Guidelines for The New Creativity Game

Playline 1 - Play with your NAVELS!:

• NAVELS is an acrostic:
  • Nouns
  • Adjectives/adverbs
  • Verbs
  • Experiences
  • Language
  • Six senses
  A crucial part of creativity is being able to see commonalities. The acrostic, NAVELS, can help you see different ways of relating any two ideas or objects. Looking at the two cards, use any word which describes one card, and use this same word to describe the other.
  
  For instance, look at the pelican card, look at its different parts and name them. A pelican has wings, feet, feathers, and a beak. Try to apply these nouns to the locomotive. Some may work, many may not. (Is a cow-catcher a kind of beak? Maybe!) Next, try applying verbs to each. Can both fly? Can they both scoop fish? (Maybe not, but a cow-catcher scoops cows!) Try adjectives and adverbs next. Both the pelican and the train are "on" something (a light pole and tracks). And the "something" is made of metal!
  
  Another way to connect cards is experiences. What do you personally know about the subjects of the cards? Oblique or obtuse, indirect or clear, your knowledge and experiences are always valid connections within the creativity game. Perhaps you have an experience seeing a train off-load freight from a ship at a dock with pelicans soaring about. Maybe you know of a steamship called "The Pelican." You now have a "stepping stone" connector from pelicans at a dock to steamship to steam to steam locomotive. Maybe you know that old steam locomotives burn wood and pelicans perch on wooden piers. Based upon your knowledge and personal experience, you can make a relationship between pelicans and locomotives using wood as the connector. I remember a song about a train called, "Midnight Flyer", so I have a relationship based on flying.
  
  Finally, experience is shaped by our six senses - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and what you feel inside! Can you HEAR a pelican? Can you HEAR a locomotive? Can you SEE them? Are they both smooth or rough? What do they smell like? How do you feel about them? (I love pelicans, and I love old steam locomotives. I am curious about trees, and I'm curious about clouds.) Perspective is important, too. Do you see them from above? From the side? Do you hear them from afar? Don't miss the simple and easy comparisons; they are sometimes the most important.
  
  Finally, think about language in general. For instance, try alliterations. "Pelicans glide gracefully." "They floatingly fly." "They silently soar." For the train, how about the "energetic engine" or the "laconic locomotive". How many alliterations can you find? Can you find a single letter to create alliterations for both cards? Yet, language goes much further. How about words that rhyme? The rhyme of "engine" and "pelican" is a stretch, but what about other parts of the cards - the trees, the clouds, the fence, the lightpost? Can you find any word which describes any of these which rhymes with a word describing any one of the other card's features? Antonyms and homonyms are other liguistic ways to compare the two cards. How about the number of syllables and which syllable is accented. ("Engine" and "pelican" are both accented on the first syllable.) Even the types of letters or number of them can be used. Any facet of language or grammar you can draw upon is another way to find relationships and make connections in the New Creativity Game.
  
  Again, for Playline 1, use the acrostic NAVELS (or NAAVELSS) - Nouns, Adjectives/Adverbs, Verbs, Experiences, Language, and Six Senses.
  
  
• With Playline 1, try to find 12 similarities between any of the above facets of the two cards. As you get better, restrict your game to portions of each card - say the lightpost and the trees, or even a wing and a wheel.
  
  
• Play continues until a new card appears from the card deck.
  
  
• Give yourself a point for every relationship you find. If you find 12 or more, double your points from these two cards. To play the same two cards again, insist upon only NEW relationships - don't use any relationships found in previous play. For instance, if you find 12 relationships between the fence and the lightpost, use the fence and the pelican's beak the next time or maybe the trees and the clouds. As you get better, challenge yourself with more difficult comparisons.
  
  
• If you find 12 relationships between the pelican's webbed foot and the number 8 on the engine, send them to me and I will post them!

Playline 2 - Action Please!:

• This guideline encourages you to become an active part of the picture cards. Ask yourself, "What can I do to both of them?" Can you ride a train? Can you ride a pelican? In your imagination you can! Can you stoke a locomotive? Yes, with firewood! Can you "stoke" a pelican? Yes, with fish! (And firewood, too, but he won't like it.) Can you pet a pelican? Can you pet a train? (Just be careful - it gets hot.) What other things can be done to the objects of both cards? Use "action" verbs of what you can do - push, squat, run, throw, melt, belch, laugh, cry - and use them on the objects of the cards.
  
