SFFmuse

FallenStar · Playful Kitten Joined: 25 Nov 2004 Posts: 9

In my personal experience, computer games are mainly a distraction to get caught up in and prevent you from getting past a tough part in your story, and while it's true that they can sometimes give your mind what it needs to start popping out ideas again, they work against you far more.

But what about you all? Are there any games that get you inspired to write, and if so, which ones? By inspired, I don't mean stealing ideas from them ("oh, look at that beautiful sword, I think I'll put one in my novel"). Just inspired in the sense that it gives you your own ideas or makes you feel like adding a chunk of words to your story.
_________________
...aka Mark Raven.

kitten42 · Posted: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 12:43 pm Post subject:

Well, no, but they're great for me to get past burn-out. When I'm feeling like I just can't look at this stupid @Q#@#$#@# story anymore, and I'm about to lose my mind, I go play a few rounds (or hours) of Tetris, or Super Collapse. Games that have stories to them don't work for this, it has to be mindless mechanical analysis games, preferably having to do with math, spatial relationships, or both. Sonic used to be good, but I can't find it anymore. I personally can't stand quest-type games, or computer RPG one-players, and most of the time I avoid MUDs or MMUDs like the proverbial plague. Actually, to be truthful, I love the quest types and the RPGs and the MUDs to death, but I'm an addict, I know it, so I avoid it like a ten-year AA member avoids alcohol. They take up too much of my life when I do play them, I get NOTHING useful done for months at a time, and that fact drives me into deep depression, so I keep out of the whole cycle to begin with. But neither type has ever helped me with a story, per se. Out of the games I do play, I just get mental refreshment that allows me to look at my story again and start to think up new ways to make my characters hate my guts.

Kitten42
_________________
Wit is educated insolence-Aristotle

I took down my score from Nanowrimo 2004, it was a bit old.

lizzy2150 · Posted: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 1:14 pm Post subject:

Kayara · Large Cat Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 431

Agent_MelkMan · Posted: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 9:27 pm Post subject:

Final Fantasy
_________________
Everyone's a building burning
with no one to put the fire out.
Standing at the window looking out,
waiting for time to burn us down.
Everyone's an ocean drowning
with no one really to show how.
They might get a little better air
if they turned themselves into a cloud.

I'm a guy.

PepperDust · Posted: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 10:05 pm Post subject:

Um... does minesweeper count? It requires analysis.
_________________
"It's":
It's not possessive.

http://pepperdust.deviantart.com <~~Bored? Check it out!

Jason · Posted: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 3:55 pm Post subject:

My wife and I like to play Evercrack 2. lol I have made the commitment however not to play until I have finished my goal for the day. The game is very addictive, and time flies but that is also time better used to make progress to my novel.

If you did not get the above reference I am writing about Everquest 2.
_________________
No matter how much others knock you down, believe in yourself and you will always be a success.

robertsloan2 · Posted: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 8:21 am Post subject:

What inspires me is any game I've played so much that it's brainless and familiar. This includes Diablo 2 -- if I start a new character and repeat Act 1. It has story, but it's familiar story. Solitaire, Freecell, Bejeweled -- they're all rumination games.

Any new game will be too much of a distraction. But when I know it so well that it's only occupying part of my mind, it'll kick start the rest. Very often I named Diablo 1 or 2 characters after characters in my WIP.
_________________
Robert A. Sloan and Ari Cat >^..^<

2009 New Year's Resolution: send out a pro novel submission.
http://robertsloan2.deviantart.com has a complete updated list of my eHow articles in the journal footer. Read free, I get paid on ad-share!
Current Project: http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com -- the website that grew into a reference book on oil pastels!
[b]NaNoWriMo Total Count: 353,066/b]
Nanovel 1: Magic in the Streets 82,964
Nanovel 2: Greenwood Road 84,709
Nanovel 3: Medicine Show 75,978
Nanovel 4: Greenwood Gates 94,378
Nanovel 5: Greenwood Home 65,415 at December 1, 2009

December Finish Greenwood Home 89,513

PepperDust · Posted: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:26 pm Post subject:

I play the pinball game that came on my computer. It's absolutely mindless but you still have to pay attention. That and Spider Solitaire. Those are my two big games.
_________________
"It's":
It's not possessive.

http://pepperdust.deviantart.com <~~Bored? Check it out!

OnyxFlame · Feral Cat Joined: 27 Oct 2005 Posts: 124 Location: Kansas

I absolutely adore RPG's, but they've never actually helped me write better. (Although during hours of mindless fight scenes on Lufia 2, I used to sit around thinking up stuff I never actually wrote. And I DID write several rather amusing and pointless letters on Animal Crossing. Razz

)

What happens when I play a video game is I get ideas on how I'd do it better if I was the one making the games. Stuff like "Ok, WHY do the guys in the back do less damage if they're equipped with bows? Isn't the purpose of a bow to hit someone from a distance? And if they're as close to the enemy as that guy with a sword, how the hell are they gonna shoot him anyway?" I've come up with complex mechanics for whole imaginary games this way, heh.
_________________
If a squirrel is chasing you, drop your nuts and run.

robertsloan2 · Posted: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:

Oh now that makes sense. Wanting to make rules changes is a good start to creativity the same way that reading a scene in a book where the author did something I wouldn't pokes me to write that alternate idea as its own story. Which usually goes so far away that it's not even recognizable which book or story I got mad at.
_________________
Robert A. Sloan and Ari Cat >^..^<

2009 New Year's Resolution: send out a pro novel submission.
http://robertsloan2.deviantart.com has a complete updated list of my eHow articles in the journal footer. Read free, I get paid on ad-share!
Current Project: http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com -- the website that grew into a reference book on oil pastels!
[b]NaNoWriMo Total Count: 353,066/b]
Nanovel 1: Magic in the Streets 82,964
Nanovel 2: Greenwood Road 84,709
Nanovel 3: Medicine Show 75,978
Nanovel 4: Greenwood Gates 94,378
Nanovel 5: Greenwood Home 65,415 at December 1, 2009

December Finish Greenwood Home 89,513