One line designs from your ideas file... [Archive] - Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards

Mephs

07-19-2007, 02:48 AM

With regards to the recent thread on idea files.. I wonder if it might be of interest to keep a thread for people to post one line (or as short as possible!) game concepts? I know I personally could use something like this purely for inspiration.

So how about it? I'll post some of my own that I can remember now, and more when I get home from my own ideas file.

+ Game based solely around the concept of speedrunning where the goal is to beat a given level as quickly as possible using whatever tricks and resources are available, could be 2d or 3d and if 3d could be based on parkour/freerunnning, possibly with a multiplayer race mode to reach a set point on a map such as a tall building roof.

+ Fantasy themed Scorched Earth

+ Steampunk themed naval combat with magic abilities (I can just picture the cool ironclads, nautiluses and Dreadnoughts, etc rendered in steampunk style)

+ Game where you control a robot on a factory floor using a rhythm game... commands such as move up, move right, activate EMP, shoot and so on scroll past in rhythm game fashion. Sometimes groups of commands scroll past meaning the player has to work out what the sequence will do, and if activated at a bad time can have hilarious consequences. Successfully tapping your single button when the command scrolls into the target area activates the command. Played as a deathmatch against other robots. Could be played as multiplayer on a single keyboard with each player taking a single key of their own.

Okay, so there are a few of my own ideas... lets hear yours! We could even index the ideas if the idea takes off. I think discussion of some of the ideas might be nice too as long as we don't go to far off topic.

Cheers,

Steve

Nikos Beck

07-19-2007, 10:07 AM

Hey! You said one line. Be more careful next time.

I like the robot factory meets DDR game.

Here's one I was just working on:

•You are the new manager of the municipal water utility and you must schedule crews to fix leaks and apply maintenance while minimizing the number of days households are without water.

Mephs

07-19-2007, 10:32 AM

Yeah.. I know, breaking my own rules there ;) I just felt that the ideas warranted the extra explanation and were still reasonably short (i.e. can be easily read in a bulleted list)

Actually, looking through my ideas file, many ideas that I look at now I don't like the sound of as much as I did at the time, I think I already posted my best here, but here are one or two of my possibly slightly weaker ideas...

+ Speedball style game with guns, mech walkers and cover to hide behind on the pitch.

+ Top down deathmatch shooter with hacker class that supports the players on the ground by hacking the enemy defences, etc.

GBGames

07-19-2007, 12:01 PM

Heh, I'm making a list of over 1000 ideas which is basically a line of Game Idea Title followed by Really Short Game Idea Explanation.

Even if it doesn't sound fun, write it down. I've created what are hopefully promising ideas by combining a few of the lame ones.

Greg Squire

07-19-2007, 01:14 PM

...Even if it doesn't sound fun, write it down. I've created what are hopefully promising ideas by combining a few of the lame ones.
I've heard it said that often the best ideas, are the ones that might seem stupid at first. The good ones have a way of "growing on you". So, write 'em down, even if they "seem stupid".

Qitsune

07-19-2007, 02:24 PM

I've heard it said that often the best ideas, are the ones that might seem stupid at first. The good ones have a way of "growing on you". So, write 'em down, even if they "seem stupid".

I have one!

-You have a small sticky ball and you roll it around, grabbing stuff to make the ball grow!

Mephs

07-19-2007, 04:20 PM

Heya :)

GBGames: That sounds very interesting... is this list of 1000+ ideas going to be something you will be offering as a resource to developers, or is it just a personal project?

I agree that "stupid" ideas sometimes make for the best games. My "bad" ideas though are more due to being overly ambitious, or ideas that seemed original at the time but were really quite generic or sometimes it seems I had a fascination with a particular game mechanic (such as a CCG style game) rather than looking for an interesting design. I do agree though that sometimes revisiting ideas is worth it though, a fresh perspective sometimes turns a bad idea good.

So Nikos... what do you like about the robot/DDR style idea? I personally like the idea, but I keep finding flaws with it. I've been roughly prototyping the idea, and I'm finding that movement feels a little slow moving a single square at a time and I'm not sure it's as strategic as I would have liked. I can see some potential for the idea, but I'm not sure if it is in modifying the game to suit a slower pace, or if it is in modifying the pace to suit the game (i.e. activating strings of commands in one go, or having the robot move constantly in the last direction it was commanded to move in to avoid moving a single square at a time).

