, and so on.

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It took Tom years to to figure out that the
on-ship combat was the most interesting bit.

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And so that's why it’s worth remembering
that the real phrase is actually a bit longer

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than just "Follow the Fun".

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I traced the coinage of the phrase back to
this guy - Marc LeBlanc.

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He’s a designer who worked on Thief and
System Shock, and an educator who helped come

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up with ideas like the MDA framework.

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When he coined this phrase, he actually started
it with a well-known idiom from the world

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of design and entrepreneurship: "fail fast".

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That’s the process of throwing something
together as quickly as possible, to see what

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works and what doesn't.

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It doesn't matter if you fail, because you
didn't waste much time - but that so-called

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"failure" will tell you so much about what
direction the next attempt should take.

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So, perhaps there are some concrete techniques
for speeding up the iteration process?

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Well, one is something all GMTK viewers will
be familiar with: Game Jams.

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Those frantic game creation marathons where
you have to try and make a game in, perhaps,

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a single weekend.

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Arvi Teikari, who dreamt up the award-winning
puzzler Baba is You at a Game Jam, speaks

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to the power of these events:

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ARVI TEIKARI: "The whole idea
is you can take a prototype that you have

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in your head and try to make something around
it.

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if it doesn't work, that's fine.

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you can toss it away after the game jam. you
are not committed to the idea for longer than

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the game jam takes".

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Another technique is to use tools that suit
rapid prototyping, like Game Maker and Godot.

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Or perhaps paper prototypes, LEGO, or the
PS4 game-creation suite Dreams.

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If you've already made most of the game and
just want to generate content, you can develop

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some custom level creation tools to speed
up the creative process - and get more people

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on board to help.

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So, for Mario Galaxy 2, Nintendo made simple
level creation tools to encourage everyone

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on the team to think up unique mechanics.

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And to quickly focus on design and mechanics,
you can use placeholder art, music, and plot.

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When Klei made the very first game jam prototype
of Don't Starve, the hero of the game was

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actually represented by…

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Link, from Zelda.

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And finally, it can actually help to have
something

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about the game that absolutely cannot change.

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Sunni Pavolic from thatgamecompany says the
studio used a very iterative methodology when

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making Journey, but always with the idea that
this game would explore the theme of love.

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This gave everyone on the team a singular
direction to follow, and helped narrow the

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range of possible ideas that they might discover
and develop.

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So if there’s one thing I’d want you to
take away from this video: it’s to stop

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waiting for the perfect game idea to come
along.

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It’s easy to look at something like Ape Out, 
Crypt of the Necrodancer,

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or Crashlands and assume that
these games were designed in a flash of insight

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- which seamlessly transitioned into the final
game.

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And so if you can’t come up with an idea
as good as these ones - why bother trying?

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But as I’ve shown in this video, nothing
could be further from the truth.

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In reality, the thing that ties all of these
developers together is that they got started

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and they built something.

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And it was only then - as the designers tried
new ideas, played their prototypes, and even

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created bugs - that the games we know today
started to form.

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They’re great designers not because they
came up with amazing ideas - but because they

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knew how to listen to the game, knew which
avenues to follow, knew how to fail fast and

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fail often, and knew how to coalesce these
disparate ideas into something coherent.

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So if you watch Game Maker’s Toolkit and
think you might like to make a game - don’t

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wait for the perfect idea.

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Build something.

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And then you can listen to the game, follow
the fun - and you might just discover that

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the game, in some small way, designs itself.