Before I started making games I had a lot of ideas for games. When I started making games I realised those ideas were far too ambitious. Now I find myself struggling to come up with viable ideas that are worth pursuing.
Partly I feel this is because I work alone and as such cannot brainstorm with others.
Anyone else in the same boat? Those who are not, where do you get your ideas from?
Keep having overambitious ideas and try and find ways to make them work.
Steal them from people on this forum.
Kidding.
I have way too many of my own!
+1, couldn’t agree more. Work with the over-ambitious ideas. Keep at them. Use them.
they evolve over time in my head.
I did have the same experience. I quickly learned that most of my grandiose ideas actually had a fun little core. I then added other cool ideas on top of that. What I learned to do was boil down all of the extra stuff and just really… REALLY emphasize that one core element. Its a struggle to not add all the cool ideas you have, but if you just give all your attention to that one great idea, you’ll have a fun, achievable game.
I steal them, that’s right I have not had one original idea, I am limited by my language and the memes available to me within my experiences within my society.
Plagiarism and a big mixing pot is the way to go, always has been always will be.
Or you could learn a new language and go live in a different culture.
I use word association to come up with ludicrous ideas that I play around with in my head until something sounds fun.
To be honest Ideas is the easy part, read lots, watch movies, play games do a random search on Wikipedia.
The hard part is making a fun game, as in baking you can have a picture of what you would like but you need good ingredients, tools and utensils to turn that into the finished product.
Find an existing game concept then improve on it, are you looking for ideas or just wondering how people think of them?
execution is the king of the trade, not idea! 
Conversations with friends. My friends are very creative and come up with all sorts of “what-if” scenarios that I promptly write down as game ideas.
Mashups - looking at two genres and games that I like and thinking of how they complement each other in a single game design.
“How can I make this better” - if there’s a game that I don’t particularly like, but can see a lot of potential in some of the concepts, I’ll just lift the parts that I like and fill in the gaps with better ideas.
Conversion - taking a game design that I like and adapting it to a new media, e.g. mobile. What has to be changed to make, say, a real time strategy game work on a tiny little phone?
they come to me through divine inspiration while in the shower
edit: possible double post?
There is definitely something to coming up with one of those perfectly simple and elegant ideas that make for a great time waster, but I like looking for the big ideas. I play games. That’s what keeps me going. I look around and say, “This is what I would have done”. That and I also do thought experiments and mix and match concepts and ideas.
But this is coming from a guy who can’t finish anything.
Oh, and I should share these links:
http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/107751/whats-your-brilliant-perfect-tragically-non-existent-game
A lot of stuff to shovel through, but some good ideas in there.
EDIT: Oh, and the forum specifically notes that these ideas are up for grabs, free of obligation to the people posting them. 100% free to use.
O yea go to the toilet, its a well known fact that the majority of new ideas happen when your on the toilet lol so keep a notepad and pen beside you there. lol I’m not kidding btw.
Get high and then right down your ideas.
I settle for watching Let’s Plays of various games (good and bad), and I ask a few questions:
1: What makes this game fun?
2: What feature of this game makes zero sense?
3: What about this game does the LPer get irritated with?
4: What seems irritating to me as I’m watching?
From there, I get overly ambitious ideas.
This is a terrible idea. I tried that once. Apparently, I find wire mesh fences absolutely fascinating while stoned. 
Just as your about to sleep. Always.
Keep a notepad so you can jot down that amazing thing you were thinking of at 1am in the morning, because after you sleep, it will be gone.
i have all my ideas from my guides and friends am new to game developer so i always need some ones help .