We begin the process of game design by first brainstorming and then designing and prototyping a concept. The ideas at this stage can be adventurous, out there, and completely bizarre, because anything goes. It may be useful to get yourself a small notebook to write down your thoughts because they will come to you at any moment. Another thing to think about is who you are designing this game for. Do you know enough about them or do you need to do a bit more research? Defining your demographics early on can help when it comes to refining your idea. For example, if the people you are designing play role-playing games (RPGs) then they are likely to prefer a detailed narrative and character customizations, as opposed to premade characters and a simple story. Therefore, the kind of environment, what kind of narrative that it can afford, and the characters that you will create (and possible options for them) will need to be thought about while you're brainstorming ideas.

Some useful tips when it comes to concept development are listed here:

• Keep all your ideas in a journal or somewhere safe so that you can refer to them later.
• Challenge yourself if you're stuck with ideas on what kind of game to create. Choose the first thing that comes to your mind, flip a dictionary and choose a word at random; there are many ways to really push your creativity.
• Play games that you wouldn't normally play, and if you don't play, then start!
  By playing more games in different contexts and on different platforms (mobile, PC, PlayStation, and so on), you will begin to learn how experiences change depending on the hardware you're using to interact with. Pay attention to how the player controls differ between a mobile and console game. These little things will help you later when you start to design and prototype your game.
• Deconstruct games, identify the core features, and remake them. At the end of this chapter, there is a nice exercise for doing this but really think outside of the box. The aim is to be inventive, to create something new with the same concept.
• Learn about games! Don't just become the game designer, become a researcher, an explorer of games. Invest a little bit of time to learn what other game designers have done, how they have done it, what worked or didn't. There are many postmortem videos about games that explain the development process. In addition, it also gives you a bit more insight into the overall game design process and the roles and responsibility that each team member has. In this way, if you're thinking about creating a small (or large) team, you can understand what's involved.
• Be critical, be judgmental! If you played a game and didn't like, identify why that was. Was it the controls, perhaps the story was boring? Then take the guise of the designer, and think about how you would fix it: would you change or remove something, how would you make it better?