Today’s #gamedesign thread comes from a question @kombo_karl asked me several months ago:

When do you move on from an idea that you like?

#WotCStaff

Here are three angles to consider this question from:

- The idea itself
- The sources of feedback
- Yourself, as a designer

First, how big is the idea? What is its “footprint” in your game? How much effort have you spent evaluating it? How central is it to the core gameplay?

As a Magic designer, many of my ideas are individual cards that took ten minutes to come up with… or ten seconds. It’s simply not worth fighting for these if people aren’t into them. If you love a card that much, file it away for future hole-filling. Easy come, easy go.

On the other hand, if your idea has a large footprint and is core to what you’re building, there’s a higher bar for negative feedback before removing it.

(I’m assuming that your idea became load-bearing in the first place due to significant positive feedback earlier!)

Let’s talk about feedback.

Evaluating feedback correctly requires an understanding of the critic’s skillset and perspective.

Each person you work with has their own level of experience, areas of specialty, and biases.

For example, I’ll rely on a Vision Design expert like @maro254 to tell me whether my idea for a new mechanic has enough novelty and flavor.

But if I want to know whether it will make good cards for high-level tournament play, I’m more to ask a Play Designer like @Murk_Lurker.

In general, it’s good to trust seasoned designers. They’ve often tried things similar to what you’re trying, and can let you know what the pitfalls are.

On the other hand, feedback from playtesters who are not experienced designers is also extremely valuable!

Playtest feedback from people who aren’t used to designing their own games is more “real” data. After all, your customer base does not primarily consist of game designers.

The key here is to take their words as informative but not instructional.

Playtesters are good at identifying problems:

“I didn’t have fun because of X.”

But their proposed solutions may not be useful:

“Just take out X.”
“Replace X with Y; I always enjoy Y.”
“Make it cost 2 mana less.”
“Put in more Homarids.”

Let them help you find the problems.

Once you've identified these problems, it's up to you to determine whether they're solvable.

But beware of solutions that are overly complex, unintuitive, or artificial; you may lose what made the idea appealing to begin with.

Some ideas have fundamental flaws. That's life.

Lastly, when deciding how good your pet idea is, do some soul-searching. How much do you trust yourself?

One good question is:

“Given my level of experience in this field, how accurate do I think my own evaluations are?”

(Beware of Dunning-Kruger!)

Success in creative fields requires separating your ego from the creation. Growing is about failing faster and better, and incorporating feedback so that your next idea is that much more polished.

In short, future you will have much better ideas than present you.

But once in a while, you might have a really great idea that others don’t believe in.

In these rare cases, it can be worth sticking to your guns to see it through.

And when that happens, the best way to win others over is through execution. People can’t see what’s in your head? Create a prototype to demonstrate it.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

\\thread