Qitsune: Hmmm... that idea sounds distinctly familiar... maybe we should call the game Datamari Kamacy :P heh :)

Mephs

07-19-2007, 04:31 PM

Oh, and one more for the pot....

+ a game based around Madlibs (fill in the blanks in a story with predefined types of words to make a funny story)

I'm sure that it would make for a hilarious party game, but I just can't find a way of fitting it into a larger game. It just screams out to me though as something that would make for an amazing game. I'm almost at the point where I'm just thinking "sod it" and chucking the madlib mechanic into a deatmatch pacman style game, though ideally I'd like to do the idea more justice than that.

The thing is that choosing words for your madlib can be somewhat fun, trying to think of stupid, clever or dirty words to fit into a story is interesting in and of itself. I can just see that having players competing in a game to control words from a list that they like would really make battles between players intense and personal in a daft kind of way ("Oooh... "ih uh the grunt weasel!" just appeared as a noun... I've got to have it for my madlib!!") and the game would have natural replayability as every madlib would be different.

One more idea....

+ Realtime futuristic small scale skirmish RTS game with no unit building or resource gathering, a pure focus on tactical combat probably with a feel similar to one or more of the following games: the Battlefield series, General Chaos, Cannon Fodder or Battalion Wars.

Anyhooo, if we get a couple more posts of ideas, I'll start an index with the bare bones of each idea in. (i.e. I'll cut out all the fluff I've put in!!)

Cheers,

Steve

ChrisP

07-20-2007, 01:24 AM

Here's a couple of "stupid" ideas from my file...

Hummingbird racing game
Game based on controlling a large crowd of stampeding actors; objective is to optimise their flow through bottleneck(s) and/or around obstacles (inspired by an AI demo I saw at a university open day, where they were investigating the effects of room size, shape, furniture arrangement, etc. on the time it took a large group of panicking people to exit the room in an emergency)

Mephs

07-20-2007, 01:52 AM

That stampeding game sounds like an interesting idea. I guess a stampede/crowd control game could work something like Lemmings, Eets or PuffBomb.

The player could place markers on a map which represent different events occurring at different times in different locations and have these influence the stampede dynamics. It could have objectives like "save the natives from being trampled", "escape the predator", "stop the stampede" or "escape the forest fire".

I'm just not sure what the variable factors would be.... what could be used to influence stampedes I wonder? I would guess loud noises, predator positioning, terrain layout... but at that point I'm stuck for more influences I think...

ChrisP

07-20-2007, 02:10 AM

Yes, that's why I never progressed that idea any further. It's difficult to figure out how one could use that mechanic in a game.

I guess it might work a little bit like herding sheep. Scare the crowd away from certain areas in order to funnel them to where you want them to go.

Jay_Kyburz

07-20-2007, 04:44 AM

This thread reminds me of "strange attractors".

"A teenager is mistakenly sent into the past, where he must make sure his mother and father meet and fall in love; he then has to get back to the future."

"A group of ex-psychic investigators start a commercial ghost extermination business in New York City."

"A defense attorney falls in love with her client. As the trial progresses, she doesn't know if she's sleeping with an innocent man, or a murderer."

"A rotten kid captures the monster under the bed. He gets seduced into the dark underworld, to the point where he almost becomes a monster himself."

"A guy writes a letter breaking up with his girlfriend, sends it OVERNIGHT EXPRESS. He changes his mind, chases the letter across country, and falls in love along the way."

http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp02.Strange.Attractor.html

Nikos Beck

07-20-2007, 05:59 AM

Jay, some sound like movie summaries rather than game summaries. How does the character fall in love? What kinds of mechanics so you see to do that?

I guess I'd need to see a prototype to see what you mean Mephs. The concept seems sound. Are you doing one action at a time or can you set up several actions? If you have three robots can you have them all doing different things? Or are you focusing on the box going down the conveyor belt?

Qitsune, that sounds like a terrible, pointless idea. But, the game is great. I guess it comes down to how the idea is implemented and cultivated.

