One of the most valuable pieces of advice I got during my year at VFS was to just do it. As creative individuals, we could spend countless hours brainstorming concept after concept, piling on features and thinking of different themes. But in the end, the follow-through is what counts.
In my experience, the sooner you lock down a game concept, the better. You’re better off spending your time iterating on a single idea to make it as great as possible than coming up with lots of different ideas while leaving yourself very little time to make any of them good.
Sure, everyone wants to come up with that innovative idea. That smashing new concept that no one’s ever thought of, that’s so genius it’ll blow everyone’s socks off. But if it hasn’t come to you within a few brainstorming sessions, choose one of the less genius ideas instead and make it as awesome as possible.
And who knows? Maybe the genius idea will come about in the next round. And by then, if you’ve already followed through with another idea, you’ll have more experience and wisdom to bring to your genius idea.
So go forth, create, and follow through. Because to be a great game designer, you’ve just got to do it.