  
• Play continues until a new card appears from the card deck.
  
  
• Give yourself a point for every relationship you found. To play the same two cards again, insist upon only NEW relationships - don't use any relationships found in previous play. For instance, if you used "pushed the train" and "pushed the pelican," try pulling them next time.
  
  
• If you find 12 relationships between a finial on the fence and the blue sky, send them to me and I will post them!

Playline 3 - Construction (or Design) Time!:

• I want you to make one out of the other. Give an inanimate object living characteristics. Or take a living creature and turn it into something inanimate. For instance, make a pelican out of a locomotive or make a locomotive out of a pelican. This can be a design (a pelican motif painted on the locomotive) or fabrication (a pelican sculpture made from the scrapped iron of a locomotive). And as with the other Playlines, you need only use part of each card to fabricate your creation. (Make a tree out of a cloud!)
  
  
• Play continues until a new card appears from the card deck.
  
  
• Give yourself 5 points for each creation you devise. To play the same two cards again, insist upon only NEW creations - don't use any creations found in previous play.
  
  
• Send me your best creations, and I will post the most innovative ones to this site!

Playline 4 - Hey, I'm a Poet!:

• In this Playline, take something from one card and use it as an analogy, simile, metaphor, or description for something in the other card: "Racing ahead, the train scooped up track like a hungry pelican." "The pelican dove into the water with the grace of a locomotive falling off a collapsed bridge." "The pelican had a one-track mind - eating fish." Of course, you can tackle, "A pelican is just like a locomotive because ...". Or maybe, "A locomotive is just like a pelican because ...".
  
  
• Play continues until a new card appears from the card deck.
  
  
• Give yourself 5 points for each creative phrase you devise. To play the same two cards again, insist upon only NEW creations - don't use any creations found in previous play.
  
  
• Send me your best creations, and I will post the most innovative ones to this site!

Playline 5 - It's Story Time!:

• You have two cards before you. Begin spinning a tale using elements of both cards. As a new card flips, continue your tale with the new objects and activities of the new card.
  
  
• Play continues until the first two card of the deck reappear.
  
  
• Give yourself 5 points for each card you successfully include in your story. To play this variation again, insist upon a NEW storyline - don't use any part of your previous stories.
  
  
• Send me your most innovative stories, and I will post the best ones to this site!

Playline 6 - Break The Rules!:

• If you are to be creative, you must be different. However, most of the time we are following rules - and frequently for our own good, too! But to have an opportunity to be creative, you must first recognize what rule you are following. Once you do, you can now ask the creative question, "Do I want to break this rule or not?" With that, you now invoke freedom of will. If your answer is to break the rule, you immediately enter the realm of creativity, because breaking rules is the heart of "thinking outside the box". (Be careful! Creativity is inherently risky! ;-)
  
  As you look at the two game cards, you naturally come up with ideas and experiences. These are the habits of your own mind. To truly break free of these old mental ruts, you need to break these personal rules. In this Playline, whatever you connect with either of the two cards showing, declare the opposite, and justify how it could be so. "A pelican uses wings to fly? No! They are paddles with which to swim!" "The train has wheels which turn? No! The wheels are doiles for decoration!" "A tree is a plant? No! It's an overgrown scraper to shred cheese!" Whatever rule you are following, break it! What's the opposite? Do anything other than follow the rule. Do anything other than what you normally think or see. "The pelican is resting on a lightpost? No! It is delivering the lightpost!" See the opposite. See something different. And, as ludicrous as it may seem, heartily justify this new idea! Prove to yourself that it might be true. Force yourself into new ways of thinking.
  
  
• Play continues until a new card appears from the card deck.
  
  
• Give yourself a point for every strange idea you come up with. If you actually convince yourself of some strange idea, give yourself a 10 point bonus! To play this variation again, don't use any part of your previous ideas.
  
  
• Send me your most innovative ideas, and I will post the best ones to this site!

Playline 7 - CREATE YOUR OWN PLAYLINE!!!:

• If you've played the other Playlines, you are certainly creative enough now to make up your own Playline. If not, DO IT ANYWAY!!
  
  
• Play continues until ________________________ (fill in the blank).
  
  
• Give yourself a point for ________________________ (fill in the blank). Send me your most innovative Playlines, and I will post the best ones to this site!