Bmc

07-20-2007, 06:43 AM

+ a game based around Madlibs (fill in the blanks in a story with predefined types of words to make a funny story)

I have a feeling this could make for a stellar casual word game, and have thought about it, but can't seem to find the right way to apply the concept.

Bmc

07-20-2007, 06:43 AM

Mephs

07-20-2007, 07:44 AM

BMC:

Yeah, I agree. I'm convinced that in the right game, the madlib mechanic could make a killing as a casual game, but you are right... it doesn't seem to fit any kind of game I can think of.

I think the problem is that not many games suit being heavy on text, or having rambling stories at the end that nobody can be bothered to trawl through. I think feedback needs to be more instantaneous like forum games where each person expands a story with a single word or sentance per post... the user needs to choose their word somehow, and instantly get the funny feedback with the option to "replay" the story at the end if you wish (perhaps posting your best madlibs online or something).

Part of the fun of madlibs though is the anticipation of the result of all your word choices, so I'm not sure about the instant feedback, but if it were to be used, I would think seeing the story scroll by in a funny font on the top of the screen and seeing the words jump into the text as they are collected might work, but then perhaps it would detract from the gameplay.

I think another problem is in coming up with a game scenario in which making a madlib makes sense... I suppose it would have to be a game about a creature that likes telling funny stories (like a will 'o the wisp), or perhaps the player is being controlled by someone or something that likes funny stories (big bad troll that wont let you pass the bridge to get home). I'd half wondered about combining the madlib idea with my robot game idea and having robots collect "datacubes" filled with a word/words that go towards a madlib, but I'm not sure the game has a fast enough pace to suit the madlib idea.

Jay:

I agree that the ideas presented on the site are relevant. It all boils down to having a unique selling point and knowing how to create one whilst keeping it short simple and to the point (something I often have trouble with!!).

stiill

07-20-2007, 10:34 AM

Qitsune

07-20-2007, 02:06 PM

I've had the idea to try and come up with a way to make "pin the tail on the donkey" work as a video game, but it's not really practical to blindfold the player...

janevblagoj

07-21-2007, 12:03 AM

Hello!
Quite a while I’m working on my product “Poppy and Rose” which you can download it here: http://www.download.com/Poppy-And-Rose/3000-2111_4-10638405.html?tag=lst-0-3
The game is made in the program language Delphi 6 and I hope that it will take your attention.
Please, after you try the game and study it a little bit, if you can answer the following questions:
- How can I find a video game tester, the best case is that to be some volunteer who will test the game and it will give me critics about the game.
- How is your opinion for the essential value of the game?
- What do you think about the UI of the game (it is made in Delphi 6), can I make it better and can I get some suggestions of how can I do that?
- In which category will you put this game (maybe puzzle!)?
- Is there any company that in cooperation with me can commercialize the game?
- I think that playing on this video game in network can be a real challenge! Do you think same?

Thank you,
Janev Blagoj

Mephs

07-22-2007, 04:24 PM

Stiill:

I tried a version of Acrophobia yesterday called AcroWars and I hafta say I was instantly hooked. You are right in saying that it is more instantaneous in the feedback department, and somehow it still feels just as fun. Also, I like how the whole game is self moderated.... if a word doesn't make sense, nobody votes for it (unless it doesn't make sense, but in a funny way), if you don't vote for other users Acronyms, you don't score any points yourself.

My only concern about its validity as a game design is that it only works for 3 or more players as two players only have each other to vote for and so their votes cancel one another out.

I think if I were following such an idea I would like there to be a single player alternative and I'm not sure a computer could vote impartially, other than voting completely randomly which would be no fun as I doubt there is an algorithm in existence that can determine the difference between a good, bad, boring, funny, dirty or clever acronym in an effective manner.

That said, it's a different slant on my madlib idea that could prove useful in overcoming the design difficulties I had faced so far.

Cheers,

Steve

PS Still waiting on more suggestions before I start the index....

Pkeod

07-22-2007, 05:02 PM

There are three or more piles of different colored blocks controlled by you and two opponents who must have their piles destroyed first by other colored blocks that are dropped by each player and which upon connecting with a similar colored block on any stack cause all blocks of the connecting block to be destroyed :P Or something like that... could be a cool minigame

Qitsune

07-23-2007, 03:38 AM

Like Dr Mario?

