By Ronaldo Nonato,
Game Designer at Kokku
Working with creativity sounds great in theory, but it quickly becomes challenging when you have to rely on it every single day. In game design, this becomes even more evident, since a big part of our job revolves around solving problems, proposing ideas, and constantly iterating on systems and player experiences. The issue here is that us humans are not equally inspired every day. Some days things flow naturally, while on others even simple ideas feel harder to reach. If your workflow depends on those “good days,” sooner or later that becomes a bottleneck.
A big shift in how I approached this came before I even entered the game industry, during my time studying advertising. One of the most valuable lessons I learned there was that creativity is not about having a single brilliant idea, but about generating volume. The expectation is not to get it right on the first try, but to go through multiple ideas, many of which will not work, until something interesting starts to emerge. This reframing was important because it removed the pressure of “being creative” and replaced it with something much more practical: showing up and producing consistently.
Over time, I started to see creativity less as a spontaneous moment and more as something you can train. The more frequently you engage with it, the more responsive it becomes. This is especially relevant in game design, where there is rarely a single correct solution. Most design problems can be approached from multiple angles, and your ability to explore those possibilities is directly tied to how comfortable you are with generating and iterating on ideas.
In practice, this translates into a few habits that I try to maintain. One of them is deliberately playing games outside of my comfort zone. It is easy to default to genres we already enjoy, but limiting your exposure also limits your creative repertoire. More importantly, I try not to play passively. I pay attention to how mechanics are introduced, how systems interact, and what makes certain experiences engaging. Even in games I don’t particularly like, there is often something valuable to learn.
Another approach that consistently helps is mixing references. Many ideas in game design are not entirely new, but rather combinations of existing concepts applied in different contexts. Bringing together elements that don’t coexist can lead to interesting results, especially when those elements create some kind of friction. That tension often forces you to think differently and can open paths you wouldn’t normally consider. Some of my favorite games come from a space of “what if we merged the mechanics X and Y that never seemed to go together and see what comes out of it?”
It is also important to recognize that creativity in game development is rarely an individual effort. Some of the best ideas I’ve worked on improved significantly after being discussed with other people. Whether it is through brainstorming sessions, casual conversations, or structured reviews, involving others in the process tends to accelerate thinking and reveal blind spots. Sometimes just explaining an idea out loud is enough to identify gaps or opportunities that were not obvious before. It’s also a great way to just… start working! Talk to people, say what you are thinking out loud and pay attention to their reactions!
One of the simplest habits that has had a strong impact on my process is writing ideas down regularly. Most of them are not good, and that is fine. The goal is not immediate quality, but consistency. By externalizing ideas, you create a space where they can evolve. Revisiting them later, with a different mindset or more context, often reveals potential that wasn’t clear at first. The key here is to avoid judging ideas too early, since premature evaluation can interrupt the flow and reduce exploration. I really enjoy texting myself on the phone to remember something later… Sometimes it’s a song that gives me a good feeling for a specific narrative moment, sometimes it’s a joke that could go well in some game, and sometimes it’s a mind-opening idea that might sound as weird as “let’s put tomato in a fruit salad”, but who knows? It might just work!
At the end of the day, the most important realization for me was that creativity is not something I wait for. It is something I actively build through routine. By consistently exposing myself to new inputs, generating ideas, discussing them with others, and iterating on what works, I create an environment where creativity is more likely to happen.
In that sense, inspiration becomes less of a requirement and more of a byproduct. It doesn’t come before the work, but as a result of it.