From Idea To Empire: The Art Of IP Development

Imagination and organization are valuable skills to have. They allow you to fashion and fathom the world around you. Yet organized ideas alone are not enough to effect change. Bringing ideas from the page to the stage still takes hard work. Many artless upstarts are intimidated by the prospect of facing challenges— and worst of all failure—in the effort to bring their ideas to life. The more you understand about the development process, however, the more you’ll find that much of the perceived difficulty resides solely in our minds.

This next segment will outline the most extensive element of the IPD framework—the development and construction of ideas.

Development: Constructing Ideas

“Good ideas are common - what's uncommon are people who'll work hard enough to bring them about”

-Ashleigh Brilliant

When it comes to implementing your idea there are three basic routes you can take:

A.) You can spend most of your time designing/planning the idea in great detail;

B.) You can jump right into implementing the idea with little to no design work; or

C.) You can balance design with implementation; shifting from one to the other based on the task at hand.

C is the ideal you’re striving for here; it allows you flexibility and with experience you’ll learn to identify when things need to be designed and when they don’t.

However, if it’s your first project outing, I would suggest spending time getting comfortable with designing and planning your work; as a lack of planning seems to be the predominant cause of problems during the later stages of development. I will continue into the phases of the construction process with this design-oriented approach in mind.

Regardless of the path you choose, if you are just starting out, there is one maxim that you must abide by: Start small. Finish something. Move on.

Do yourself a favor; get through the process a few times before working on your pride and joy. Your ultimate idea, that’ll probably take forever, will surely kill you should you attempt it fresh out of the gates. Take the time to nurture your skills by developing many small ideas with limited boundaries.

For instance, say you want to write stories. Well try to avoid the epic space operas until you’ve at least managed a few short stories fairly well. In music, what sense does it make to attempt a 30-page classical symphony when you haven’t even composed a song for a single page? Don’t worry. The time will come when you can realize all of your grand visions. But attempting to create the ultimate IP at this point would be as effective as trying to speak a sentence before you even know the words.

So here, let me teach you the words.

The 6 phases of constructing an idea are: Concept, Blueprint, Flesh, Specs, Draft, and Final.

Concept

The first phase of development begins with establishing your vision. Without the end goal to strive for you are apt to wander in obscurity; never certain about what you are doing and where you are on your way to doing it. Although unguided exploration and development are important sources of innovation and unexpected novelty, they are no substitute for goal setting. Setting goals and giving ideas direction is how you practically get things done.

Giving An Idea Purpose

The point of scribing and storing so many ideas during Conception and Gestation is to increase the chances of you being inspired to develop at least one of them. Go ahead and index through a few of your ideas and pick one you think you’d like to work on.

Upon your selection, there is a question that you should ask yourself about the idea: Why do you want to do it?

Are you using it as a skill building project? Are you trying to target a specific market and this idea just happens to fit into that mold? Or is it something that genuinely excites and intrigues you? Why do you want to spend your time developing it?

It’s a simple question, but a very important one to answer at this stage; before you’ve put in the time and energy to work on it.

The end goal and your unwavering passion to reach that goal are the primary constitutes of the concept phase. Without them, your motivations are questionable and your path irresolute.

I’ve started more than a few projects with fresh enthusiasm only to have it quickly sour into mediocre indifference. This was mainly because I did not really consider why I wanted to work on the idea and if it was something I even really cared about. Avoid this mistake by making sure the idea truly interests you.

>> Note

As you work on your idea, it will most likely change; this is just a normal part of its growth and development. Your goals, however, seldom change and if they do, then they should have been considered further in the first place.

Your first task then is to take an idea and give it a solid objective—I want to write an adventure story about my Character X— and to make sure you really care about that objective. If it’s not that important to you, then move on to the objective that is. That’s the one you’ll want to develop towards.

The Vignette

After you have thought about and decided on the direction you want to take, briefly outline the idea in minimal detail focusing on the core feeling, value, and objective of the idea; I call this the vignette.

The vignette takes different forms in different mediums; such as a thumbnail sketch in art, a hypothesis in science, or a one page story summary in writing.

>>Example

At the Design Innovate Communicate Entertain (D.I.C.E.) summit this year, Fumito Ueda explained how he communicated the vision of “Shadow of the Colossus” and “ICO” by making movies using CG graphics, which showed the feeling and style of gameplay he was going for. This is a more advanced level use of the vignette as a prototype for a concept.

Here’s another example of an intermediate level vignette that uses audio and video to convey the mood and basic idea of the concept:

The Mourning Star (5 MB)

At this stage, the concept gets its first review and is either green lighted or rejected depending on how you feel about it. If you find yourself even more excited and passionate about its execution then congratulations, you have just completed the first step towards bringing your concept to life.