Pkeod

07-23-2007, 06:12 AM

Like Dr Mario?

No... Those games you have more than one stacks. I was talking about a mini game where each player has a single stack of blocks. I know it's not very original but I think this kind of variation has never been done before?

bvanevery

07-24-2007, 11:06 AM

With regards to the recent thread on idea files.. I wonder if it might be of interest to keep a thread for people to post one line (or as short as possible!) game concepts? I know I personally could use something like this purely for inspiration.

This isn't working, people just keep blabbering. Does someone have a wiki where we could actually do this?

Mephs

07-24-2007, 11:44 AM

Yeah, I know... that's why I was holding on in case we had a few more ideas.... I don't mind a bit of discussion, but was hoping for a little more content as regards the idea front.

A wiki sounds like a good idea though, though I myself don't really have the time to get one off the ground, but if anyone wanted to start one, I'm sure it would go down well.

Another idea I remembered from a way back in the meantime:

+ Crazy golf where the balls are robots and have robot-related special abilities

bvanevery

07-24-2007, 12:19 PM

Yeah, I know... that's why I was holding on in case we had a few more ideas.... I don't mind a bit of discussion, but was hoping for a little more content as regards the idea front.

You're not gonna get it from a forum thread. People will just keep blabbering about whatever they feel like and making things longer. Good for producing discussion about game design stuff. Not good for succinct lists of sticky information.

A wiki sounds like a good idea though, though I myself don't really have the time to get one off the ground, but if anyone wanted to start one, I'm sure it would go down well.

There's gotta be a painless way to start a wiki out there somewhere. Maybe some indie gamedev wiki already exists and all we have to do is hop over there. Maybe someone already has a personal wiki and will step forward. Maybe there's a modern-day wiki equivalent to starting a mailing list on Yahoo!, i.e. you just do it. Your initial investment would be a Google search, not any thought of actually building some big deal wiki from scratch. I don't have time for the Google search right now, I've been stalling on real work all afternoon.

But my point is, this thread + waiting won't do anything.

Qitsune

07-24-2007, 01:47 PM

http://indiegames.wikispaces.com/
Try this, I made it public, pm me if there is a problem.

Ryan Clark

07-24-2007, 01:59 PM

We already have a game ideas page over at the Game Programming Wiki:

http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Game_Ideas

Feel free to add a section for your "one-line" game ideas, if you like.

DGuy

07-24-2007, 04:34 PM

Shortest one I could find in my game idea file:

+ Game in which a creature with a long tail, that unfurls the faster it moves, tries to quickly complete tasks while keeping tail in check.

T4RG4

07-25-2007, 08:56 AM

Guys...

Some of these ideas smack of 'publisher' style. Do you see some of these ideas appealing to anyone other than a select few people?

Without wanting to target anyone, I took an idea from the first post:

Steampunk themed naval combat with magic abilities (I can just picture the cool ironclads, nautiluses and Dreadnoughts, etc rendered in steampunk style)

Steampunk, in my mind and I have no doubt in many others, conjures up thoughts of rubbish games made by artists who think steampunk is still cool. It's for geeks, unless done very, very well (I doubt it ever will be but leave room for such a possibility).

a game based around Madlibs (fill in the blanks in a story with predefined types of words to make a funny story)

Would that really be funny, stellar? actually any good? You'd 'play' it for oh, about 3.3seconds until you realised you'd clicked the wrong link and downloaded the wrong file? Seriously.

Single line game ideas are worth very little. Make them a paragraph AND include a title (its part of the selling package) and try to explain to people in a few lines why the game would be cool. If you cant do this, accept it and move on. Good ideas have people joining the chorus of approval, bad ideas sink quickly.

Crazy golf where the balls are robots and have robot-related special abilities

This is a great example of why one liners do not work. It sounds silly, but could be okay. The word 'special abilities' and 'robots' smack of steampunk geekness, use them carefully. In a one liner they dominate.

