In a recent hunt for brainstorming and idea generation exercises, I came upon the notion of mind mapping. Mind Mapping is a brainstorming technique that is excellent at breaking down the whole picture of a big idea into a web of smaller connected ideas.
Here is a sample mind map I made for a “tactics” framework with a grid and turn-based gameplay:
I was surprised I hadn’t heard of mind mapping before. The core idea is pretty simple and seems to have been around for a long time, but the modern day uses seem to be more focused for a business meeting room.
But, in the short time I’ve been using them, I find mind maps have incredible uses for game design.
Focused and Concise Game Design
One of my core design principles is being concise. The most valuable time for concision is the big picture: What is the heart of your game? What is it about?
Mind maps inherently are great at being concise. You use relationships between simple ideas instead of long winded words to describe what you want. This is most evident in the center of the mind map. It acts as a core that supporting idea stems out of and every supporting idea builds up to. This helps you focus on what you want your game to do.
The nodes one layer out form the center are easily the pillars of the project. You can’t put everything on a single node layer. As a result, you forced to create a hierarchy of ideas and remember the priority for your features..
Finally, everything is visual and it helps you internalize the structure of the game. It is easy to get lost and overwhelmed in a sea of ideas and explanations, particularly when communicating with others. The ability to zoom out to see the big picture and then zoom in to see the details is a powerful tool not so easily done by a Game Design Document.
For fun, I created a mind map of of this blog post.
The Mind Mapping tool I like to use is Coggle. It is a browser based tool with a sleek, clean look and an easy to use interface. I love it being in the cloud and always at my fingertips. No, this post is not sponsered (but like hey, Coggle, i’m open to it, hit me up).
I hope you’ll find mind maps as useful for game design as I have!
Additional Resources:
- How to Use Mind Maps to Unleash Your Brain’s Creativity and Potential
- Five Best Mind Mapping Tools
- Coggle