Creating a Game Idea

How do you find a good idea for a game?   

1. Your excitement:

  • If you are not excited, you will lose motivation, so it’s important to choose an idea that will keep you interested.

2. Size matching:

  • Dreaming is good, but great ideas require more knowledge.
  • You need to choose an idea which is achievable with your skills.

3. Which is the target audience?

  • Comics fans, mobile players, exclusive consoles players, children up to 10 years old, FPS lovers.
  • It’s important to identify the target audience and match the idea to it.

4. The idea has to be exciting:

  • The players must find your game interesting.
  • It’s important to check your idea with the target audience.

5. Simplicity:

  • The idea has to be simple for understanding and explaining. 

6. The originality ladder.

  • The familiar side: where your game reminds other games.
  • The original side: the unique aspect of your game.

 Ideally, you should combine them and achieve the sweet spot at the center of the ladder..

 

Summary:

 

 

Familiar

Original

Adavantage

Identifying and connection with the idea 

Curiousity and interest in the original sides

Disadvantage

Too much:

*  Doesn’t create curiosity

* Boring for the player

Too much:
* Makes the game development more difficult (depending on the programmer level)

 

5 Methods for creating an original idea for a game

1. The Random Cards Method:

One of the ways for creating an original idea is working with your imagination.

  • Preparation: create cards with gaming-related words: characters, colors, genres, emotions, mechanics etc
  • Drawing: throw the cards on the floor and choose three of them randomly.
  • Idea creation: connect the chosen words and create an idea for a game.

📌 Tip: if you are looking for digital inspiration, it’s worth checking the idea generator.

2. Dimensions Jumping:

Choosing 5 games you love and changing the dimensions where they take place

  • Location: what if a survival game took place at school?
  • Dimension change: how would a 3D game look like in a 2D environment?

3. Removing a Key Feature:

How would the game change if you removed on of its key features?

  • Changes: What if we couldn’t jump in Icy Tower or break the law in GTA?

4. Using Mods:

Taking inspiration from existing mods and adding an original twist.

  • Inspiration: the flying mod in NeoTokyo, CS:GO in Half Life

5. Sketches:

Sketches of characters and story may turn to a great idea.

Bonus: Take inspiration from the real world!
Look around you. The world is full of inspiration. Incidents and events from your daily life may lead to a fascinating idea for game.

Note – an idea without implementation is worthless

There are many ideas in the world, but many of them will die without anyone doing anything about them.

Investing in the idea:
Investing in a good idea – this is the highway to success.
Choose something you can implement in the near future – and start working on it.

Finding the Right Idea:
You saw several ways to reach a good idea, and at least one of them is something you already want to do.
When the idea sharpens, it becomes more precise and successful.
So don’t lose hope along the way!

Continuation of Success:
The more you practice our suggestions, the more confident you’ll feel and get ideas more easily 😄

So get to work!