A guide to inspiration for game developers

In this post, I will give you some ideas on how to find… well… an idea for a game.

They say finding an idea is the easiest part of making any game. There are so many idea-people but only a few ever deliver an actual game. Yet without an idea, there could be no game. Your game may be lacking sounds, music, a plot, a proper user interface, sometimes even graphics (take MUDs) but never an idea…

What’s more, you can have the best visual and audio assets for your game, great object models and stunning characters. But if the idea for your game sucks – your whole product will be a crap.

Conversely, a great idea may be enough to guarantee the success of your game, even if the visuals are not top-notch.

Don’t believe me? Remember your favorite game from 8-bit, 16-bit era. If you’re not old enough to remember those happy times, I’m sure you’re aware the “retro gaming” is all hype right now.

Now ask yourself – what is the greatest element of those games?

Graphics? That surely hasn’t aged well. Compare any 80s game visuals to today’s standards. Even most simple nowadays indie games *look* better. Same goes for music, sound effects and so on.

A plot or a story? Yes, those can withstand the passage of time, just like the good books. But what IS the plot if not a well-developed idea? And looking back, there were so many great games that had no real story whatsoever. There was only a pure gameplay based on a fresh idea.

 

The old game hits were (and are) great. Why? Because of a great idea at their core.

And the same goes for many of today’s successful games. Flappy Bird, Minecraft, Fruit Ninja, Dwarf Fortress. It’s a brilliant idea that has made those games hits.

Everything starts with an idea. This holds true for this blog post too.

An idea is not everything but without an idea, there is nothing (as far as the game’s concerned)

OK, so now that we know what is probably the most important thing about making any game, how do we find a great idea? And how could we make it into the proper game?

In this post, I’m going to show you some ways of looking for an inspiration. This may come especially useful if you happen to experience a creative block or have to conceive something on a spot. (As it happens at most game jams).

You may use those methods in any order you like, one of them, some of them or all of them if need be. There’s no wrong way of using this list, as long as it helps you find an inspiration for your next game.

What follows is actually…

A list of ideas for looking for ideas

 

1. Start from a single detail, an object, then explore it and develop it.

Look around. Find a first detail that catches your interest. This could be an inanimate object but just as well an animal or even a person.

Now fix on this detail and try to build your idea for a game around it. Don’t get discouraged if your initial idea seems stupid or too crazy. Actually the more unusual the idea, the better chance you have for hitting a new note in your game.

For now, simply explore the idea centered around this detail, get into the flow.

Start noting down every connotation, every association to this detail, however loose they may be. Utilize this sort of “domino” effect, when turning in your mind one detail brings up, in turn, another detail, another idea and so on.

Just don’t try too hard to make this detail into an actual game yet. Don’t bother about building suitable mechanics around it. There will be time for that. For now, set on rolling down the first rock that hopefully will start a real avalanche of ideas.

What do you see in your vicinity? Find any object that catches your eye. Can you make this object or this person the main theme of your game?

Say, you see a cup of coffee standing on your desk. A cup doesn’t sound like an exciting protagonist for a game, right? Think again…

 

 

2. Build your game around a specific mood.

Find a mood, any mood, that resonates strongly with you. Be it a joy, be it a sorrow, a fear or a longing for something. The list could go on forever. Just find a mood you deeply understand and could identify with.

Now note any associations with this particular mood that comes to your mind. Is that a person, a place, a season perhaps? Most likely an event of some kind or a series of events. In that case try to boil it down to one strongest, prevailing, common element of those events.

Again, this could be a behavior or a specific person (your relative, someone you’ve lost, your worst enemy?).

Write down some adjectives related to this mood. Pair those adjectives with other objects or characters.

Look at your list of the associations. Can you see any element that stands out? Explore this element. Do you think you can make a game around it? Read the method #1 above if your focus is an object or a person.

Merge the initial mood with the focus object. Example: you’ve thought “darkness” (or, more specifically, a “fear of darkness”). Then you’ve associated it with a “flashlight”. A game in which you use a flashlight to fight the darkness. Instant horror game idea!

3. Choose a color and explore its associations.

This may sound tricky at first. How could you possibly make a game around a color?

This is actually a first step to finding your idea for a game. Just like the object, a person or a mood could make a theme for your game, a color is just a detail that may spark your imagination.

