Game Ideas
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Introduction
Writers, filmmakers, musicians, painters and a lot of other artists have a tradition for gathering in clubs, where they discuss their work, and borrow and get inspired by each others ideas and visions.
In the indie game industry, however, it's hard to find any clubs for game creation. Most game creators run solo with their own personal projects. This might have a negative influence on their creativity. 'Indie' is short for 'independent'. This is because indie comics/movies/books/games don't need to be a commercial success, and thus, the indie game developer is able to experiment and take chances. But, a lot of indie games do not utilize their independence. Instead, they are often imitations or even remakes of commercial games.
This is a bit sad, since the indie scene has a tradition of being the creative front-line; trying out things that are too unusual or risky for the overground, which is dependent on the commercial success of their product.
This page is no solution to this. But, it is a place where people can share their ideas and visions with others. A lot of people get ideas for games which they don't have the time/skill/ambition to create, but which are original and useable anyway. Even if you dont want to turn your game idea into a project yourself, it might be possible that someone else will. And, even if they dont, your input might trigger some brain cells for someone, who then gets another idea. In short, sharing your ideas won't hurt!
DISCLAIMER: By posting your ideas here, you abandon any ownership of it, and anyone will be free to use it as they please.
IANAL, but even without the disclaimer, ideas are not works, so they aren't copyrightable, so it's not an offense. (There's a reason you can't get in legal trouble for plagiarism at school.)
Game Genres and Archetypes
The following are a number of established and hypothesized but non-established genres and archetypes to base a new game around. Remember that one should not limit their creativity to a narrowly defined set of game types, and that the best games tend to be the ones that break new ground (often forming genres of their own). Nevertheless, the following provides solid examples in game design and can provide inspiration for new games.
Established
Established games have strong working examples and often form their own genre with many titles being within the genre. Important and influential titles are shown in parenthesis.
- Music Simulation (Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero)
- People Sim Game (The Sims)
- City Sim Game (Sim City, City Life, Caesar series, Children of the Nile)
- God Game (Populous, Black & White)
- RTS/Sim hybrid (Dungeon Keeper)
- Evolution Game (Creatures, SimLife, Spore)
- First Person Shooter (FPS) (Doom, Halo 1 - 3, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life 1 & 2, Goldeneye)
- First Person Stealth (Thief, Splinter Cell)
- FPS/RPG hybrid (System Shock, Deus Ex)
- Team-Based Multiplayer FPS (Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942)
- Real-Time Strategy Game (RTS) (Starcraft, Warcraft, Dune 2, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, Stronghold, Supreme Commander)
- Turn-Based Strategy Game (Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Orion, Galactic Civilizations)
- 2D Platformer (Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Sonic, Lemmings)
- 3D Platformer (Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, Sonic Adventure)
- Interactive Fiction (Zork)
- Adventure (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango)
- Puzzle Adventure (Myst, Black Mirror, Runaway, Ankh)
- Role Playing Game (RPG) (Dungeons & Dragons, nethack, Baldur's Gate series, Never Winter Nights)
- First Person RPG (Gothic series, Morrowind, Oblivion)
- Party Based RPG's (Final fantasy I, Pool of Radiance)
- Action RPG (also known as Hack`n slash) (Diablo, Titan Quest, Sacred)
- RPG/RTS hybrid (Spellforce, Heroes of Annihilated Empires)
- Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) (Everquest, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, RuneScape, Final Fantasy XI)
- Metaverse (Second Life)
- Roguelike (Rogue, ADOM, Angband, Nethack)
- Simulator (Flight Sim, Trackmania, Need for Speed)
- Unique Scrolling Shooting Games [Xevious, Twinbee, Gradius, Side Arms, Darius, R-Type, Thunder Force, EDF(Earth Defense Force)]
Non-established
Non-established games have been hypothesized and possibly attempted but they have yet to become well established and popular in the games industry for various reasons.
- RTS/FPS hybrid (Sacrifice, Natural Selection, Tremulous, Spring, Savage:The Battle For Newerth, Battlezone 1&2)
- Interactive Storytelling (Facade, Storytron)
- Massively Multiplayer Online FPS (MMOFPS) (Planetside, GUNZ, Neocron)
- MMORTS (Shattered Galaxy, Saga)
- MMORTS/FPS hybrid (Allegiance)
- MMO/Puzzle Adventure (URU)
- Casual FPS (No current games fit this category)
- Non-Violent Adventure
- Non-Violent Religious Adventure
Concrete Game Ideas
- my game ideas-brief
- Adding Without Restrictions
- Aftershock
- Battle Castles
- Fantasy/Steampunk Shooter
- Hard Core
- Mind Control
- Mini-Racers
- Open Ended Resident Evil City
- Open Source MMORPG
- Omega Fighting System Core Mechanics
- Stick Warrior
- Story Telling Wiki
- Two-dimensional Space Game
General Ideas
- General game ideas
- Open-source Party based Turn Based RPG
- Retro MMO
- Reverse Player
- MMRPG System Shock
- Historic role playing/adventure game
- The Real Definition of an MMO
- Idea for a strategy game
- Dragon fight
- Interactive Environment
- Medieval GTA
- Insane Fan
- Free Culture
- Sports game influence from GTA
- General ideas for a truly great FP RPG
- Cyberpunk/ Magipunk project
- MMORTS
- Game ideas: FreeWorlds
- Game ideas: MMOAA
- Game ideas: FPS/ TPS game: W.A.L.K.E.R.(NEW!!)
- Game ideas: Halo Universe/Battlefront Series
- Game ideas: Self-Creating Environment
- Game ideas: Learning Quest
- Game ideas: Modern Yet Medieval
Related Pages
External Links
- Idiki - a wiki devoted to Ideas
- GameDev.net Design forum
- Game Ideas at Garagegames - forum section at indie publisher Garagegames devoted to discussing game ideas.
- "The 400 Rules of Game Design."
- Game Idea Center
- Patrick Curry's Thoughts on Game Design - professional game designer posts new game ideas every week.
- The collected game design rantings of Marc "MAHK" LeBlanc
- RogueBasin - A wiki focusing on the development of roguelike RPGs
- Flash Game Design
- Ludism Game Design Wiki