4 ms·

"Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mi

"Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps.” Basically just did this again this week. I was re-reading a three year old board game design diary I had written, and came upon an old idea that I had put on the backburner after the prototype played just "ok". I tried to come up with ways to fix it for awhile, and the ideas I had then were so different they morphed into completely different designs (more specifically, it morphed into 1 different design, which bombed in playtesting, and then that morphed into a totally different design, which did really well in playtesting and I showed to publishers, and then reflecting on their feedback resulted in a completely new design sparking in my head). I thought about the problem for a few more seconds, and one new thing to try popped into my head, not a totally different game this time still keeping with the core mechanism, but a different method how players were given and used the cards, and I dug into it a bit more, and I decided on a different method of point distribution for the cards, and then thought a bit more, and the thought of adding abilities that encourage comboing based one previous or next cards played popped into my head, and then I decided to run with it, came up with a new prototype, tried it out, and it felt at least three times better, and felt more like a game that could be published. I have a game that is currently a finalist in a game design contest whose design had remained dormant for over a year because I was unsatisfied with it, but something made me think about it again and a new mechanism popped in my head and I tried that and felt a lot better about it. The Feynman method works for me, at least when it comes to designing board games. I don't mind shelving game designs for a long period of time anymore, since I have had so much luck with just thinking about them again every once in awhile and fresh new ideas popping into my head to improve the game, that likely wouldn't have happened if I kept forcing myself to think about that game.

kleer001 6y ago
RUMINATING! I just watched a bunch of Marvin Minsky lectures about his theory of the Society of Mind. One of his early questions was (paraphrased) "With all these words for emotions where are the words for thinking?" He eventually popped the ones he'd found up on the board. And, of course, I sketched up some of my own. But nowhere in either of those lists was the quite apropos reference to how a whole swath of unrelated mammals have come to solve the process of digestion of rough food material. And, if we consider thoughts, ideas, and problems to be rough material then I think the word works perfectly. I'd heard of Feynman's process, but for some reason never thought to assign it this very appropriate word. Thanks for the inspiration and reminder. Best of luck on the game! Please Show HN when you can share it. :)
- dorkwood 6y ago
  I love the metaphor of digestion to describe the brain's process. I once tried explaining to a friend how my brain works on problems in the background and they looked at me like I was spouting some new-age nonsense.
  - mgreenleaf 6y ago
    You might like Lewis Carrol's "Feeding the Mind", it takes that metaphor and applies it to a method of how to read books. On Gutenberg.org too: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35535/35535-h/35535-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35535/35535-h/35535-h.htm
- cableshaft 6y ago
  I'll check out Marvin Minsky, thanks for the mention. I am planning to take advantage of this weekend and try to get a little caught up on how to play videos for my games. I've got 6 designs already filmed (Cake Walk is the one that's a finalist in a game competition): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDjU-rdSngu-eeqJnc2OnQl-QG4FcI_IA https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDjU-rdSngu-eeqJnc2On... If I get the newest one up this weekend, it will probably be called 'Shared Fate'. I didn't think Show HN is really the place to show off analog board games, so I wasn't really considering it. I don't have anything published yet anyway (just one game signed with a publisher), so they're all prototypes. Does anyone know if posting my game design videos on Show HN would be appreciated? I come up with a lot of designs, though (my 'need to make a how to play video' backlog is like 30 games at this point). Assuming I got more consistent at filming videos, I could probably post one every week or two. Several of them you could probably play at home with components from other games.
  - kleer001 6y ago
    > I didn't think Show HN is really the place to show off analog board games Let's game it out: Worst case scenario it gets flagged for removal and your account gets deleted. How likely is that? ;) Most likely scenario, I think, it goes the way of most posts, ignored. Best case scenario, people like it and you get some good conversations about it, some interest, and a few new players.
amelius 6y ago
> Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Drag-net thinking? ;)
MasterScrat 6y ago
> You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. I have lived by those words for many years, but somehow I was never able to find where I had initially read them (yes I tried googling, somehow that quote doesn't show up!) This works very well, especially if you are involved in research and hobbies in very varied area. For example in running you will learn about interval training - alternating short burst of training interspersed with rest periods. What about using that when training neural networks? How does this map to game design, when you put high intensity on the player for short burst of time? How is it similar with the pomodoro technique? Obviously you end up with many spurious connections but it can light up certain topics in a different light.

kleer001 6y ago

RUMINATING! I just watched a bunch of Marvin Minsky lectures about his theory of the Society of Mind. One of his early questions was (paraphrased) "With all these words for emotions where are the words for thinking?" He eventually popped the ones he'd found up on the board. And, of course, I sketched up some of my own. But nowhere in either of those lists was the quite apropos reference to how a whole swath of unrelated mammals have come to solve the process of digestion of rough food material. And, if we consider thoughts, ideas, and problems to be rough material then I think the word works perfectly. I'd heard of Feynman's process, but for some reason never thought to assign it this very appropriate word. Thanks for the inspiration and reminder. Best of luck on the game! Please Show HN when you can share it. :)

dorkwood 6y ago
I love the metaphor of digestion to describe the brain's process. I once tried explaining to a friend how my brain works on problems in the background and they looked at me like I was spouting some new-age nonsense.
- mgreenleaf 6y ago
  You might like Lewis Carrol's "Feeding the Mind", it takes that metaphor and applies it to a method of how to read books. On Gutenberg.org too: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35535/35535-h/35535-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35535/35535-h/35535-h.htm
cableshaft 6y ago
I'll check out Marvin Minsky, thanks for the mention. I am planning to take advantage of this weekend and try to get a little caught up on how to play videos for my games. I've got 6 designs already filmed (Cake Walk is the one that's a finalist in a game competition): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDjU-rdSngu-eeqJnc2OnQl-QG4FcI_IA https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDjU-rdSngu-eeqJnc2On... If I get the newest one up this weekend, it will probably be called 'Shared Fate'. I didn't think Show HN is really the place to show off analog board games, so I wasn't really considering it. I don't have anything published yet anyway (just one game signed with a publisher), so they're all prototypes. Does anyone know if posting my game design videos on Show HN would be appreciated? I come up with a lot of designs, though (my 'need to make a how to play video' backlog is like 30 games at this point). Assuming I got more consistent at filming videos, I could probably post one every week or two. Several of them you could probably play at home with components from other games.
- kleer001 6y ago
  > I didn't think Show HN is really the place to show off analog board games Let's game it out: Worst case scenario it gets flagged for removal and your account gets deleted. How likely is that? ;) Most likely scenario, I think, it goes the way of most posts, ignored. Best case scenario, people like it and you get some good conversations about it, some interest, and a few new players.

amelius 6y ago

> Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Drag-net thinking? ;)

MasterScrat 6y ago

> You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. I have lived by those words for many years, but somehow I was never able to find where I had initially read them (yes I tried googling, somehow that quote doesn't show up!) This works very well, especially if you are involved in research and hobbies in very varied area. For example in running you will learn about interval training - alternating short burst of training interspersed with rest periods. What about using that when training neural networks? How does this map to game design, when you put high intensity on the player for short burst of time? How is it similar with the pomodoro technique? Obviously you end up with many spurious connections but it can light up certain topics in a different light.