How do you make them? I'm looking for more ways to make ideas.
The 2 ways I've done it is: If this game did x differently and just random show thoughts
I figured there must be better ways of doing it.
Making game ideas
gamechfo said:
How do you make them? I'm looking for more ways to make ideas.
Which question are you asking? Making games is different from ideation.
gamechfo said:
If this game did x differently and just random show thoughts
Can you explain at more length so we can understand your question?
Author
Tom Sloper said:
Can you explain at more length so we can understand your question?
1 - What if portal had 3 or even 4 portal colors to use. What if portal had a different type of tool to use besides the portal gun. What if some rooms in portal were timed.
So I guess what I'm actually getting at is “What if this game did A,B,C etc differently”
2 - Sorry, made a typo, I meant to say shower thoughts. So I'll just be sitting around or wake up after a dream and I'll get an idea. Like one morning I woke up after a dream that involved a volcano so I came up with the idea for a volcano base building PvP game.
Tom Sloper said:
Which question are you asking? Making games is different from ideation.
Like the basic idea a game starts from. Like Titanfall's might have been “A fast paced parkour shooter with big mechs”.
I've found that I can make tons of ideas to expand upon a game or idea, but I struggle to make the basic idea itself. So I'm looking for methods of being creative and making those basic ideas.
gamechfo said:
I'm looking for methods of being creative and making those basic ideas.
OK, that's a question we can deal with. My recommendation is Roger von Oech's books, “A Whack on the Side of the Head” and “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants.” And Jesse Schell's “The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.” These books help you unlock the creativity that's already in your head.
This thread is moved to the Game Design and Theory forum, where you may find other discussions on creativity from the past.
gamechfo said:
1 - What if portal had 3 or even 4 portal colors to use. What if portal had a different type of tool to use besides the portal gun. What if some rooms in portal were timed.
That's bad imo. You take an existing mechanic and make it more complicated, but that's neither fun nor a new mechanic.
The better question is: The portal gun is a great and unique game mechanic. What other thing than portals could give me something similar? Time travel? Magnetism? Switching between parallel universes?
Ofc. chances to figure something out which is great but does not yet exist are small, but this was the case already before Portal too.
gamechfo said:
“What if this game did A,B,C etc differently”
Something I often find enjoyable is to start from a vague or incomplete description of a game, and try to fill out the blanks with how I'd imagine something I'd personally want to play would be. It invariably ends up different from what the actual title is like - sometimes better, sometimes worse. It's easy to do when you only see a headline or paragraph about something - but once you've seen a trailer or longer description, the brain tends to naturally latch on to that, making it difficult to be creative.
To continue with the portal example, instead of trying to cram extra features on top of an already-well-designed tight game, try abstracting it and starting from that. The description “action puzzle game with moveable portals” or simply just “moveable portals” could go in many other directions.
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