How do you come up with Game Ideas?

[Dalph]

Simply from living, if that even makes sense.


The world around me is my inspiration, small experiences that left their mark or experiences that are either personal or close to me, but also random facts around the world that strike me particularly, you can find inspiration for a story or a game doing anything, even looking around and noticing little things.


All depends also about what you want to make too.

 

[The Stranger]

I'm with @Dalphjuice™ on this. All of my ideas are inspired from historical, current, or possible future events; as well as my own personal life experiences. I love exploring these things; using my life experiences as inspiration also helped me cope with what has happened in my life. You don't have to copy these events wholesale, either - they're easily manipulated and changed to suit your own fantasy worlds and themes.


Humanity, as a whole, has such a rich and diverse history (a lot of it is insanely bloody and dark, too) which can be a goldmine for creative individuals. Current world events are also a rich source of creative material, which can also lead you into developing your own ideas for future events. Like I said, it doesn't need to take place on Earth, you can change things so they make sense in whatever setting you're working with.

 

[Kes]

The section 'Video Games' is about playing games, not making them.  Although there's not much discussion (it's more a simple listing of "what I do") I think the only place for this is General Discussion.  If someone could find a couple of discussion points as well, that would be nice.


I've moved this thread to General Discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

 

[HexMozart88]

It's funny how you added the "listening to music" option. Because, I don't come up with game ideas that way, but I do come up with book ideas that way. But it's funny how our minds work. I'd like to know why it is that a lot of us have seemed to come up with our ideas while doing something completely unrelated. I find it to be both a gift and a curse to be able to come up with such vivid, and potentially good ideas. A gift because I can keep them in my head for long periods of time, but my curse because I don't really pay attention to anything else. So, here's my question: do you think it is a good thing to be able to get these ideas at any given moment? (I'm really just trying to start a discussion as @ksjp17 had suggested.) 

 

[Blackyu]

I get ideas completely randomly. My brain is nothing but a juicy box of ideas, and I'm often bored in class, in cars/buses, and pretty much everywhere actually. So, naturally, my mind just turns to a thing I love in order to "counter my boredness", it can be videogames, a video I've watched recently, etc... Then, my thoughts just branch off in another direction, in another one, and so on and sometimes an idea will just come out of nowhere. Then I think I'm a genius. And I somehow forget the idea right when I get back to my computer. Only to remember it the next day and rage hard.


Oh, and since @HexMozart88 started a discussion, I might as well participate :


Pretty sure that getting good ideas at random moments has both its advantages and flaws. Personally, I'm able to concentrate on something else, even when I have to remember an idea (As said before, I forget the idea the first days anyway, I eventually remember to program it around 3~5 days later), so the biggest flaw is already gone for me. Instead, I'm really happy to have such a productive mind, it really helps in every project. However, I still have to deal with a rather big issue : remember how I said my brain is nothing but a juicy box of ideas ? Well, it's VERY juicy. So, of course it's VERY productive, but it's also VERY active. Way too active. My brain is always thinking, no matter what I do. I just can't stop my brain from automatically thinking about everything, even when I'm about to sleep. So yeah. Insomnias and stuff. I'm always tired. And being tired is counter-productive. And you know what my brain does to counter lack of sleep ? IT WORKS MORE ! And working more means more trouble to fall asleep due to brain hyperactivity which all leads to, you guessed it, MORE NIGHT INSOMNIAS ! Never thought I'd say this once in my life, but to sum up :


I'm stuck in a vicious loop of juicy hyperactive brains. >.<

 

[Naridar]

All sorts of places/inspirations. I got an idea just today listening to a song on radio (and then 40+ times on youtube after), but the last time I came up with a core motivation of an ambigous character in one of my most developed concepts was after a long, tiring night shift at the obstetrics department. I get ideas more often when driving a long distance, which comes with the downside that I can't write down what occured to me until I arrive (by when I've forgotten some of the finer details)