Well, I put everything in the title but I can slightly expand here:
to progress in game making, code oriented, I need to practice,
I practice by making all the tutorials I can find here but tutorials are tutorials, they tell you how to do things,
consequently, I need to make games that are not already made, I need concepts on which I could work by myself, looking for solutions and working things out.
On the contrary, while you’re practicing, it’s better to build simple, already existing games. Like tetris-clone, match3, platformer, simple 3D FPS shooter, etc. Don’t worry about the graphics, use grey-box or something already done stuff. There is a ton of free stuff to use on the internet (usually non-commercial use, but sometimes even commercially).
Then when you’re done, start to modify them, try to find new ways to use the same idea, mix it and match it. Try to find what you can add to these simple games.
And when you finished a couple of these, you will have some experience AND you practiced both design and coding.
Hi! I deleted some posts that were either elitist or just not adding anything. I think you should try something that inspires you. It does not need to be a game, perhaps a lady walking along in the moonlight solving puzzles? side scroller…
I have tons of ideas for totally original games that have definitely never been done before:
Flappy Pipes: you play as an infinite succession of vertical pipes with gaps in them that can also flap up and down. There is a bird flying in a straight line and you have to flap the pipes so that the bird always flys through the gap.
Unpac Man: you play as a little purple circle guy who has to leave dots all over a maze and eat all of the ghosts that you come across. If you accidentally touch one of the power-downs, the ghosts start to chase you for a short time and you have to avoid them.
Not-at-all Slender Man: You have to collect 8 pages in a brightly-lit forest. While you collect the pages you have to stay close to this short, over-weight guy who’s not scary at all. If you get to far way from him you lose.
With such awesome suggestions as the 3 people above gave its hard to add much.
I guess I would just suggest kind of along the lines of what has been said… maybe take a tiny game (retro are good inspirations) and reimagine it with your personal experiences / likes / hobbies etc.
Something that styles the game to you. Maybe that is Pac-Man but actually a mom trying to get her 4 kids in line or whatever. I have no idea what your life experiences are or what your hobbies & interests are but maybe look there for inspiration.
And I think that is also the heart of what can make a game that not only has a lot of meaning to you but also can connect with a lot of others. Alright that’s all I got. Good luck though!
Hi and thank you everyone for your ideas. I actually need to read ideas from others, not only for training myself at how to make them but also to train myself to have ideas. No matter what I do, I seem to be unable to have ideas… and if I have one by chance, I’ll reject it after a while, lose interest.
How about a cow on a snowboard where you need to take a few bumps with the right angle in order to build momentum before attempting to leap across a ravine to clear the level. You could name it Moomentum.
Oh! A maze game where people say sexist stuff and you have to get over to them and punch them in the nuts before the voice bubbles fade away.
Anything using a 2D grid, like M[ ][ ], is good for practicing array use and nested loops. Even those matching games. An old trick is, say you want a 10x10 grid. Make it 14x14 and only use the middle 10x10. That way you don’t need to worry about off-ends (make the surrounding 2 squares all wall or all blank, depending on the type of game).