Make associations with a chosen color. What kind of mood, what feelings would you relate to this color?

Red is anger. Red is flames. Blue? Blue is the sky. You can fly into the sky. Blue sky equals a calm sky, so how about a game in which you fly (as a bird perhaps?) through the blue sky, fighting red, fiery and definitely angry phoenixes? (And if you did think Angry Birds, that’s OK too. That only shows your capability to make loose associations on the *fly*. Pun intended.)

Smart use of colors can also be a focus of your game mechanics. Like in Mirror’s Edge, where red shows your trail across the mostly monochromatic world. Or take any RPG game where green liquid usually suggests a poison. Use those (color) schemes or break them deliberately.

4. Find a setting and make it into your game.

This is just a step above exploring a single detail. Take a whole group of related objects, characters, and details, then start developing from it a general idea for a game.

Where to begin? Be observant. Look for anything vibrant, distinctive, appealing or repulsive enough to trigger your creative flow.

Find a picture, a drawing, a scene. Distill the important details of it. Make further associations, maybe cull some dispensable elements from it.

Re-create, twist or deform the scene to make it a unique setting for your game.

See, I’ve found this single image among many @CyberpunkGame tweets extremely inspiring. What you see is a group of people (those are some gods of gamedev actually!) talking in front of a neon-colored bar. And guess what has sparked my imagination?

Not the people but the background bar with all its neon, cyberpunk-ish glory!

I have an idea for a game about a cyberpunk bar owner, who sells drinks, this or that illegal stuff, perhaps deals in questionable data or whatever. You run the bar, build it and expand it, buy upgrades for the cybernetic bartender, add more goods to the stock and uncover the sinister plot.

All inspired by a background of a single tweeted picture.

5. Add (or subtract) something to (from) your initial setting.

Choose any standard, typical game setting. Or, better yet, take a theme from the real world. Then manipulate it, alter it by adding something unexpected to it. Or remove one characteristic element from it.

Take your generic, fantasy setting. You have spells, magical swords, dragons, and monsters. Some fantasy races, like elves or dwarfs, perhaps. Now, remove the magic from it. Spare the elves, trolls, and dragons. Suppose those are just freaks of nature in this world not the result of some magical evolution.

Now add something to fill the void left after removing the magic. Something like a steam power. There are no magical swords in the game but instead, you wield steam-powered rapiers.

Another example – our world, modern times. Everything exists exactly as we know it. Except for one thing… The supernatural is real. There are werewolves and demons and elder gods existing secretly around us.

So what we did here, we’ve added a basic element from one setting (supernatural) to another setting (our mundane world). Presto, a game idea!

 And how about an alternative version of our world in which a combustion engine has never been invented? No cars, no diesel trains, no jets. Horse-drawn carriages, wood-burning stoves, and blimps in XXI century, anyone?

6. Switch the elements of your ideas one with another.

Remember the idea for a cyberpunk bar from method #4? Suppose you like your main idea for a game about running a bar but you also feel that all those cyberpunky themes sound a bit overused recently. On the other hand, it’s been some time since we’ve had any decent space opera setting used in a game.

And who doesn’t love Star Wars?!

Switch the settings then. Go along with the bar but set it in an Episode VI Mos Eisley cantina-like scenery. Your barman is a droid and your space bar caters to the needs of a diversified alien clientele.

Don’t be afraid to take any or all elements of your initial idea and replace them with different ones. Use dinosaurs in place of tanks. Change trees into giant mushrooms. Substitute modern politicians with a cabal of tie-clad psionic warlocks.

Generally, don’t stick too hard with any element of your game idea until you’ve finally decided to go along with it. Change anything and continue searching for things that really nicely fit together and make your game idea tick.

7. Enhance or reduce a chosen element of your initial idea. Play with a scale.

Let’s say, you’ve chosen a setting for your game. Manipulate the elements of this setting in a way similar to the method #5 described above.

But instead of adding or subtracting, multiply or downsize a given element.

You’ve decided on a steampunk setting. Cool. You probably have some steam-powered contraptions, perhaps mechanical computers. Maybe strange concoctions prepared by deranged scientists. Now go all the way up with it! Extend those elements to the fullest. Scale it up.

