Inspiration comes from so many places. For example, my sister-in-law makes a candy called seafoam. She sends a (only one!) package every year for Christmas. I love the stuff - so much that I have blessed one of my game concepts with the name "Seafoam".
My notes and scribbles about Seafoam are in a notebook I have labeled "Fragments". It's where I keep all those idea kernels for game designs, game mechanics, scenario descriptions, concepts, settings - any little nugget that seems worth remembering because someday it might be worthwhile. When I get in an idea logjam, I go through my notebook for inspiration. Maybe someday, all those fragments will actually come together, and Seafoam will be built - but in the meantime, I can occasionally test out some of my ideas in other ways.
Formats and venues for testing those ideas occur in equally unexpected ways. Today, The Seasteading Institute's (TSI) announcement about their current contest came to my attention. As they research and design ways to engineer, construct, launch, and manage (semi-)permanent floating communities, they are inviting involvement of the public in the physical design of the free-floating villages that they imagine will dot the oceans. Currently, they are looking for creative and talented designers to design a seastead using 3D modeling software (Google SketchUp recommended - it's free). A seastead, by the way, is a floating platform that allows people to permanently settle the ocean as they do land.
It strikes me that designers of immersive environments, MMOGs, and other imagined domains may be uniquely suited to conceive of the sort seastead that would address TSI's needs in ways that traditional, land- and reality-based designers, architects and engineers are not.
So pull out your notebooks, eat some seafoam for inspiration, and get busy. There are world's to be designed - and $1000 to win!
I'm serious,
Anne
