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In response to the four creator types, some people pointed at the dynamic between destruction and creation.

For instance, Leo Gura writes that “destroying or cannibalizing my creations (due to limited resources) was always painful”. And Chris Drysdale writes:

Most of my creations were brought into existence so that I could destroy them–repeatedly. In destroying (sometimes right down to individual bricks) and re-building my creations, the designs would become more refined and easier to reconstruct. Eventually I’d have a clear mental blueprint of the creation, and would be able to re-build it easily and rapidly.

Destroying is often a necessary step in creativity, but it’s a scary step to take. You never know for sure if making drastic changes or even starting over is going to pay off.

When I played with Lego I recognized that sometimes it’s better to start fresh rather than build further on something that didn’t quite work. However, often the fear of destroying and losing something nice prevented me from experimenting further and achieving something good or great.

In games nowadays I often experience the opposite. For instance, in avatar creation screens, it’s frustrating when I have a cool character at some point, but then I couldn’t resist experimenting with the options some more, and then I forgot how to put it back the way it was. I will then feel disappointed for having been ‘punished’ for my willingness to experiment.

I believe this is an issue that games can address. By providing the right options, games can make players more comfortable with destruction, experimentation and (re-)creation.

For instance, many user generated content tools lack a simple undo option. It may seem like an obvious feature to mention but — just to stick to the previous example — how many avatar creators allow you to go back a few steps? Often this feature is not available and it may prevent players from destroying happily. Other options might include saving different mutations of the same creation, or even going back in time using a wiki-style edit history.

By giving creators such safety nets, they may be more willing to experiment and be more creative, knowing there’s always a way to retreat to an earlier version.

Apart from destroying elements or putting them back the way it was, designers could also offer tools that reduce (part of) the creation back to its original components, much like how you can take apart a Lego creation and reassemble the bricks in a different way. For instance, you could imagine a brush in Little BIG Planet that unglues anything it touches and peels off any stickers from its surface, so that they can be more easily remixed. (This isn’t a perfect example, but hopefully it makes sense.)

Offering better ways to destroy may allow players to better rebuild, and can be another consideration for designing games with elements of user generated content.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.