Imagine a clockwork planet controlled by a large (mechanical!) supercomputer. People fly space steamships fueled by alchemical mixtures. Build a steampunk game on a galactic scale!

Or… Take it all the way down. Reduce the chosen element. Make it existent but microscopic in scale.

And I mean literally microscopic! Make your hero tiny and explore the inside of a living organism cell. Or play with aliens size of mice, trying to invade and conquer our world.

Make something superabundant or scarce. Take, for example, a post-apocalyptic world in which the clean, breathing air is a most sought for, luxurious commodity. Or a world where EVERYTHING is made from cheese. Cheese people living in cheese cities on a cheese moon.

8. Manipulate the time

Another take on manipulating the elements that form the idea for a game. This time we manipulate… the time itself.

I’m sure you guess the title of a game where “time moves only when you move”? Yes, that’s Superhot. Brilliant idea with rather minimalistic visuals. (Some clever use of colors!)

So play with time, stop it, make it run faster or slower, rewind it. Make your hero journey through time, visit same places in different historical periods. Or give the player a direct control over the flow of time.

Since The Time Machine, an idea of time travel has been exploited extendedly so try to find something fresh. Combine idea elements devised using the above methods, think about how you can relate them with a control of the time.

Use time control as the main mechanics in your game.

In Arkanoid, there were power-ups that slowed (or accelerated) the ball. TimeShift or Quantum Break is all about manipulating the time. Find something new. Associate your means of time manipulation with something unheard of.

Make a samurai sword your time machine.

Ah well, that one’s been already used in Daikatana… So find another object or a character or a place and make it your unique time controlling device.

9. A ‘mirror method’.

This is a rather funny way of taking an already used game idea and placing it in front of a mirror, so to speak.

Switch the roles of a protagonist of the game with their enemies. Turn the whole idea around, then make it playable (and fun!).

The enemy becomes a hero, a hero becomes an enemy.

Like in Dungeon Keeper when you are the evil boss controlling the monsters dwelling in trap-filled dungeons. And the enemies are your typical fantasy heroes. Muahahaha!

Take this “mirroring” to a more abstract level. Instead of being a player character who shoots a bullet, BE THE BULLET. Control your target, not the shooter. Control the road the car drives on, not the car itself. Think out of a box.

There are already many games utilizing this method: reverse tower-defense subgenre, the games where you play the bad guy and so on.

Make a game where you play the fish trying to avoid the fisherman’s hook. Or a game about ghosts trying to scare off the new living residents of a haunted (by you!) mansion.

10. Play with children.

Observe children at play. I mean, children just playing around, not only playing video games. Children provide an inexhaustible source of ideas for games.

To children devising new ideas for having fun comes naturally.

And kids have no problem at all with changing any or all the elements of they play, imagining new gameplay “rules” on the spot. Their imagination has no limits but at the same time, kids are rather merciless judges when it comes to testing a *game* being played.

If they like the idea of a game, they play it. If not, so long… No looking back.

So learn to draw ideas from children plays, notice what toys they like most. Make those toys into objects or characters in your game, explore and develop the scenes and situations the kids imagine up.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that you would end up making a game for kids. Just find an inspiration, look for a core fun element of children plays and then twist it, manipulate, mirror and transform to your heart’s desire.

Make a horror game based on fairy tales or make a game of “playing the house”. Where house and its residents are made of cheese. And they are able to reverse the flow of time…

11. (Bonus idea) Take an inspiration for your game visuals from art.

Art could be an amazing source of inspiration for your game. So go visit your local art gallery, read some art albums, search the Web. Drawings, photographs, sculptures, installations, movies, architecture, comic books or even music. Anything may inspire you.

Because a main purpose of art is to inspire…

Less often mentioned sources of visual inspiration are custom, handmade postcards, graffiti and… cover art for records. Honestly, take ANY prog rock album cover from the 80s and I guarantee it will blow your mind. An instant avalanche of ideas for games.

HAVE A GOOD IDEA!

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Please comment below if you find any of those methods useful. Feel free to share your ideas for games (if you’re not afraid someone would snatch it from you, of course!) 😉  And please add to the list your creative ways of finding an inspiration. Say what works best for you.

And don’t forget to research your idea to make sure nobody has already used it in their game.

Thank you and good luck to all beautiful idea-people out there!