Out of curiosity what methods do you guys use to tap into that creative side and come up with your game ideas. So far all I've been doing is brain storming in the hottub. However, i dont have a whole lot of good ideas to show for it. Any suggestions??
Actually I'm not having problems coming up with new ideas, but deciding which one to invest my time on!
1 method would be to try and think of games that you liked or that you know other people like (succesful games) and figure out what exactly you're doing when you play it. Try to come up with a base game that it could of been derived from. edit: Forgot to add... and then Derive your game from it. For example let's use Zuma. If you don't know what Zuma is go to popcap.com I find Zuma is very much like centipede. You have a worm like structure made up of singular pieces crawling it's way to certain position. Once it's get to this position you lose. You need to keep it from getting to this position by destroying it before it does. To destroy it you shoot at it. There are differences between the games obviously. To me Zuma could of been derived from centipede. edit: Examples of Games that could be derived from centipede and be similar to Zuma: Luxor, Beetbomb Another thing you can try is to think of how you could twist around another game or genre. Quick example: What if you made an Breakout game where you play as(control) the ball (ex of this idea is GemSmashers on GBA) if you where inclined you could also go to klov.net and make an updated version of an older game that isn't as known(essentially clone it) maybe adding a bit here and there.
Yeah, these are all good ideas. Nonetheless if you put some new into practice that is more dangerous, but can be a way bigger success.
I think its always a good idea to combine things. For example, you have a space invaders clone and combine it with some sort of word puzzle by letting the invaders carry words. Another way went BaseGolf.
I consider games to be time/resource management issues, dexterity challenges or puzzles. Many things in every day life have such features. Cooking a complex meal is a strategy/resource management problem. Running a business certainly is (thats why tycoon games are so good). Maintaining work/life balance is one too (thats the sims) and maintaining relationships is also one. Nobody has done a serious game purely built around social relationships (although I've seen 1 company try to). Thats a serious AI problem, but it can be done. Not as your first (or even second) game though
I'll second what cliffski said. Everyday life is one of the best sources of inspiration for game ideas. I constantly take everything I see or do and think "I wonder if a game could be made based on this." When watching them prepare my order at Taco Bell, I think of a point-and-click fast food prep pattern matching game. When sitting at a red light, and watching the traffic flow from other directions, I think of variations on a traffic sim. This isn't something I try to do, it's a compulsion I can't control. Just the other morning, after washing my hands in the bathroom sink, I turned on the water in the shower, and as I was waiting for the hot water flow to reach the shower, I was thinking about how the hot water would get there sooner because I had just run hot water in the sink, and the pipes for the sink and shower branched off nearby. I then spent my entire shower thinking about a game involving branching pipes, with different colored segments of fluids traveling through them and splitting off at the branches based on different valves that the player opens and closes. But like others mentioned, I have plentiful ideas. It's the time and energy required to implement them that's in short supply.
Try to bear in mind that even if your ideas dont seem to you to be good ideas initially, dont evaluate them in good or bad terms. Maintain the brainstorming approach, write the ideas on a sketch pad and try and make small prototypes.
I tend to get a visual image of a particular scenario playing out in my mind and the game is suggested from there, both in the imagery and also the style of motion going on. They just pop into my brain sometimes as little pictures, and once I've seen them I can't help but reflect on them in idle moments. Over a period of months or years they might grow into fully developed game ideas. I have a whole load of games floating around in my head that nobody's played but me. They're like the ghosts of dead children, man. I try not to think about them, because I should be ruminating on the project at hand, but even without trying I'll get a whole bunch of new ideas turn up for every one I actually make. The hard part is picking the next one to realise - the quickest one? The coolest one? The most unusual one? The safest bet? The most completely realised design? The newest one? And of course, when you make them they change a lot too.
Thanks for the input its been a big help. But feel free to keep it coming if you think of anything else.
That is difficult. One thing I've done in the past that has helped is to make an objective cost/benefit analysis kind o' thing. I just made a spreadsheet, with each game idea as a row in the spreadsheet. The first column was the name of the game, then a column for a "coolness" factor (basicly, a subjective 1 to 100 rating of how badly I wanted the game realized), and one column with a guesstimate of the total number of working days to complete, and a column with a confidence factor of how sure I was that the game would actually be fun when implemented (some ideas are way outside the box and risky, others are more similar to proven, fun existing gameplay), etc. I then came up with a formula for the last column that took all the other factors, assigned them weights, and combined them in a meaningful way to get an overall score (cool ideas, high confidence, and short dev times got higher scores, etc.) It was still ultimately subjective data run through a subjective formula, but it provided a more rational way to compare ideas.
If you're devoid of ideas, then don't keep staring at that blank sheet of paper or that empty IDE window. Just start making something, anything. Once you get going, new ideas will come automatically. You have to get the engine started first, so to speak. P.S. What happened to the smilies?
I had trouble coming up with ideas (at first) that were small enough to be made into indie games. Coming from the big, AAA game development industry, and being a fan of those kinds of games (plus the occasional off-beat, smaller game), everything I thought of was something that would require a team of 5 full-time guys for at least one year of development time ... some were even larger. I hit some kind of breakthrough recently ... after searching and searching, I suddenly started finding inspiration almost everywhere. I get about two new game ideas a week now... more than I'd ever have time to develop into a game. I just see some kind of semi-interesting, common situation, and I almost instantly think, "How would I make a fun game out of that?" Usually it means exaggerating the situation significantly, effectively blowing it out of the bounds of reality, but hey... are we mirroriing reality, or making games. Think about these tiny little situations: * Being Stuck In Traffic * A fry chef at a fast food restaurant who Has An Idea * A Nigerian scam artist spams The Wrong Guy * What if that crazy lady on the bus wasn't crazy at all, but was seeing real things after all? These aren't even game ideas... they are seeds of ideas. They could be seeds of short-stories too. Or movie scripts. Whatever. But I'm finding that I'm just looking at these things every day, desperate to find new game ideas, and I'm not only seeing them, but I'm answering the question, "How Would I Make a Game Out Of This?" every time. Sometimes two or three answers to a single question.
Zuma is actually from an old japanese game. So apparently the key is to find old games that have good mechanics and bring them into the modern era.
I have so many, I forget them, but they come back again jumping up and down in my mind JUST when I decide to do a game, thus distracting me. Like Coyote says, mirroring real life situations, at work I am pushing an electric forklift around with palettes of stuff - I could create a factory simulator and you can buy upgrades for your forklift - but watch out for the Quarantine inspector - those bananas are illegal!!! Weird dreams sometimes come to me in the form of computer games - its like my brain is wired into gametopia. Playing other games is another source, you think Hmm, the way this player is controlled is quite clunky - if only the game had this feature - etc. Take loads of drugs then write down in single sentences as many game ideas as you can think of. Next day, check it out man. Like, far out Neil. I've never taken drugs. How about a game where someone trying to quit smoking gets trapped in a nicotine-trip, and they have to run through mazes and collect all the cigarettes before the nic-o-meter gets to zero, when the side effects of giving up cause their head to explode. Okay, so I'm trying to quit smoking. One thing that will not inspire you is sitting at a computer all day, or doing the same routine all the time. Get out, do things, have fun, and most of all write down your ideas, because no matter how good it seems at the time if you don't write it down, you will forget.