Blueprint

After you have vignetted your concept you are ready to start thinking about the high-level details. You know what you want your concept to be, but what exactly does it entail? The blueprint phase is where you will need to figure that out.

Labeling The Parts

Take a moment and look around the room you are sitting in right now. It’s probably full of furniture and objects. Examine them a bit closer. Those objects are made up of many different parts and those parts are made up of even more basic materials; tempered in a certain way to serve a specific purpose, in the composition of the whole.

Your concept is the same. You simply need to deconstruct it and label all the basic parts and pieces.

If you are writing a story, then briefly outline and describe the beginning, middle, and end in bullet point form. If you are designing a game, list and skim over all the gameplay systems that make up the game—e.g. combat system, navigation, camera movement, etc.—;flowchart them to show how they relate to one another. For manga, sequential artwork, or animation, create a series of key images that capture the visual essence of the entire scene or script.

>>Example

Here is an example of a blueprint for a game:

Seda:X² Concept Document (8 MB)

Developing this sort of blueprint takes your concept to the next level, creating depth and giving you a comprehensive snapshot of the final work.

Arranging The Pieces

Because the blueprint gives you a top down view of your concept, it is also an ideal stage to experiment with the arrangement of your work. Modifying the arrangement of elements in any composition can drastically change their combined meaning and effect. Therefore you can cut and paste, copy or crop your concept in various ways to see if there are more interesting orchestrations for it.

>>Example

In an art sketch, you could move subjects around to create more negative space; in a game you could eliminate some gameplay systems and create emphasis on others; or for writing, you could change the point at which your story starts, allowing it to unfold in a completely different manner.

Changes to the blueprint are broad and sweeping. With a twist here and a turn there, you might very well end up with something completely incomparable to your original idea. But hey, who is to say you can’t develop them both?

Project Notebook

Just as you used a notebook to help you compile all your ideas into one place, you can similarly focus your notes, writings, and explorations concerning your concept into one area. Having a central project notebook just makes the development process easier to manage and you won’t have to worry about forgetting where you wrote down the research notes and details of system X for your game.

Your project notebook can take any form—a named folder on a digital recorder— as long as it allows you to group all the information related to your concept.

The power of blueprinting allows you to focus on the flow and unity of the concept. This assures that as you continue to zoom deeper into more and more layers of details, you don’t lose site of the underlying structure, which holds it all together. You will be referring back to your blueprint often so take care to make it accessible.

The next phase will show you how to rear your blueprint from its elementary state to a semi-final form.

Flesh

Once you have finished blueprinting your concept, you should have a basic skeleton in place, ready to be expanded into a detailed design. The flesh phase is where you will take the many parts of your blueprint and focus on each as if it were a blueprint of its own; this consequently advances the entire concept towards its completion.

Fleshing out all the individual components of your blueprint is the second most time consuming task in IP development; outside of implementation. But if you have mastered the Conception and Gestation elements, it is a relatively painless process. It all comes down to generating ideas, solving problems, and making decisions that make sense.

Ideation 102

As you flesh out your blueprint you will find yourself running through an incomplete maze with cliffs and broken ledges around every corner. These are the routes that now need your creative attention.

While you may have developed a vague sense of how the maze works in your blueprint, you must now add the details that bring each hall into its own right (i.e. if I’m doing a painting of a woman holding an apple, I can start creating ideas for each element in the composition— the apple will be purple and the dress of the woman holding the apple will be white).

This is also a good time to refer back to your idea notebook for general ideas that can be used to help you flesh out your project.

Solving Problems

There are many problems that can originate from the goal guiding your blueprint, such as the practicality of the design or feasibility of the concept. These issues tend to arise from the inexperience of the creator who is attempting something in a craft they know nothing about. Problems like these require knowledge of or research into your craft (see The Importance of Research heading below).

If you are new to your craft, learn the basics first and work on an idea within your capabilities. Once you have completed it, you can move on to more advanced projects.

The kinds of problems that I most often encounter usually arise from a logic or artistic conflict between the various parts of the blueprint.

Logic Conflict-I might have Character A’s backstory worked out in full detail, but then I change the history of his hometown or introduce Character B’s backstory and it forces me to revise Character A’s details in order for the story to make sense. This is an example of a logic conflict between elements.

Artistic Conflict-An artistic conflict could be something like Character A’s backstory being too cliché or perhaps his supporting cast being a bit too bizarre for the story. These are matters of personal taste where the conflict is between what you are going for and what you have actually designed.

You must take the time to reconcile and modify these high-level components. But if you recall, changing one thing in the blueprint causes a domino effect of change and hence the nature of problem solving involved at this stage of development.

