I do not consider myself a game designer by any stretch, I mean sure I have ideas but nothing large enough to be considered an actual complete game. Now maybe something enough for a quick casual game perhaps I could do. In my mind there are so many systems and assets that need to be created to support any large scale game. As such when coming up with Ideas for games ( aka something that would be fun to play ) I generally first think of some physical experience that would be appealing or some system / mechanic that would be fun to implement. then create the game out from there. A few of my favorite Ideas have been.
- Simple turn based multiplayer game …see ShipFlick.
- a VR/3d Combo Multiplayer Brawler fighting game where the player in VR is in the back ground as a skull and arms dropping baddies for the hero players to fight …
- a 2D / 3D game like Octopath Traveller but its a brawler in a semi open world.
- an L-systems puzzle where you try to evolve a starting string do a goal string.
- a 2D Typing game but the words are in free fall with active physics and when you type certain words you get powerups such as multipliers, bombs, grow/shirt ect.
- Idle Tapper game that uses a physical fidget spinner that counts rotations and syncs that up to your games actions and XP.
A “spin” off that idea would be to gamify exercise / repetitive semi boring work with the same concept.
Don’t get me wrong I have had ideas about games that do not follow this method of coming up with Ideas. For instance.
A game about Big Scary Monster ( a series of books I wrote for teaching children lessons in life ) and Remakes/updates of a few of my favorite casual-ish games.
While I do not believe that there is a one size fits all for ways to do anything. I believe a typical person likes it when others can anticipate what to expect when dealing with work, and there are more accepted and predictable ways to do most things. . So this method of coming up with Ideas may work well for me by myself it potentially would not scale very well on a team…