Collaborative Design: Learning from Fantasia

As I've been designing Hostargo, I've found that it's been harder and harder to pull new inspiration. Some of the main people I talk to have already heard everything I have to say, so it's hard to drum up new topics. Opposite of that, random people on the internet aren't generally concerned with your in-depth design discussions, as they'd have to learn a ton of background before being able to contribute new material. So what's one to do?

Recently I've had a string of very lucky encounters with some talented artists, and working with them has led to some of the most interesting design choices I've had in a while. Especially in terms of world setting - cultures, people, items, and technology - I've let go of trying to control or supply the little details. Instead, I've been pulling inspiration for these things from the artists! When you give people general guidelines, an idea and a "feel", they tend to take it in unexpected directions. Sure, sometimes you have to backpedal a bit, but especially when your inspiration wells are running a bit dry, this usually results in a flood of new content to think about,

I've heard around that you shouldn't be trying to tackle large RPG projects alone - and while I'll still maintain my "lead designer" role I am very quickly seeing the benefit of not only letting artists come up with their own ideas about the game, but also molding the game around what the artists produce. This idea reminded me of visiting or viewing some sort of Disney "how-it's-done", where they explained how Fantasia was produced to be such an epic masterpiece.

The directors and producers would go to the artists and musicians with the general idea, the feel, and maybe some main points they wanted to hit. Then, the artists would go brainstorm, and so would the musicians. Next, the two groups would get together, and go back and forth on their ideas to produce the actual video: the artists would have a storyboard of what would be happening in the scene, then the musicians would go and make a soundtrack for that scene, and then the artists would take that soundtrack and create their final animations based on the soundtracks, so that the two would match up perfectly.

This type of collaboration is exactly what is needed in an RPG as well. In order to line up the artwork with the game, the art has to be produced based on the game, and then the game has to fill in the little details to match up with the art! Where two "game designers" might clash heads more than make progress, an interested artist and an open-minded designer working together can create masterpieces.

I look forward to working with these new talented people to explore the possibilities of Hostargo and the world of Oriya!