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Hi Justin! I learned this early on from my friend Kevin Wilson – IP is a guidepost, not a stop sign. Basically, use the IP to guide you, don’t let it dictate things to you.
As an “experience-first” designer, I’m always wondering what people’s experiences are with the specific IP. I always work with IPs I know intimately and I have my own ideas of why it’s a cool IP, but I want to know about how other people engage with the IP. I’ll ask friends and find out. I do research. I rewatch shows, reread comics. I read scripts and commentary on films.
In the end, I want to capture a moment, an experience, of that IP in a game. I’m not trying to recreate the whole IP – that would be a fool’s errand for something like Batman… I’m trying to give someone a tabletop experience that reflects a key moment in the IP.
For example, for The Legend of Korra: Pro Bending Arena, Alara and I rewatched all the shows, but then put 1 single clip (Not the one below, sorry!) on repeat where we saw the experience that we wanted to emulate in the game: attacking and defending at the same time within the same move.
