An Example Of Making A New IP

tim-cain ip-creation game-design post-apocalyptic design-framework pitching fallout

Abstract

Problem: How do you actually develop a raw game idea into a fully-formed intellectual property, following a structured creative process?

Approach: Tim Cain walks through a real example from his design notebook — a post-apocalyptic game where you play as a five-year-old child — demonstrating his recommended order of Setting → Story → System Mechanics, then evaluating it for pitching.

Findings: A strong IP emerges from establishing a compelling framework with clear constraints and goals, rather than filling in every detail upfront. Leaving deliberate gaps invites team ownership and better designs. The process naturally produces an elevator pitch, identifiable hooks, and honest pros/cons evaluation.

Key insight: A good design framework sets boundaries and goals without specifying every detail — the gaps are features, not bugs, because they give your team room to take ownership and do their best work.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZonqVO0FNbc

1. The Idea

Tim pulls a 2015 entry from one of his design idea notebooks: a post-apocalyptic game, but deliberately different from Fallout. The core differentiator is variety — instead of everything being radiation-based (ghouls, giant bugs, mutants), he wanted diverse monster types with different behaviors: some hunting in packs, some solitary, some fighting each other, some ignoring each other. The cause of the apocalypse is intentionally withheld from the audience, though Tim knows it, because that mystery drives the entire experience.

2. Setting

The setting has distinctive characteristics that separate it from typical post-apocalyptic fare:

  • All buildings are intact — this wasn't a nuclear war
  • Most people are dead, and you find their bodies
  • Various kinds of monsters roam freely with different behaviors
  • The cause of the apocalypse is unknown to the player

3. Story: The Opening Cinematic

Tim describes a powerful opening cinematic that he would never let the player "play through" — a philosophy he holds strongly. He criticizes games that let players walk through scripted openings where choices don't matter, calling it a waste of time.

The opening: You're a five-year-old. You wake up on a Saturday morning before everyone else, grab cereal, turn on cartoons. You hear thumps upstairs. You find your parents dead in their bed. Your teenage sister, looking insane, turns and screams and lunges at you. Your golden retriever tackles her, saves you — but then turns on you too, eyes red, head misshapen. You flee through the front door (which the dog can't open), run through your neighborhood hearing distant screaming, and head to the only safe place you know: your elementary school. You slip through a tiny gap in the fence only a small child could fit through, find a bathroom vent window, squeeze in. The game begins.

Tim draws parallels to his previous openings: in Fallout, you're told about growing up in the Vault and being cast out. In Arcanum, you're told about the blimp crash. The game starts at the moment of action, not before it.

4. Story Structure: Three Acts

  • Act One — Survive: Pure survival. How do you avoid being killed? How do you hide? How do you find food?
  • Act Two — Explore: Once you've exhausted the school's food supply, you venture outward — nearby houses, maybe your own home. You may discover other survivors.
  • Act Three — Recover: Perhaps years later. How do you find out what caused the apocalypse? How do you move beyond pure survival?

Tim notes these three acts could also serve as a trilogy — some publishers love hearing "this could be a series."

5. System Mechanics: The Illiterate Child

The protagonist being five years old drives radical mechanical decisions:

  • No classes. You're not a 5-year-old barbarian or wizard. Classes don't exist.
  • All skills start at zero. You can't cook, drive, or even read. You're illiterate and will likely stay that way because nobody's left to teach you.
  • Learnable skills are limited to things a child could figure out alone: scavenging, hiding, eventually cooking.
  • Unlearnable skills include driving and reading — they require a teacher who doesn't exist.

5.1. The Illiteracy Mechanic as a Design Gift

The illiteracy constraint feeds back into every other system in elegant ways:

  • Signs, notes, and books exist in the world but appear as meaningless symbols to the player
  • An arrow on a sign tells you direction; the word above it is gibberish
  • Localization becomes trivial — nothing needs to be translated because the player can't read any of it
  • Radio and TV broadcasts become partial gibberish: "Warning, there has been a blah blah blah. Please stay in your homes. Do not under any blah blah blah. Thank you."

6. The Elevator Pitch

Tim's working pitch: "Can you survive an apocalypse as a child?" He acknowledges better versions exist, but notes this one immediately provokes a reaction — people engage even if their first instinct is disagreement.

7. Hooks and Self-Evaluation

Tim stresses the importance of having "evocative hooks" — concepts that immediately spark imagination without being so bizarre they're incomprehensible. "You're an illiterate child who knows nothing about the world, and the world has ended" is evocative. "You're a Boock from Planet Zebon" is not.

7.1. Pros

  • Rich in mysteries and puzzles, many time-critical
  • Natural trilogy structure (Survive → Explore → Recover)
  • Illiteracy hook saves development and localization costs
  • Monster variety exceeds typical post-apocalyptic games

7.2. Cons

  • "Really, Tim? Another post-apocalyptic game?" — though he notes it's been nearly three decades since he did pure post-apocalyptic
  • Concerns about players rejecting a child protagonist who can die — Tim counters with Limbo (a game built entirely around a child dying gruesomely), Dead Island's opening, and other precedents

8. The Framework Philosophy

Tim's most important meta-point: at this stage, you want a framework, not a complete design. He deliberately left gaps — he doesn't know exactly what skills the game will have, but he has goals for what they should be (learnable alone, appropriate for a child).

This matters for team dynamics:

  • Some designers need a framework to function; without one they freeze
  • Others push against framework boundaries — "we'll talk about that, but probably no"
  • The best outcome is when designers notice gaps and fill them with their own ideas
  • Once someone owns an idea, they fight to make it work — it becomes theirs

Tim cites examples from Fallout: Leonard Boyarsky created the 1950s aesthetic; Chris Taylor designed the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. These people owned their contributions and did excellent work because of that ownership.

8.1. Goals vs. Details

In design discussions, Tim bifurcates arguments: Are you disagreeing with the goals or with whether specific implementations meet those goals? Goals get locked down early. Implementation details remain open for a long time. This separation prevents endless relitigating of fundamentals while preserving creative freedom in execution.

9. References