Where to find good game ideas

#1 Its a good question. drop us a line when you figure that one out.

#2 How about an MMORPGFPSRTS based around making tea.

#3 Way back when in my days of flash development, I used to look around the room and pick 3 - 5 objects, and think of what crazy thing I could think up. For example looking around now, I see my webcam, a bar of chocolate, and a pencil... I could think to myself, "Hey, what if I had some little robotic sort of guy with a webcam sort of object for a head, pollvolting with a pencil from island to island with a chocolate sort of sludge between the islands." .... Yeah, I may sound completly mental, but you can think up some pretty crazy, whacky, yet maybe fun ideas.


-Max

#4 Model a couple of racing tracks, like loops, straights, jumps and what not. Model a fancy looking car, import the car and tracks, and build a racing game with them.

#5 Daydream...




... alot...



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#6 @Max
That game hase been done sort of

http://www.orbitzgames.com/play_island.aspx

Hence the problem with coming up with Good ideas someone somewhere with more money/time may have your idea done and on the market. Push through your idea and complete it and then get motivated on your own idea.

#7 Heh, I don't think you can FIND good ideas. You just come up with them while playing existing games or doing other things. For me a lot of ideas have been things I would like to see in games that I've played before.

#8 Get drunk in good company, then ask what would be a cool game. write it down. Then when you sober up (the next morning) do the exact opposte!

#9 Find an idea.. but make sure it's one that you can actually perform.

#10 Make an exact copy of some other game and give all the characters some facial hair and make sure to change all the names as well.

#11 Nathan,

Great ideas don't form from nothingness, they are shaped and influenced by a billion other things. And, believe it or not, even old ideas are great places to poke, prod and explore for fresh insights using innovative media.

If it's not too nosey, what kinds of things are you interested in? What kinds of stories excite you? What kinds of themes get your imagination running wild?

From one of your other posts, I got the impression that you are a C.S. Lewis reader and that you may have an interest in religious concepts and themes. If I'm right on that, then you might look for game-making inspiration within some of Lewis' more obscure works or the worlds that are least likely to ever get a full-blown game deal of their own.

If you've read the entire Narnia series, you might be familiar with and could do something with the world of Charn before it fell. Or take a cue from the whole 'wood between the worlds' idea and create your own little universe. I can think of several Lewis works that could make interesting and thought-provoking independant games; The Screwtape Letters, Perelandra, Till We Have Faces, the Great Divorce, etc. The good thing is that none of these are likely to ever be made into games. A small, serious, and dedicated group of developers might approach the Lewis estate with an idea and an arrangement that they could accept.

Also, since Lewis' works are still protected by copyright, you might consider digging a bit deeper into the literary past. That would give you more freedom to explore an idea wherever it leads you. Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, The Wizard of Oz, Alice In Wonderland, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, War of The Worlds . . . well, the list of great public domain story ideas is almost endless. Short stories and full-blown novels are all potential playgrounds for you. Kafka, Eliot, Cervantes, Swift, Wells, Doyle, Forster, Shakespeare, and many other authors were bursting with ideas. And I'm sure they won't mind if you borrow some of them. :)

But it's not just literature -- artists like Pablo Picasso and Salvadore Dali created some pretty amazing worlds of their own. Imagine a short game based on Dali's The Persistence of Memory or maybe some of M.C. Escher's strange paradoxical art.

Among all of these suggestions -- even the ones that have already been given some sort of game treatment -- they probably haven't have been done the way you would do them.

Anyway, whatever you decide on, let the source material soak in and lead the way. Great stories and great ideas have the ability to grab us and transform us. Look for the best of these and try to figure out which particular elements have the most power. Then try to find a way to work those aspects into a game. Start small and stay focused. Recreating an entire world might be out of reach for your first attempt, but homing in on one important theme or idea is definitely attainable.

The greatest creators throughout history have always been the best observers. Write what you know, draw what you see, and inject a bit of yourself into everything you do.

Whew! I guess I should stop here. As you can tell, I've gotten carried away with this topic. Finding ideas isn't a problem for me -- finding time to pursue them all . . . now that's a problem. :(

Good luck,

Aaron E.

#12 I decided to take elements of current/last gen games, and some elements of older/classic games i like and finding ways to put them together. Real Time Strategy Pong anyone?

