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Former Assassin's Creed creative director for Revelations and Unity, Alexandre Amancio, says that "mastery and excellence" only exists where there are constraints, and that making your constraints clear allows studios to more successfully work with outside teams.
In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, Amancio explains that he believes the future of big budget games is in keeping small core teams, and supplementing their work with co-studios or outsourcing certain development tasks. However, if not carefully managed this strategy can lead to a game that lacks cohesiveness.
Amancio says that constraints are the key to making this style of development work. "I like being very directive in explaining the constraints: what the shape of the box is, if you will," Amancio says. "And then once that is clear, people can have full freedom to do what they want within the box."
Not only does he claim that constraints are good for helping direct other teams, but for increasing the quality of ideas within your own projects. "I think constraints are the secret behind any good art," he explains. "And whether they're artificial or they're real constraints, they have to be imposed. Our brains are all pretty much structured the same, so given the same inputs, we'll output similar ideas.
"I think ideas are important, don't get me wrong," he continues. "But I think that most people have the same ideas for the same problems. It's constraints that force you not to use that first idea. Sometimes it's financial or it's technical, but that forces you to find something different, and mastery and excellence exists in those decisions."
The sentiment rings true. Think about the 1 bit art style of Obra Dinn, or the excellent puzzles born from the lack of a jump in the criminally underrated Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker. Constraints can lead to truly inspirational games.