Sometimes solving the problem just comes down to you making a decision and running with it. Just make sure that you work to resolve all the issues until you are completely satisfied with the results. If you need a little help with your choices, gather early feedback from your peers or conduct some research relating to the decision in question.

The Importance Of Research

Conducting research involves finding accurate information on a subject in order to help you flesh out the various parts of your blueprint. It can also involve studying and examining a specific subject to gather insights into the workings of it.

>>Example

Painters tend to conduct extensive studies on the various objects in their composition, reading about its details or observing how it reflects light so that they can better consider how to represent it in the picture. Other disciplines use similar methods.

A writer, for instance, working on a story that has a drag racing element, will want to find out how such events are conducted and all of the people involved in making it happen. A musician might compile a CD of reference material to help him pinpoint the qualities and feelings he is looking to incorporate into his own work.

The examples are endless and you can tell when someone has put in the extra time to add the essential details to their production, via researching or studying it.

Many are turned off by the idea of research, however, and so they hack together something that’s within the realms of their own limited knowledge. The results are usually less than impressive, seeming shallow and basic. In the worst case, their understanding of the subject is totally flawed and causes all sorts of logic conflicts in the IP. Would you want the foundation of your house built by someone who didn’t do their homework?

Also, because they didn’t explore the material, they are not aware of all the color it may contain. They may miss out on applying something interesting to their work that could accent it perfectly or create a sense of wonder and awe about the subject in the observer; which could add power and subtly to their creation.

Don’t be put off by research. Besides being informative and enlightening, research can also be quite fun, depending on the subject you are reading up on.

The thing to be careful about when applying research to your work is to make sure you only apply the information that helps support your concept. Too much detail is dangerous and you must pick and choose what you will use carefully; emphasizing some topics and subordinating others.

Finding Information To Research

There are two main ways that I conduct research. The first way is to seek out general information if the subject is new to me or I have very limited knowledge about it. The second way is to search for very specific information about a subject I have some comprehension about.

For the first method, I always look for material that outlines the basics of the subject so that I can understand the fundamental topics that comprise it. This also allows me to explore more layers of complexity and subtly later on.

The second method is employed once I know a little about the topic and need to find out how specific parts of it work. This method takes a bit longer usually as the more specific detail gets, the more it references other subjects that you, in turn, have to grasp to a degree necessary to understand the original material you are researching.

>>Example

When I had to create a coal mining city for a story, I first researched everything about mines and coal cultivation and production. From there, I was led into details about minerals, elements, molecules, and facts about coal and its uses.

Each subject would branch out to another, which I then had to research until it all finally came full circle and I understood the subject. This allowed me to add unique twists and creatively fabricated details that felt genuine and made sense in the story. It also gave me another conversational piece to exploit should I come across the odd miner or expert in minerals.

As far as places to find information, google.com, Wikipedia.com, and the internet, in general, are great resource for finding basic information on a wide variety of subjects. A library—more specifically, a book— is the way to go when it comes to comprehending vast amounts of details on a given topic. Or, if you happen to know someone who studies, teaches, or practices a subject, ask them questions about it and find out where they suggest looking.

However, nothing beats experience. If your subject is something that you can do or try out for yourself, by all means go for it. You can read about how it feels to ride a rollercoaster or observe others all you want, but that won’t give you the kind of comprehension and detail you could gather by riding one yourself.

Once you have fleshed out your blueprint you will have an elaborate edifice that can stand on its own. The only tasks remaining are to tie it all together and revise it to its final form.

Specs

In most cases you can jump directly from the flesh phase to the draft phase. However, there is another optional phase of development, which is standard in many disciplines, that involves developing every element of the blueprint down to the finest level of detail. These details are called specs (short for specifications).

The specs phase involves the exact same elements as the flesh phase, only to a much greater degree.

>>Example

In game design, specs are needed to assure that the lowest-level of detail in a system has been thought through on the page or tested through a prototype. So if I were designing a combat system, I would have to detail not only the components that make up that system, but also showcase and detail the actual implementation of those components. You can find an example of a spec document for a game combat system here:

Seda:X² Attacks Document (3 MB)

To use music as an example, I might have all the details of my song worked out, but the actual, mechanical way I plan to play each note or series of notes would be a specification.

Unless you are trained to see it, you would not normally notice the specs phase in the development of your concept, because it usually comes to you in the form of the last minute decisions that you make during implementation. It is the same process, only here it becomes a focus of its own.

Draft

Once you have fleshed out all the elements in your concept, you need only to bridge the gaps between them and smooth things out a bit. The draft phase will be your first unified implementation where all the parts are finally drawn together—seams showing.

