Three Powerful World Building Techniques - Vol. 1 Ed. 39
Apr 14, 2021 2:26 am
World Builders' Guild Newsletter
Whenever I got punished as a kid, I tried to negotiate a peaceful compromise.
This did not always work.
Sometimes I was such a little jerk that I needed the sobbing bedroom exile to think about my crimes.
But, those times when I managed to win a sliver of freedom it went like this:
"I promise not to touch anything except for one set of Lego."
I learned a lot about building worlds on the floor of my room in the middle of a thriving village of plastic bricks.
It wasn't until later on that I realized all great World Builders think about things in special ways (I'm not saying I'm great, but they probably had their share of "time in exile" to experiment).
Have an Uncompromised Sense of Wonder
Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Nintendo's most beloved franchises, spent his youthful summers slashing his way through local bamboo forests and climbing into mysterious caverns. He brought this childlike sense of wonder with him into his work as a game designer. Watch an interview with Miyamoto. Now in his late sixties, he still grins like an awestruck kid. Next time you go out, assume you know nothing about the world around you. What can you learn about the details of your environment? Find something you never knew was there: a tree, a flowerbed, a weathervane on top of a building.
Find your own special cave to dream in (Tsvetoslav Hristov on Unsplash)
Familiar is Powerful, but Mix and Match
Lego gives you unlimited freedom in how you imagine your world. You can put a medieval knight in a space hangar next to a cowboy as the building gets attacked by a galactic bully and his evil friends. Everybody knows the story of the classic Western, but what happens when you put it in space with laser swords and mind-controlling aliens? That's what George Lucas did with Star Wars. C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia is a fantastic retelling of the story of Jesus in a parallel world beyond a magical wardrobe. People like familiar, but make familiar fresh.
Leave Room for Stories
I had to fight the urge to tell my friends the "rules" of how everything was supposed to happen in my Lego world. They would see things I hadn't thought of, or they would act out scenes that were more interesting and fun with new characters. Build just enough of the world so that the people who come to visit can write their own stories inside of it. 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a short main storyline by video game standards, however, the world provides limitless opportunities for adventure. You can't help but create your own story inside that vast and intriguing landscape. Sure, you can slay the dragon and win the prize, but it's more fun to seek out all the hidden quests and dig deep into the lore of the universe.
What will you build next?
Reply to this newsletter and tell me about it.
To future worlds,
Matt Ventre
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