It's all too easy to say any one line game idea 'could' be great but so was the trailer for a crap film I watched the other day. Give it a title, write a few lines, be careful not to use geeky words. It's a pitch, you have an audience, don't fall for this 'be open and suggest any idea you want' for if there is no fear, you start submitting rubbish. Save these for conversations at the pub which can be denied the following morning.

I've heard it said that often the best ideas, are the ones that might seem stupid at first No.

A rotten kid captures the monster under the bed. He gets seduced into the dark underworld, to the point where he almost becomes a monster himself.

WINNER. What? How is that a game idea? I dont know what I'd be doing. I'll come up with one, ready? "You visit the shops and buy a shoe" Genius? Probably not.

Game in which a creature with a long tail, that unfurls the faster it moves, tries to quickly complete tasks while keeping tail in check.

What are you doing though? Another shoe one.

I get these kind of ideas and submissions every day and you would be surprised how little extra effort the good ones require. I do not wish to offend anyone, just be straight to the point for I am after all, along with other people here, the audience...

Flame at will, just bringing a dose of reality to proceedings :(

Mephs

07-25-2007, 10:03 AM

Oh come on, get off your high horse will you,

Okay, taking my idea of a steampunk themed naval combat game. Yeah, perhaps it will appeal to very few people, perhaps it will be a niche product or a product with no market at all, but youare missing the point.... it's about providing that initial spark of inspiration and nothing more. Perhaps someone will take an idea as it is, perhaps someone will add a twist on the theme, perhaps it might just trigger a slightly similar idea. At least it's not "hey let's make an MMO where you can do anything!!".

As for madlibs, do a search on google and tell me they aren't popular. Assuming you get the same results as me, I would say they are enjoyed by a lot of people and as such why is it so hard to believe anyone could make a decent game from such a concept? As an aside, if you have a good imagination they can be incredibly funny, but perhaps you are lacking in that department?

I take on board your thoughts that a paragraph and title may be better, but I think there is more value in a one line design than you are willing to accept. Fewer words leaves more room for interpretation and therefore (in my opinion) provide a good inspirational benefit when shared. That said, what does it matter to you, I've chosen to ask to perhaps collect one line design ideas and that's up to me, if you don't want to contribute, then don't.

As for the robogolf idea, what's to say Steampunk ever had anything to do with it, as a matter of fact in my own mind it never vaguely followed a steampunk trend, but obviusly the intepretation of my idea has changed and given rise to a variant on the theme, which proves my earlier point.

I am not after making games with this "excercise", it's about inspiration, I don't pretend that someone taking one of these ideas will have an amazing game on their hands, what they will have though is a resource if they are suffering from a creative block.

Please, leave the doses of reality at home as you are missing the point, you're being (or at least appearing to be) a troll, and not a very good one at that.

Anyways, I've updated one of the wikis posted, if it takes off then cool, but if not, then never mind.... I'm not forcing anyone to think it is a great idea... take it or leave it! At worst I can just keep some of my own ideas in there I guess :)

bvanevery

07-25-2007, 01:04 PM

T4RG4, you've inspired me, so I'm going to take the gloves off. This one-liner stuff sucks. I don't care how good you think the idea is in your own mind, this just isn't communication. When I look at these one-liner sentences, I can usually imagine dozens of wildly different games that would fulfill it. Much like a djinni granting a wish - careful what you wish for!

Now, maybe it's possible to engineer an ironclad one-liner, but that's clearly a genre. It would require a lot more concentration and refinement. Like writing haiku. In fact, let's do that.

I push bricks through sand
Newsgroups jeer my insolence
Silicon dumbass

Paul-Jan

07-25-2007, 01:09 PM

Oneliner: Player gets a big stick to wack forum trolls with.

bvanevery

07-25-2007, 01:48 PM

As for madlibs, do a search on google and tell me they aren't popular.

Ok, "madlibs" gets 682,000 hits, and "dogs**t" gets 202,000 hits. So madlibs are 3 times better than dogs**t? Well, maybe it's not a fair test, maybe dogs**t is really really good. "gold bars" get 503,000 hits, so madlibs are a bit better than gold bars? I don't think Google Fight (http://www.googlefight.com/) will tell you that much about the viability of game designs, other than that people know what madlibs are.

Please, leave the doses of reality at home as you are missing the point, you're being (or at least appearing to be) a troll, and not a very good one at that.

