On: Tools for Better Thinking

[wodenokoto]

> Has it been so long that folks have forgotten https://gamestorming.com/ ?

Forgotten? I've never even heard of it.

[lstamour → wodenokoto]

Interesting. Just searched HN and it seems you’re right, it didn’t get much traction with developers, perhaps because it was billed as a facilitation toolkit and not about how to generate or validate better startup ideas, like Design Sprints.

http://eurydice13.com/2019/01/how-to-prepare-for-and-run-a-d... shows something of an example of how it used to work. It made more of a splash in UX and Design circles. For example: https://talks.ui-patterns.com/videos/design-practices-for-co...

There was a point in time where it seemed like I was seeing it everywhere. At conferences, meetings, university classes, hackathons and any number of presentations, etc.

Here it was at SXSWi in 2011: https://www.imagethink.net/game-storming-sxswi/

Also: https://co-learning.eu/tags/gamestorming/

It’s true that once Google Venture’s Design Sprints book took off, it became a bit of a benchmark in the space of collaborative idea workshops etc.

But before Design Sprints, there was Gamestorming. https://vimeo.com/18880751 It might seem a bit overblown. I’d call it a brand name that happens to reflect a style of work popular before Agile and Scrum made everything cookie-cutter from a backlog.