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As some of you might have seen on the status updates, I had a small conversation with Sir Spacebar about creativity. I had answered him, that looking at other peoples projects and then working on your project is "not a way to get creative original ideas". He replied that there is no "orignality". I've been thinking about this and have come up with a theory about creativity. Let's take my "original" gimmick ideas and the gimmicks I created for Spykid's level-layouts as examples. My theory divides "originality" and "creativity" into 2 mayor and 2 minor fields. The 2 mayor fiels are the "original" creativity and the "unoriginal" creativity. "Original" creativity is the creativity in which you, as the creator, were free of the ideas of others. I.e. You didn't play any game or watched any media that may have influenced you. The idea created doesn't have to be purely "new". An example of an "original" idea of mine are the drills. While other think those are "already" done, I still came up with them without thinking or seeing other drill-like gimmicks. "Unoriginal" creativity is the creativity in which you, as the creator, can find a source of your Ideas. I.e. You know that your idea IS similar to an idea you've seen before. In an gimmick of mine , that would be the icicles in an ice-themed stage in his fangame. I know I put them there because I've seen the same idea in Sonic Adventure DX, during Sonic's Ice Cap part. The 2 minor fields are more of the "unoriginal" field-part. The first one "plagiarism" is pretty selfexplanatory. These are the "original" gimmicks, that were taken directly from a source without making large changes to them. The most common example would be the looping. Found first in Sonic 1 and then almost everywhere. The other one would be "lifting" ideas from a source. Again, it is selfexplanatory. As an example you can take the "multi-loop" from Sandopolis Zone in S3&K. It is similar to the "original" looping from Sonic 1, but still is different in terms of the amount of "loops maken" in it. Do you agree with my theory? Do you have a different idea of "originality"? Can you find examples which help your or my theory? Start a discussion in the replies!