When I try to think of game designs I often find myself in the situation where I'm programming a game that's basically a BYOND version of another game that already exists. That always makes me think 'why would anyone want to play this game if it practically already exists?'
I'm capable of writing code in BYOND good enough at the very least to pull of a half decent game but I struggle for ideas.
I pick up a pad and pen, scibbling down designs then throw them out as I say "Been done" or "Too generic" or "Not exciting enough" or "Way too big for one person to do".
How do you find inspiration to design a game that is unique enough to stand out as different and not just a plain carbon copy?
Of course with the understanding that games are generally iterative and build on each other.
ID:1614778
 Jun 30 2014, 9:49 pm
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Jun 30 2014, 9:54 pm
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Stephen001
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Essentially when sussing out idea, I either pick a mechanic ("manipulates time") and a genre ("to solve puzzles"), or I essentially pick an existing set of mechanics I like from another game, and put a twist upon their core concepts.
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For me, my motivation was that I wanted it done because I are about seeing the end product myself, not for anyone else.
I have fallen in the trap pit before and all I can say is not to give up. Break it up in pieces - what is the aspect of the game you want to create it for? Is there a particular system you want to see? Slowly, you will piece them together to bring along your dream and that's when things will pick up - at least that was how it was for me when I worked on my Pokemon TCG game back years ago. | |
If the game has already been done, ask yourself what would've made that game better.
I've been doing this since I was knee-high. Back when I was playing Pokemon Yellow in 2nd grade, I was always thinking to myself that it would be nice if I could play as one of the other sprites in the game. I didn't like how the character looked and I instead wanted to play through the game with either the rival's sprite or Lance's sprite. This is the problem with many games nowadays. A lot of developers make games that are like other games, which would be fine, except for one issue: it usually doesn't introduce any improvements or gives players a reason to migrate over to their game. Look at how many successful Minecraft-esque games there are, then compare that number to how many actually exist. For every blocky survival building game that actually saw some big numbers, there's probably 10 others that just didn't take off at all. The reason is that they didn't do anything better, they just made some poorly designed knock-off that's worse than the original. If there's nothing you can find to "improve" on, you can also switch genres. If you like Final Fantasy, make a real-time Final Fantasy-esque game ( since most were turn-based ). If you enjoyed Call of Duty, take some of the best parts of Call of Duty and turn it into a tactical grid-based strategy game. One of my all-time favorites on BYOND was Dragon Warrior Mythology, which was basically a Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest world with Zelda-style gameplay. Kinda like what Stephen said with switching core concepts. | |
Use your kinky/dirty mind and everything shall become interesting automatically.
or< Pick any game you like and add 'What if'. | |
I watch movies. Or go for a drive. Sometimes things just come to me or I'm reminded of new notions or cool ideas.
Then I sorta brain storm before the coding. List all the stuff I want in. Then I trim, take the stuff out that I don't need or can't find multiple uses for. Then I start coding | |