Bridging The Gaps

Depending on the final form your concept takes, the details of how you have to design, build and complete it will vary. I will use art, music, and game design as an analogy for further explanation.

>>Example

The pencil drawing or under painting is the initial draft of an artwork, reach logically from the thumbnail sketches and composition studies created during the concept, blueprint, and flesh phases.

In music, after each individual verse, chorus, and instrument has been determined, the various parts are combined in their proper order and at the right tempo, to create the rough draft of the song.

Finally in game design, once all the systems have been defined and prototyped, they are weaved together through programming, creating the first complete version of the game, known as the Alpha.

You’ll know you have bridged all the essential gaps that exist when you can experience your concept from beginning to end without any jarring breaks or incomplete segments affecting how it flows. While it might not be as nice as you would like it, it’s all there.

Validation and Alignment

At this point you can see where your creation is headed. Does it match your initial vision and goal? What’s missing? Where are the weaknesses or imbalances and how will you fix them?

This step may require you to return to flesh things out a bit more, ask questions that you hadn’t considered previously, or maybe even make changes to the blueprint and run through the entire process again (hence the importance of starting with something small and manageable, as aligning the draft to the vision can become extremely time consuming).

The key is to make certain that all of the elements work together to accomplish your end goal; the ones that don’t should be changed or eliminated.

Once your draft has been validated and aligned with its initial goal and purpose—or has at least reach a satisfactory outcome— you can at last move on to the final phase of the IP development process; the point where your idea finally gets actualized in full glory.

Final

The final phase of IP Development involves a three step routine of gathering feedback, reviewing the IP, and making revisions.

Gathering Feedback

Let’s say you’ve been working on your project for a long time now and are familiar with all the ends and outs of it. You feel that you have covered all the bases and that it all makes sense. That is, until you expose it to the outside world for feedback and it is ripped to shreds with constructive (and sometimes unconstructive) criticism.

Unfortunately, because you are so close to your project, you are liable to take a lot of things for granted. This is why gathering feedback is important. If you have designed your project so that it can be understood, used, or enjoyed by other people, then you should hear what they have to say about it—there’s a great chance that you will learn a few things in the process or at least find areas of your work to tighten up on.

Don’t take feedback personally. Just take it. Even if you feel the person is just being spiteful and silly, or they have the nerve to talk, don’t let that bother you one bit. It’s just feedback. Nod your head, thank the person, and compile it with the rest of the feedback you have collected for an objective review later on.

If they ask you about the feedback they gave you, or what you think. Simply say:

“I don’t think about it yet. I just take it in and review it later, along with the other feedback. I consider everything. If it has a valid point and helps me reach my goal, then I will use it.”

Believe me, you’ll avoid so many needless discrepancies and ego clashes if you are able to take feedback well.

If you feel there has been a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of your work, then you can feel free to explain the reasoning behind your decisions; though you might be more interested in figuring out how it was misinterpreted in the first place.

Just keep in mind, all ideas, no matter how great, must be tempered and gathering feedback is one of the primary ways to identify some of their shortcomings.

Reviewing and Revising

Every change you make will alter the project a bit and so it must be reviewed and validated each time. The steps in the final phase for validation and review are the same as during the draft phase. Take a breather from the project after making a change and then comeback to review it with fresh eyes, smoothing out any issues that crop up.

It is also beneficial to version, number, or tag your revisions so that you can distinguish between the older versions and newer ones. Sometimes you may make a change that you later regret, but as long as you have your older versions on hand, you can refer back to them for the dated information. This is another example of how to make your ideas accessible.

Revising and reviewing are the last steps in the development phase; usually, the more time spent here polishing, the better the end result will be.

Live and Learn

You could choose to revise and polish forever, but at some point you need to call it quits and move on to your next big idea. Before you do that though, it’s a good time to consider what you have learned and how, if you had to do it all again, you might progress about doing it differently.

This information can help you improve any projects that you may work on in the future. It is also a great way to share your experience with others through what is known as a Postmortem. You can find an example of a postmortem for the video game “Fable” here.

There’s no better time to start learning from your mistakes than now. And after years of compound experience from all of your IP development, you will have devised your own system for dealing with the tough issues that arise during the development phase. Who knows, you might even dedicate a blog to it. I do.

The development process is long and arduous, but seldom can more joy be found in a result than in the completion of one’s own vision. With time and practice comes ease. And though you may spend your first days crawling through the journey, you shall eventually learn to walk. Master the walk and you can begin to run. Surpass the run and you may finally dance about with majesty and grace for all to see.

The next segment will outline the many ways that you can take your final production and deliver it to the world.

-Sage