I have a little paper scroll from a Chinese fortune cookie that sits on my desk at work. It originally read “Necessity is the mama of invention,” and while I find nothing wrong with that statement (except maybe the use of “mama”), it didn’t exactly suit me. So I grabbed a pen and made a few edits. Now it reads:
“Constraint is the mother of innovation.”
As a game designer, I refer to this principle on a daily basis, so it’s nice to have it in writing. Whether working on a brand new title, or making improvements to an existing one, the best ideas are born out of limitations — boundaries which designers must work around to achieve their goals.
“Easy” problems are simply those with too many solutions. It’s when our options are severely limited that we begin to look in new and exciting directions. That’s why my favorite days at Zynga are also the most challenging. And that’s why I immortalized the sentiment on a fortune scroll. It’s the best advice you could ever get from a cookie.
- sj
Scott Jon Siegel is an associate game designer at Zynga, with several years of experience designing both digital games, as well as card and dice games.