Help?? Need short game concept or ideas

Hello , I’m stuck at a point where I’ve just got a huge writers block. I’m in need of ideas for a short game or small proof of concept demo. I’m an advanced unity user and can probably write almost any code needed. The problem is I lack an idea or the advanced modeling/animating capabilities needed. Although I can model primitive environments and architecture needed I’m having trouble finding a direction. As of now the game is first-person and for PC. With my capabilities and limitations I’m looking for a concept requiring few complex models such as characters

Use the Video Game Name Generator: https://videogamena.me/

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Don’t allow yourself to be backed into a corner by your own limitations, you will never be satisfied with the fruit of your labor because it isn’t what you truly wish to do. Rather, take the time to build up your abilities so you can make the games you want to make, rather than games that don’t inspire you.

Man, just throw together some crap and fiddle with it until something fun emerges. Then turn that into a game.

That, or look at a simple game that already exists and think about how you can make it uniquely different.

But if you just want some off the cuff ideas, here:

No, wait. Those are my ideas… :smile:

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I always find plenty of inspiration in real life.

For example make a game about running a paint factory:

  • Players have to choose what colours to make and how much to make to maximise profits.
  • Players have to choose which order to make colours in to minimise cleaning.
  • Players have to choose how much cleaning to do. More cleaning costs more, but not enough cleaning and your colours mix.
  • There is a random ‘break down’ mini game, where players dive into pneumatics, electronic, mechanics, or programming. But you don’t know in advance which mini game will help.
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Whatever you do, don’t use “Islamic Forklift Jihad” as it suggested to me.

Personally, I’ve never completed a game, but I have many 60% finished projects. When I start a project I usually think of a game I can’t make, then I try to make it until I get another idea. For example, one of my first projects was to make a game like Burning Rubber 2, but in an open map instead of a racetrack. Then I decided to try the same thing but with airplanes, then I tried making endless ball jumping games, endless running games. Now I’m working on a castle-attack game where you can control an army to attack castles.

So for me, the strategy is to challenge myself to do something I think I can’t do, and with each project I learn a little more.

Here are a few that it suggested to me for which characters and complex models don’t immediately come to mind. Many of these sound like they could be physics-based games with simple, low-poly flat-shaded models:

Giant Elevator Tactics
Cute Gun Romp
Ingenious Beast from Hell
Vegetarian Football Conundrum
Hideous Bowling Desperadoes
Blazing Rainbow Fiasco
True Crime: Weight Loss on Wheels
M.C. Escher’s Booty Rally
Bionic Bingo Wasteland
Robot Fishing DS
Happy Bomb Fighter
Cute Fishing of the Damned
Alien Writing Showdown
Cyber Ostrich Through Time
Furry Fun Noodle In Crazyland
Hip-Hop Theme Park in the Salad Kingdom
Chillin Monkey Syndicate
Space Architecture Rangers
Sexy Polka at the Olympics
European Blimp Madness
Turbo Sloth Combat
Kamikaze Tricycle City
Cosmic Gopher Sisters
Tribal Sewer Combat

We almost always use the Videogame Name Generator at our local game jam to come up with the theme. We divide into several teams, and it’s amazing how each team ends up with a completely different take on the theme.

I believe it’s a you don’t know until you know type of deal. At this point you should gather as much inspirational material for this concept, and doodle/draw like crazy even if you suck. Just do your best to keep iterating for a few days to weeks. For me it’s a gut instinct. I just know when I got the right style. Something seems very wrong about what I’m drawing until it doesn’t and I figured it out. A lot of drawing, standing back and looking. Feeling out the designs on an intuitive level. Then go again, until you’re like “This is it!”. It almost feels magical when your intention and reality meet.

You may need to focus more time on developing the skills if you choose to do it all solo. Try your best to not get frustrated. It’s a feeling out process that can take some time. Once you know, the rest of the art becomes much easier to design, as you know what your aiming for already.

I think I just found my next project.

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The Good, The Bad, and the 7-10 Split. :slight_smile:

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Somebody just painted part of their house recently!

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Nah. That is literally my current day job. I’m no longer feeding the world. I’m using my expertise to make it a prettier place.

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Pull out your sketch pad and give yourself unrestrained to sketch anything you want for about 30 minutes. Don’t try to draw anything - just doodle - sketch - create!

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This.

Or if drawing isn’t your thing, you could try writing in stream of consciousness.

Use notepad if you do. Notepad doesn’t have any distractions.

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Write about what you know…?

If I already have a germ of an idea fighting to get out, stream of consciousness with a blank notepad or whiteboard is great.

On the other hand, a blank canvas (or notepad) is sometimes intimidating. I have an easier time free-associating under constraints. “Give me 3 game ideas” is hard. “Give me 3 game ideas for ‘Cosmic Gopher Sisters’” is easier: a platformer starring 3 burrowing gophers abducted to an alien planet; or a post-apocalyptic point-and-click starring anthropomorphic gophers who have to save their future-primitive village; or a cute Starfox-style space shooter. I don’t really know anything about gophers, and those ideas certainly wouldn’t have immediately come to me by staring at a blank canvas. (Although they’re admittedly far from the OP’s requirement for primitive modeling in an FPS game.)

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I’m also a huge fan of doing “this plus that”. Just take two concepts, rather or not they fit, and make them work well together.

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ideas, so many ideas!
but, i dont think my ideas would work for you.

I believe a good idea is something that motivates you (the dev) on a personal level
i dont know what motivates you.

however, my ideas always grow out of a small “core-concept” seed.
mostly at 3 in the night, i get an idea for an original core-concept.
then the following week (or weeks) I can think of nothing else and slowly the idea grows
then i write it down and hope there will ever come a day when i can implement it. :wink:

so, my advice to you: forget about your game for a moment. and just think about some core-concepts that you find interesting to investigate. select 1 or 2 and build them in a simple setting. and if they work , use them in your game.