Game designs boosting creativity

When we are in a creative mode, we  find new solutions to old problems, and we get new perspectives on things we take for granted. We create things that are truly new and unique, things that has not existed before, things that are both valuable, surprising and impressive.

How can games boost creativity?

We know some about what makes us creative. Random stimulus is one trigger, where we we combine seemingly unrelated concepts.  How can we use  applications such as wordNet or big data mining? How can we add real world bleed?

Another trick is to constrain the border in which you solve a problem or create something. We find new ways to work within the borders, or we find new ways to break them. If we made a game that gave the borders – what would that game be like?

We also know that we are better at solving problems when we cooperate with each other. What would game utilising this look like? And, would it be true even if the one we cooperate with is a machine, or a game system? Would we be able to enable the creation of truly novel things?

Lets map this out, and lets design!

… just to give some context:
Some Game Pre-cursors:
Conceptual blends and collaborative storytelling:
Tarot, StoryCubes, Dixit, Fiasco, and any table top RPG.
Creative construction:
pine-cones, LEGO, CreatorVerse, MineCraft, SporeCreature Creator…etc.

 Pretty related
The Voynich Manuscript (unknown)
The Book of Imaginary Beings (Borges)
Codex Seraphinianus (Serafini)
A book of Surrealist Games

 Attempts to understand Creativity
M. A. Boden, The Creative Mind – Myths and Mechanisms (2. ed.). Routledge, 2003.
A. Newell, J. C. Shaw, H. A. Simon, “The process of creative thinking,” in Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking (G. T. H. E. Gruber and M. Wertheimer, eds.), pp. 63–19, Atherton, 1963.

/mirjam