Practical Creativity

GDC Festival of Gaming
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2018–2026
YouTube
355K views · 9 years ago · talk · evergreen

Raph Koster, lead designer of Ultima Online, gives a GDC talk on how creativity works in practice. He treats it as a learnable process of recombining existing patterns and ideas rather than waiting for inspiration.

HN people recommend it as one of the best GDC talks, and as a view of creativity as using an existing pattern in a new context that is useful even for people outside games.

“I like his perspective that creativity = using an existing pattern in a new context.”
Game designDesign careers & craft
#creativity#gamedesign#gdc#raphkoster#ideageneration

7 comments from Hacker News

r
@runevault2024 · in “Database “sharding” came from Ultima Online? (2009)”
Raph's practical creativity talk is still one of my favorite I've watched from GDC. ▶ this video
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@wonger_2026 · in “Spherical Snake”
I watched this GDC talk recently about practical creativity: ▶ this video I like his perspective that creativity = using an existing pattern in a new context. You can be more creative by first consuming lots of different patterns in all sorts of contexts (e.g. playing lots of games, and also reading and experiencing lots of topics unrelated to games). Then you try all the different permutations of patterns in your mental toolbox. Kinda like how the sibling comment rattled off different what-ifs. EDIT oh and oblique strategies might be helpful to come up with variations on an existing theme: link
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r
@runevault2025 · in “Game design is simple”
I need to sit down and give this a proper read, but anyone who wants more of Raph giving insights into game design should check out this old GDC talk he did about Practical Creativity: ▶ this video
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v
@vector_spaces2025 · in “Practical Creativity (2017)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@_qbjt2018 · in “Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players”
Same! Never used UOX but ran a few small private servers back in the day using SphereServer and eventually RunUO. While it didn't lead to any professional connections in my case, it was my first foray into programming. Ultima Online in its early iterations was truly a magical game and helped to define a lot of the core design patterns of MMORPGs. The lead designer of UO, Raph Koster, has a lot of great insight when it comes to game design. I recommend his 2014 GDC talk, "Practical Creativity" [1], even to developers who are not interested in game development. [1] ▶ this video
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@wonger_2026 · in “Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem”
Yeah, I've been grappling with the definition of creativity too. There's a gamedev talk [0] on creativity that gave me useful perspective. Here's what I wrote elsewhere: --- i've been thinking about raph's definition of creativity [0]: permuting one set of ideas with another set of ideas (or trying an idea in new contexts) this is a systematic process, doable even by machine once enough pattern libraries have been catalogued. on a small scale, there's sprint.cards [1] or oblique strats [2]. on a large scale, there's llms... it's freeing to approach creativity as a deliberate practice rather than waiting on some fickle muse. yet it's a bit disappointing to see idea generation so mechanical and dehumanized. i am comforted by the value of mushy human abilities surrounding the creative process: mostly 1) taste, the ability to recognize pleasing output, ... [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link
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Z
@Zardoz892024 · in “Playstation 5 Pro Shows the Futility of the Video-Game Graphics Race”
Almost everyday, it’s the most innovative game development space. You are just out of touch. link Digest some perspective. ▶ this video
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