The Dream Vision

Dare to dream - you never know when they will come true.

“You have to dream before your dreams can come true” – Abdul Kalam

School reports often labelled me as “a daydreamer”. To them, it was a bad thing, as it meant that I was not giving the teachers 100% of my focus, but to me it was to become a badge of pride. During these times, my mind was never blank – instead I was off creating worlds in my imagination, populating them with all kinds of weird and wonderful people and places.

Often, these worlds were related to the games I played, and there are countless examples on the internet of my dreams being made manifest as short stories on various forums. One of these dreams – a meeting between Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus at sea was to become the basis for my earliest concepts for the Vinland books and games.

Dreams are I believe, one of the most important assets that a designer can have, and this is the philosophy that I embrace when creating new things. When I was young it was only fantastic worlds that sprang forth, but now it can be anything from game mechanics to mentally play-testing and discovering new nuances that I would perhaps have missed. I will lay awake at night, often for hours mentally going through my experiences of the day, filtering through anything valuable and locking it away. I always sleep with a notebook by the bed in case something very important or inspirational pops up, and write it down.

When working on Prophesy of Pendor and Vinland: Arctic Assault I used to lay out the “Dream Game”. For this I used to write out my plans on the development forum, purposefully ignoring all limitations of budget, manpower and resources. This was the very best design that I could come up with, and the sheer scope of this used to drive our programmers mad when they first read it.

Note the highlighted “I” there. My dreams are just that – mine, and while I may once have believed that I was some sort of genius, experience has taught me that the insight of others is often extremely valuable. I will frequently discuss my “Dream Visions” with friends at the pub, or post them in full on our development forums. I want, no need input from others – this is the only way to improve them.

This is where the evolution part of the design process comes in. With the initial concepts aired in public, I then encourage a discussion of the elements, including most importantly a reality check from more cynical members of the team. It is during this that the ideas are refined; the possible expanded upon, and the implausible rejected (or put aside). The dreams will evolve with each iteration, becoming less a vision and more a design, being polished and developed during each pass until it is in a form most suitable for implementation.

A great example of this process in action is in Prophesy of Pendor, when we were working on the Order of Dawn. At first there was a very black and white relationship between them and their arch rivals, the Eventide. One was good, one was evil. Very simple... very boring.

During discussions it was then questioned whether the very principles underpinning the Dawn could be corrupted in such a way as to make them possibly even more evil than the reviled Eventide – and if so, how to include the Eventide into this story. This is where the fanaticism of the Dawn came into play, their very dedication to good and justice to the exclusion of all else led them to becoming fanatics blind to any other outcomes.

A branch of the Order awoke to the danger and decried the zeal of their brethren, pushing for a more pragmatic approach – resulting in a massive schism and the formation of the Eventide. Unfortunately this very pragmatism would then go on to corrupt the Eventide in its own way, but the outcome for both orders was vastly more complex and interesting than the initial dream. The design evolution had done its job.

Ironically it was a programmer who called me out on this process, tired of the continual conceptualisation and evolution of the ideas. He demanded that we designers only present fully formed ideas, straight from our minds. While it is entirely possible to personally polish the vision I have; this was a problem I struggled with during work on Vinland: Arctic Assault, as the dreams I had underwent far less refinement than they do on say, Starium with its much larger team. I am under no illusions that it is the input of others that allow it to reach their full potential and thankfully the other designers on my team backed me on this and the programmer conceded on how things were developed over time.

I would encourage fellow designers, to post / air / discuss / debate their Dream Vision, and then collectively revise it until it shines. Restrictions of the internet, and the nature of much of my work being virtual means that much of this must be done online (though this means there is automatically a log of any suggestions), though some of the most fun discussions I have are with friends at the pub, hammering out the concepts over a beer. The more relaxed the environment, the better it is for this. There is never a “right” answer to this exercise, but the more angles it is explored from, the more refined the dream will become.

It can be useful to have a thick skin for this, because sometimes it behoves the project throw it out as impractical. Even then, it should never be deleted, as in my experience a rejected idea would become the basis for some of our most important and popular features.

So don’t stop dreaming, and never stop sharing them because you never know; it could be the next Big Thing.

Image courtesy of http://www.worth1000.com/entries/488412/fantasy-planet