How do you come up with Game Ideas?

[Yappy Monoxide]

All of the above for me.

 

[TheTsunaru]

Oh man, the shower is terrible for me. If anything comes to mind while I'm in there, next thing I know I've gone through 50 different things and been in the shower for an hour


Most of the ideas for my current game came from work though. I had a lot of downtime for a while and ended up coming up with several pages of notes.

 

[Yappy Monoxide]

Oh man, the shower is terrible for me. If anything comes to mind while I'm in there, next thing I know I've gone through 50 different things and been in the shower for an hour

Oh I completely undertstand. I think of amazing things while in the shower. Then something else amazing, then something else, then somethin- Wait what was the first one again. And then my family starts banging on the doors for me to get out.  But thankfully, you can recover/salvage your ideas later. Just write them down immediately. 

 

[taarna23]

Randomly. Mine sneak attack and hit me upside the head with a blunt object.

 

[consolcwby]

I picked Other. My game ideas usually come from writing dialogue. My current project has been changing radically since I began to formalize the world's background. To get at that point took about six hours of writing dialogue for the first two characters. Until then, the game design itself was fairly bland and uninspired. But, that's just crazy old me! When I was younger, I came up with tons of ideas sitting in my car, drinking coffee while waiting for my morning classes to begin. Strange how things turned out.

 

[Dr. Delibird]

Tbh it is more pseudo-randomly for me as these ideas generally only come up when I am thinking about anything game related, usually mechanics or strategies for other completely unrelated games. Those ideas are generally an adaption of other ideas from other games that are made to work in a jrpg style.

 

[Wavelength]

A majority of my game ideas come to me when I'm creating other games, or playing games, and thinking about things I'd like to do.  Those are often the seeds that grow into full game ideas.


I've had a lot of game ideas while exercising as well, and also a lot of game and story ideas (of highly varying quality) from dreaming.

 

[aqua]

All the above + reading/listening to the written word. And also while drawing. Especially while drawing! It's misleading though to say they're 'game' ideas for me though, because what I actually get are ideas for characters that I'd like to SEE in games, haha.

 

[trouble time]

I choose all of the above, I would say that my "style" comes from heavy metal the same way cyberpunk comes from the punk subculture.

 

[Canini]

I am sorely tempted to say reading mythology+alcohol but from the choices available I do come up with a few short sequences while dreaming. These are very seldom used in games, more often in my writing and almost always taken from nightmares.

 

[HexMozart88]

All of the above. My ideas would come to me while staring at the ceiling, or in the car. The shower is actually a pain because I would be in there for half an hour and the water would be cold.     

 

[Reese]

All of the above for me. There are literally hundreds of millions, BILLIONS! of ideas out there that are waiting to be formed and some came out from my dreams and then I've only externalized into understandable terms.

 

[kendrik45]

I can gain inspiration from many mediums, but I prefer dreams. Dreams come exclusively from us, so if we can take parts of those ideas from the dream and craft into a coherent story; I believe these could be the most revolutionary stories.


No offense to gaining inspiration from others, but I'm tired of cliche ideas in games, animes, etc. Let me immerse myself in a story that is far different from what's already here.

 

[kaukusaki]

I chose all the above. Sometimes I even get ideas when i'm on the can and able to relax a bit (too hectic lolz). I rarely dream (I pass out from lack of sleep and working too much) but when I do, I get some trippy stuff that ends up in my novels or games...


Sometimes a good walk outside helps...

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

I am definitely in the "all of the above" camp,


My mind is like a dog suddenly left off a leash, after being in a kennel for a year, anytime something doesn't demand my full attention. I'll often be on autopilot on any repetitive action, just enough mental processes to maintain the action; but I am not really even "seeing" & "hearing" what is in front of me, because I am in my own head.

 

[ShinNessTen]

You know when you have a great idea when the second you got hit by it, the second it lefts your brain once you wake up.


aka. i hate my short term memory soooo freaking much! So much potential wasted!


I at least hope it hit somebody else with a greater memory than mine! lol


But more than anything it just comes randomly out of freaking nowhere for me.


Like the idea i had where you -sorry, but that idea has been copyrighted by me-

 

[rue669]

Usually it comes from mashing one idea with another one. You see this a lot in movies, too. Like Die Hard meets When Harry Met Sally (someone should write that!). 


Sometimes things will come to me through images. Imagery tends to help build a story character or story world and then it goes down the spiral after that!

 

[SinSilver]

I  often find taking a shower helps jolt my creative juices, especially after I watch a good movie/TV show.

 

[Ser Gob]

I get plenty of story ideas when I'm trying to sleep. It's a little habit of mine (and it makes me comfortable).


Of course I ended up forgetting some of them when I wake up.

 

[TheTitan99]

Ha ha, guess I'm in the minority here but... I get my ideas when I sit down, and really think about my games. A lot. And work. A lot.


I've found that my best ideas come from focused thought on game design, and playtesting. Not saying that a more passive style's never worked in the past, certainly have had thoughts come from seemingly no where. But, usually the ideas I'm the happiest with come from direct, focused thought on game design. Why isn't this working? How can i make it better? Why did this work in this game but not that? Usually the starting idea only barely resembles the end result, for me, because the idea's constantly being honed and thought on.