How do you usually come up with game idea?

I would like to know and discuss tips on how can you come up with great game ideas.

Do you have a process?
How do you do your research?
Do you focus on one niche?
What kind of preparations do you need before starting working on it?

 

I have the curse of unlimited ideas, literally I can come up with an entire game idea in the matter of seconds, it's a curse. All it takes is a single mechanic I can think of and it opens up hundreds of ideas for what it could be useful for and then - the curse of wanting to make it happens and being stuck in a fork in the road - work on the new game or some how have the strength to keep working on my now boring idea rather than new awesome idea lol.

 

I have the same problem. I always change my mind in the middle of the process. I can't seem to stick to one idea until the end.

 

I'm like N1warhead. Ideas just shoot at me from every direction. I think its just matter of finding one that really inspires you and then doing the work to flesh it out.

I use the word work very deliberately here. At some point it will be work and you not gonna like it. If that's your quitting/getting distracted point, I doubt you could ever finish anything. I know I couldn't. I am very strict about losing focus because once you allow it once it becomes easier the next time.

If you trying to earn dinner from your games, it's probably harder because then you gotta do tons of research to see if its the right market for you idea (or how to target the right market.)

 

Yeah I'm pretty bad with it.... I'll start making something based on the idea, then I get so overly in-depth with things, that progress gets a bit far, then suddenly I realize - it's not measuring up at all what I really wanted to do... Boils down to making things 'feel' correct. It can be as simple as a texture feeling off, and no matter how much I tackle said texture it (never) feels correct to the point I just get so fed up lol.

So now I've told myself, and I'm sticking to it - that I'm no longer going to focus on trying to get something AAA looking intentionally, if it happens it happens, otherwise I'm just going to do the best I can as a sole developer and move on to the next thing. Now if time allows down the road I'll go back to something I think can be done better and then begin to start updating things. But that's always been my biggest downfall, I want to 'wow' players, and 'wow's require A LOT of work to make happen, so now I'm focused on 'wowing' as time goes on, rather than all at one time.

But in all honesty, I think I try too hard, to the point things look 'amazing' to others, but to me I see the horrible faults in it because I simply made it and know what I wanted to do, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, it just means I'm beating myself up over something that actually already looks quite amazing I simply just don't see it because I see my own imperfections in it.

 

yeah i struggle with that daily. I think that is the eternal struggle. Trying to figure out when something is good enough and to move forward.

 

I just kinda spawn ideas out of the blue, so I set up a filtering process.

1. I have an idea
2. If I still remember the idea in 24 hours, I write it down
3. If I do not have an active project at the moment, I wait three days and see if I can write a brief description of the game and how it would function. Generally just like a single page in Google Docs, maybe two pages about the core concepts of the game and its design. If I have an active project, I wait a week
4. A week later (or two if I have an active project), if I'm still interested, I'll bang out a real simple prototype. Game jam length situation; one or two days to bang out an approximation of the game. Not even vertical slice, just something I can "feel"

Honestly, a lot of ideas don't even make it past step 1, but I still have enough ideas regularly enough that I'm usually banging out a prototype every other month lately, while actively working on a project.

 

I play lots of creative games by every corner in the world.
And mix some of their mechanics to my team's unique ideas.
Then plan a release date, no matter how, must publisher before that day.