The Problem of Dreamshrink

Every idea for a creative project starts full of opportunities. This is nice. You feel motivated, you’re interested to see where all these ideas lead, and you feel creatively fulfilled. You write down more and more ideas every hour, while you start implementing/executing the first ones, and you’re still dreaming of creating your masterpiece.

Then, roughly halfway every project, dreamshrink sets in. At least, that’s what I call it.

You have to make decisions. You have conflicting ideas and only one can be in the final product. You now see that idea X and Y are not possible in practice, and that idea Z is fun … but doesn’t fit the direction your project is taking.

For example, I might have two funny ideas for how characters would move in my silly little multiplayer party game. But characters can obviously only move in one way at a time, so I have to choose. Similarly, I might have 3 ideas for art styles, but the final game probably looks best in one consistent art style. I might have many ideas for cool powerups, but some of them require a change to the core rules of the game, which would invalidate the other cool powerups I already invented.

Your big, imaginative, exciting creative dream is shrinking with every minute you actually spend on executing that dream.

And this feels horrible. To me, this is the worst stage of any project. You’re being productive, but it still feels wrong, because you have to eliminate good ideas from your list. You can only implement so much, and the project can only go in one direction.

That’s even the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, you’re halfway into a project and you’re not being productive, and you’re severely doubting whether the ideas you decided to pursue were actually the right ones.

Dreamshrink

I call this dreamshrink. Every creative project starts with a big dream, but executing (and finishing) the project necessitates shrinking that dream. Cutting away more and more, losing more and more opportunities, until only this specific, narrow execution remains.

I hate it and struggle with it. Partially, I simply wrote this article to explain it and talk about this feeling.

But I also wrote it to discover the consequences of this and how I try to combat it.

You see, because it feels so bad to let your dream shrink, I (and most creatives) are tempted to just put all the ideas into the project. Why choose? Why only implement that first idea? Let’s implement everything! We’ll find a way!

Obviously, you never find a way. You just can’t stuff a hundred different ideas into the same project, especially not when they conflict. In fact, every project gets worse because of it.

I’ve made several games that were completely unplayable at first. People didn’t like it, or didn’t understand it, or gave it really low ratings (if it was for a game jam, for example). Was it that bad? Was it unsalvageable? Where did I go wrong?

No, the idea wasn’t bad. There was always a good game lurking just underneath the surface. Unfortunately, I’d covered it up, buried it, with layer after layer of cramming all my ideas and different approaches into the same project. Like a game made by 5 completely different people, without communication. Like a game with 10 different “visions”.

Usually, by removing the dirt, by actually cutting away many opportunities and part of that dream, the good game would resurface. At the next playtest, people loved it and were stunned to find how little needed to change to accomplish that.

Not only does dreamshrink make you doubt. Not only does it make you slower, make you regret the choices you can’t take anymore, make you slowly hate the thing you’re building. To compensate for that feeling, you actively make the game you do end up making worse! Fear of missing out on an opportunity, fear of actually committing to a vision, leads you to create a Frankenstein of a game that has no clear purpose or game loop.

That’s why, if you ask me, this is a real problem. Both mentally and practically. The solution is not to let this be; the solution also isn’t to (subconsciously) compensate or try to merge all your ideas into one.

How do we handle this?

Instead, over the years, I’ve found two ways to handle this.

The Board Game Approach

The first comes from my experience making board games. My most recent games have all been series.

For example, “The Domino Diaries” is a collection of different board games that all develop the same idea of placing dominoes as your core game loop.

Or take the “Throneless Games” (four unique board games centered around the idea of switching places/thrones all the time), the “Swiftsmash Saga” (many party board games all about being the first to smash/tap the right card on the table), and so forth. Since starting this trend, a couple of years ago, I’ve never made so many and such quality board games.

You can probably guess why I did this. I had too many ideas! I saw 15 different ways to use domino placement for completely different games, and I didn’t want to miss out on any of them! My dream was big and full of opportunity, and I couldn’t just cut most of that away to end up with one specific execution of one part of that dream.

And so, instead, I distribute all those ideas over multiple unique, separate games. In game A I explore this direction, in game B I explore that direction, and so forth until I’ve been able to make or explore most of the original dream. Because each game on its own has a clear vision and scope, I am able to prevent scope creep, keep it contained, and not make a mess. And because I know I’ll be able to try those other ideas in game B, I have no doubts or regret or that terrible feeling of opportunities slowly being shut down.

This has worked very well for board games. I’ve already completed several series, while others are going strong. I’ve been able to rapidly make many of my ideas into standalone, tight experiences. And, of course, the second game builds on my knowledge gained from the first game, and the third game in the series builds on that, and so I keep iterating on the dream with every standalone board game.

But, of course, board games are faster to make than video games. You don’t need to teach the computer your rules. You don’t need to fix bugs, add loads of polish and sound effects and whatnot, support many different platforms and inputs, and so forth. Board games, especially the simple and minimalist ones that I make, are far quicker to produce and prototype. If things go really well, I can test a paper prototype of an idea in the morning, sketch the designs/rules/necessities in the afternoon, and have a first printable version by evening.

If video games were as easy to make, I’d recommend the exact same process for that. You have 10 ideas? Just make it a series of 10 tiny, standalone games, each building on the previous one. Then simply make your first game, based on that first idea. And then the second game, based on that second idea. You can probably reuse a lot of code and assets because the ideas are still in the same realm/genre/series.

The Video Game Approach

But they’re not as easy to make, which brings me to my second “solution”, which is an expansion of the first solution.

It all boils down to the following truth.

You will always keep coming up with new ideas, faster than you can make them. All that matters to your creative brain is that ideas are “handled”.

