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How to create completely brilliant games ideas
Task, adversity and limited resources... Argh! Science!
Let's think about Pacman for a moment.
You've got a task: Eat all the dots
You've got adversity: Ghost want to eat you
You've got a limited resource: Power pills mean you can eat ghosts
By our reckoning many games have this basic structure. Task, adversity, limited resource.
Space Invaders
Task: Kill all the aliens
Adversity: Aliens want to kill you
Resource: You can hide under the bases but they slowly get destroyed.
Let's try it for a more sophisticated game, let's say a FPS like Quake.
Task: Get to the next level
Adversity: Baddies want to kill you
Resource: You need ammo and to get it you have to risk being killed
Much of the tension in games comes from the balance of risk and resources, so let's take our previous list of themes and see what we can do.
Fireman puzzle:
Task: Save people from a burning building
Adversity: Fire
Resource: Amount of air left in breathing equipment
Oooh, and we've got a maze game that has to be solved in a certain amount of moves before the air runs out. Nice!
Tips
Stuck for ideas? Don't like my idea machines? Try the following:
- Go for a walk, my best ideas come away from the PC screen
- Brainstorm with a friend. Use them as a sounding board.
- Read some newspaper headlines. Ask yourself, "How could this be a game?" Admittedly it helps if the headline is John Leslie Rape Quiz
- Look around you. Pick an object and ask how it could be gamed.
- Think of games you played as a child, conkers, british bull dog, anything. How can this be used online?
- I once had a chat with a TV exec who used a "break the formula" hack for creating ideas. Take something that works, and change the crucial detail on which it hinges, i.e. in Big Brother people have no access to the outside world, so let them have access and sell it on that. The show would be all "OMG! The public hate me!"
- Look at book titles for inspiration. Or films.
* "How to make people give you money by Rob Manuel.PDF" is available for a £50 download from all reputable adsense monkeys
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