A Critic’s Guide To Game Design By Inspiration
A Critic’s Guide To Game Design By Inspiration
A Critic’s Guide To Game Design By Inspiration
By Jordan Biordi
January 24, 2024
Summary
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and so many good games were inspired by something else-Metroid drew inspiration from Alien, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night drew inspiration from Super Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda clearly inspired Darksiders.
I've been a video game critic for almost 10 years now, and while that certainly doesn't make me an expert on game design, I think I've reasonably come to understand what works and what doesn't work.
To start Don't Be Afraid to Be Inspired I was doing a little bit of research before writing this article when I came upon a Reddit post from a year ago titled, "The Terrifying Reality of Taking Inspiration from Other Games." Honestly, this broke my heart a little bit because there really shouldn't be any reason to be afraid to be inspired by other games.
While yes, there's a fine line between inspiration and outright theft, I truly believe if you approach a game with honest intentions, both players and critics will see the difference.
Like a lot of critics, I've reviewed plenty of games using the critical shorthand, "It's similar to [X Game]," or "It's like [X] but" It may seem reductive, but the reason it's become a shorthand at all is because it's easier to communicate what a game is like by comparing its gameplay mechanics to another, and that's not always a bad thing.
Almost every good thing was born out of a love of something else so don't stress about making your game TOO MUCH like something else.
Being too afraid to be inspired might lead you to think your work needs to be wholly original-tweaking your gameplay so it doesn't end up being "Too much like [X] game" or trying as hard as you can to make something unlike anything that's ever been made.
Reference
Biordi, J. (2024, January 24). A Critic’s Guide to Game Design By Inspiration. Www.cgmagonline.com. https://www.cgmagonline.com/articles/editorals/game-design-inspiration/