To stay ahead in game design, I focus on: 1. Collaboration: Bringing together a team with diverse backgrounds helps generate unique ideas. 2. Continuous Learning: I regularly explore emerging technologies, trends, and design methodologies. 3. Player Feedback: Constantly gathering feedback from players to iterate and refine designs. 4. Prototyping: Creating quick prototypes allows testing and refining ideas early on. 5. Cross-Industry Insights: Drawing inspiration from other fields like film, art, and psychology to enhance game narratives and mechanics. Cheers, MR

Work with game design students in university. Their fresh perspectives and innovative out-of-the box ideas always add massively to the design process

Surround yourself with diverse sources of inspiration, whether it’s through playing a wide range of games, attending industry conferences, or exploring art, film, and other creative media. This helps you break out of conventional thinking and see design possibilities from new angles. Collaboration also fuels innovation. Engaging with other designers, developers, and artists encourages idea exchange and pushes the boundaries of what’s possible. Regularly experimenting with new technologies, tools, and design methodologies can lead to breakthroughs in gameplay, mechanics, or visual style. This ensures that your creativity thrives even amidst fierce competition, setting your designs apart in the market.

Stay your lane. Not all innovations are worth adopting. Players want a good game, not just fancy graphics. Just look at Among Us. One of the most played games. No fanciness, just a great idea.

Nintendo put in practice a very interesting work process in Zelda Breath of the Wild. It consisted on opening a internal forum only for developers working on this project. They were encouraged to use it and write down every creative idea they had. The result was a ton of ideas. They were so much so they did a sequel with some of them. So encourage your team to share their (crazy or not) ideas is a good practice during development.