He's not a troll, your idea in raw form just isn't as good as you think it is. Public ideas mean public critique, that's how they improve. What's the point of a bunch of one-liners if there's no QA on any of them? They'll be boring to read.

Mephs

07-25-2007, 02:36 PM

I'm not intending you make comparisons with other searches, what I'm saying is that there are a lot of people out there who have taken the time to make a page containing madlib games, so therefore there must be a lot of people that value the game concept, i.e. there is a market. I think that is a fairly safe assumption.

Dog shit isn't exactly what I would call a game concept for starters, it gets search results for different reasons. The point missed is that there is no comparison to make, you have to take the search results at face value without comparison. If you really want to make a somewhat better (though not perfect) comparison try a search for "dogshit game" and for "madlib game" but again bear in mind that many madlib pages may not contain both words together. That said, I repeat that it is not about comparing results to anything, it is purely to demonstrate that there is some interest, nothing more.

Anyway, it is fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion and I wouldn't deny that, but I disagree. Anyhoo, I think the thread (but not necessarily the idea) has come to the end of its usefulness, so I shall let it die, I no longer wish to continue flogging the dead horse!!

Cheers,

Steve

DGuy

07-25-2007, 04:40 PM

I get these kind of ideas and submissions every day and you would be surprised how little extra effort the good ones require. I do not wish to offend anyone, just be straight to the point for I am after all, along with other people here, the audience...

Flame at will, just bringing a dose of reality to proceedings :(
Well, seeing how the title of this thread was for "One Line" game ideas, I went through the ole' ideas file and skipped over the vast majority of ideas in there: ones that ran from anywhere from a single paragraph on the front of an index to several pages complete with note covered sketches; I skipped over those more fleshed out ones and just looked for a idea that, for whatever reason, I had left at one line.

I am sure many if not all of those who responded to this thread went through a similar process of elimination.

The request was for a one line idea, so I gave a one line idea. If the request was for a paragraph, I would have given a paragraph. If the request was for a page, I probably would not have typed a 1-2 page long game idea but you get the Idea: I presented what was asked for.

I have no delusions that a one line game idea (mine or any body else's) is going to lead to fame and fortune. My feet are firmly planted in reality ...

Greg Squire

07-25-2007, 05:09 PM

In defense of the "one line" idea, I like it because it forces you to condense the idea down to its "essence". It's kind of like an "elevator pitch", if you will. You will need an abbreviated form of the idea later on when you market that game online. When someone is looking for new games online, you're only going to get 10-15 seconds (if that) to make an impression. That's a screenshot and maybe a few sentences. If you haven't perked their interest enough after that to download the game, then they are off to the next game.

bvanevery

07-26-2007, 12:43 AM

I was serious about Game Design Haiku as a genre BTW.

I type late at night
Watching C-SPAN bobbleheads
Jousting without score

Spiegel

07-26-2007, 02:27 AM

Well a teacher from college and my first boss, told me one thing that I will regard as true forever...

"If you cant explain what your program/solution does in one line to a 5 year old kid, then you don't really understand it..."
:D
One liner game is not a bad... its the essence of the game... actually almost the genre with a bit of story spice... cant go wrong from there...

cliffski

07-26-2007, 04:03 AM

I don't think the popularity of a particular thing needs to be much of a concern in the viability of making a fun commercial game. How many people were interested in town planning before Sim City? How many people were really into rolling around in a big ball collecting stuff before katamari?
More people play Guitar hero than really want to learn the instrument. More people will play spore than are interested in anthropology or genetics. I have a game idea I may use some day that will seem very niche indeed, until (hopefully) people play it.

I think in some cases one-line ideas are superb. I have a one-line idea for a game that's never been done which I know will be seriously good when it's made. It's my game after next.
But generally, the one line ideas don't translate into anything helpful. There are hundreds of RTS games and most of them suck. There are hundreds of FPS games and many of them suck. If your game creates a new genre (like the sims / sim city) you can be a bit vague about what you are doing, but if it's vaguely been done before, the key is in the implementation. And poor implementation (design-wise) can ruin a potentially good game, even if you are being original. The sims was a good idea, but it could have been designed as boring, or as too complex.