First, you have to accept that you can never do it all or make it all. This kind of thinking is very natural, especially in our society based on goals and career and what not, but not helpful to creatives. Instead of thinking about some end goal of “having made all my ideas” or “having explored all opportunities”, just think about what idea you’re going to explore today. Every day, wake up and explore the thing you’re passionate about, and stop thinking about all the things you’re not exploring because of it.

Second, “handled” can mean many things.

• In its simplest form, “handled” means that the idea is written down and archived somewhere. For example, I have some very cool ideas that keep hopping from project to project. The idea is always written down somewhere as a “maybe this is cool to add??” But if it doesn’t fit? If the project just can’t handle that idea? Fine! I’ll move it to the next best place, and will rediscover the idea in a year from now.
• In a slightly more complicated form, “handled” means you’ve made a prototype of the idea. You’ve at least explored it a bit, maybe made a playable demo or some sketches. Even this simple step, which should not take much time, can be enough to see if it actually works or not. If it works, you’re far more certain of the idea and motivated to use it. If not, you have no doubts about dropping it and letting the dream shrink.
  • In this step, really focus on the idea. Explore the idea and its potential. Do not start to polish it, or add sound effects, or do any administrative work around it with the idea of “well this would be useful if the idea ends up being a proper game”. No, just a quick exploration of ideas.
• If you’ve tried the first two steps, your dreams should already have shrunk by this stage, and you should only be left with your best or most promising ideas. That list, hopefully, is short enough to try my “board game approach”. Turn these related ideas into a series of games, where each game exclusively focuses on one or two of them.
  • This keeps every single game small, focused, and not messy or disoriented.
  • At the same time, you get to actually try all ideas and explore most of that dream.
  • And every game you finish means the next one will be much faster and better, because of lessons you learned. (So the only thing you might want to do here, is rank those ideas based on how strong you think they are.)

With this system, I try to “handle” all my ideas and big dreams. This means that most of them—95+%—are just written down somewhere and never explored. My brain can rest easy because it knows it has catalogued the idea in a good place, and I will rediscover it if the related project ever becomes the top of my priority.

With whatever’s left, I try to make tiny prototypes and see what happens. These days, I’m very well trained in actually finishing all game projects I deem “good enough to finish”. Still, I’m left with 20+ barely playable prototypes on my hard disk of ideas I’ve just … explored. And found not worthy. And that’s fine! That means my brain can also rest easy, knowing I at least tried the idea and have a pretty good sense that it’s not actually that great.

That leaves me with only the most pressing or important ideas. And if you check the video games I’ve made over the years, you can see a clear theme. Game after game, the same elements or general themes keep returning. Their coat is different, the mechanics around it are different, but they’re otherwise ideas related to the same “dream”.

Despite not officially calling them part of the same “series”, many games clearly show a progression if you study them one after another. An older game might only support keyboard, but the next one supports both keyboard and gamepad players. The one after that suddenly has settings and a pause menu. The one after that has an interactive tutorial, instead of a bad fixed one. And so I iterate on the same general themes with every game in my “series”.

If you want, you can call that dream or series “The Local Multiplayer Experience”. I just really want to make great games that families can play together, behind the same screen, on the couch. But I know now that I shouldn’t try to force all my ideas into one game that should be my masterpiece, as I tried for so long when I was younger. (Seriously, I once had a plan for a game with like 30 mini-games that were wildly different, just because I wanted to grab all the opportunities that my dream game idea presented.)

Instead, I’ve made a lot of tiny local multiplayer games. Just one mode, one objective, one thing to do. Fun for 30 minutes, then you move on. But each one gets better and better, and I’ve already been able to explore a lot of my initial ideas this way (and get better ideas in return). I feel comfortable making my next game also tiny in scope, just focusing one one “game mode” again, because I know I’ll be able to try the other ideas in later standalone games.

And even if I don’t, I am confident that new ideas will always keep coming. And I have taught myself to accept I’ll never be able to do them all. But if I keep focusing on the now, the one idea I’m currently pursuing, the one part of a dream project I am currently making, at least I’ll get to make as many games as I can ;)

Conclusion

This article might have been a bit vague. I hope I was adequately able to explain this idea of “Dreamshrink”.

When a project just starts—when the canvas is empty, the page blank—its full of endless opportunities. It could still become a puzzle game! It could still do X, or Y, or have feature Z!

But while making the dream reality, you are forced to lose 90+% of it. Things that just don’t work. Things that don’t work together. Things that would be messy or unfocused if combined. The doors close, the windows shut, and the dream collapses into the actual final tangible product. And it’s horrible to have that feeling, especially halfway, of all those missed opportunities and discarded ideas.

With board games, I solved it by doing series. The best of my ideas are spread out, one assigned to one game, as I iterate on the idea and move through as much of the dream as feasible.

With video games, I try to solve it by “handling” ideas that keep nagging me (writing it down, assigning it to a future project, doing a one-day prototype to see reality), while the most promising dreams are assigned to standalone games that iterate on each other.

They’re not perfect solutions. There are still many days where I lament not having endless time and energy. Where I feel that I chose the wrong idea or vision for my project again. Almost as if you get nostalgic for the ideas you never made and the avenues you never explored. But these approaches solve the issue of dreamshrink for the most part, allowing me to work productively and without doubts, while exploring most of what my brain wants to explore.

In a sense, I am confident that one day I’ll suddenly have my masterpiece local multiplayer game. One day, be it the 10th game, or the 30th, I’ll have tried all the bad ideas inside my dream, and have finally landed on the best one. And with all the experience of the previous games and failed ideas, I should hope to be able to execute it to perfection too.

Those were my thoughts. Keep playing,

Pandaqi