I wanted to re-create Prince of Persia a few years ago, unfortunately UbiSoft got to it first.

#13 You could still remake PoP. Look at the original Oddworld games...

#14 @aaron - wow, i never thought i'd hear Perelandra suggested as the basis for a video game.
i guess i could see it tho..

#15 What James said I have way to many ideas cause of it

#16 Joseph Helm, tha is a freaking awesome idea
But, cut off the RTS part
so it would be a How about an MMORPGFPs based around making tea.

You have to steal tea packets off tea from other people, in huge arenas, different kinds of Tea give you different guns and improve your stats (IE Strength Defence MAgic etc....) that idea has potential LMFAO

#17 @Orion,

Perelandra wouldn't be easy to do as a game, and it probably wouldn't draw huge audiences, but I think it would be very rewarding to create and play. In my opinion, the story has a greater depth of emotion and insight than the first book in the series (Out of the Silent Planet).

I've got a rough outline of how I would make a Perelandra game, but the short version is that I would try to capture the spirit and feel of the three major sections in the story; 1) Wonder and Discovery, 2) The Monumental Debate, 3) Mindless Savagery.

Mix TSE with a good text-parsing engine and an elaborate hand-to-hand combat/wrestling system, and this could turn out nicely.

Maybe one of these days, I'll get around to pursuing this.

#18 For me, it is a mindset.

After casting about for ideas that would fit within an "indie" game concept (read: low budget, tiny team), I was struggling at first too. I was used to big, grandiose "AAA" style games. I wanted something different, cool, accessible, etc.

After a month or two of being in this mode, my brain just started latching on all kinds of weird but potentially fun ideas, just pulled out of real-life experiences, the news, books, or bizarre concepts coming out of a bored mind. I also had ideas coming from juxtoposition of wildly different ideas. It's easy! Ninja Squirrels! Racing and Pizzas (A pizza delivery race? A race to make pizzas? Who knows?)! Fashion and Monkeys! Space Walruses with Photon Flippers (Oh, wait, that's Berk Breathed's idea...)

Just look at everyday life and ask yourself, "How would I make a game out of this?" You'll soon have zillions of game ideas. 95% of them will suck, but that's okay with brainstorming.

#19 I just can't seem to think of any ideas other then fps's(ala Halo). I'd really like to make an arcade type game, like marble blast, think tanks, ect... Maybe an arcade game would have a chance of getting on xbox too.

#20 I bought a 3rd person, behing the back view, PS2 game yesterday for $15 called Mister Misquito. Your a Misquito in a three person (mother, father, and daughter) family home. The Yamata's. Each stage is you (the misquito) trapped in a room with one of the family members (watching TV, cooking, taking a bath, ect..). You have to find a spot on their body that is not only exposing skin, but free of any bug repellant they may have sprayed on themselves. They have bug traps placed throughout the house as well.

You have to suck a certain amount of blood to pass the stage. If you suck too fast or too slow, you will alert the person and they will smack you resulting in an instant game over. If you are flying around looking for a good spot to suck and they spot you (flying around the eyes or ears), the game will go into a battle mode to where the person is hell bent on destroying you. It's cool because the people are going in slow motion and stomp really loud as they jump, swat, and spray the area trying to get you (you ever notice how fast flying bugs are when your trying to swat them?).

The only place where I see they messed up at is they force you to hit a "calm spot" on the person's body to make them go back to what they were doing before they noticed you. I think being undetected for a certain amount of time would be more realistic. As the game goes on though, they start to get more and more fed up with you, taking on more drastic measures to get rid of you.

Anyway, I'm really impressed by the game even though the graphics are kind of dated (think Katamari) and it was made back in 2002. I found myself thinking "why didn't I think of this!?" and "this would be perfect for Torque!" I don't know how well the game sold but it's very original (as far as I know), I can relate to it, and it's a lot of fun.

I can imagine this game was influenced by a misquito victum. Inspiration hit when he got bit. Metal Gear was born when the creator was playing hide and seek with his son. I have so many ideas inspired from so many sources, I don't know which one to do first. If your having a hard time finding ideas, the best thing to do is to go and experiance life. Constantly looking at things, playing with things, and keeping the wheels turning for a way to turn it into something fun, no matter how simple it is. That's just what I think. I have yet to prove that I know what I'm talking about. Soon enough though.
-Ajari-