GAME IDEAS

a working notebook of mechanics, systems, and stories

ROGUE DOT

You’re a rogue who is a dot. You can collect dots on your journey, you can battle others with your dots and choose your stakes, battling is like a game of poker but you have only primaries and secondaries, you can play up to 3 dots 3 secondaries beats 3 primaries but 3 primaries beats 2 secondaries etc. There needs to be a way to bluff. absolutely minimal.

You can guess whether someone has what colours by watching their behaviour if someone has reds and yellows nearby they will have those colours and will be making oranges.

Each fight is negative sum, if you lose, you give yours, if you win you take theirs and lose yours. So you have to measure what you’re willing to bet based on how powerful you think the other is. You can offer food to animals that will protect you from conflict.

ENTROPY

A game with a field of randomly coloured dots, the rgb values are translated into 3 rg,bo,py gradients where in rg -1 = red 0 = grey 1 = green. This would be a simple get / set function. Each node is attracted to opposites on each gradient (and maybe repelled by similar) - so if given long enough the system should make everything reduce to grey. On collisions, if a negative and a positive collider they begin to cancel by reducing the extent of the colour on the given gradient. If a positive and a positive collide they both increase along that gradient. The aim is to set up a system that resists the natural entropy of the system, by setting up loops, perhaps with barriers? or just by moving them around into different arrangements.

This could also be done were each node is only on one gradient and doesn’t interact with others outside of that gradient, unless they have reached 0.

Another variation could be outline squares and small squares when a small goes in a big they combine to mix colours if the colours combining both secondary they make a grey or a solid if they are the same they reproduce, if they are opposite they cancel. The objective is to beat the entropy of the system. Perhaps the grey mechanic could be applied to true colours.

TRADE

A game that starts with a player producing a certain type of good - and then having to trade with others eventually developing currency.

FINE LINE

An infinite runner style game with elements of snake that uses a very fine line that chooses between different maze sections to get through (need to be acutely aware of blocks

TIME TRAVELLER

A story about that teaches kids about different periods in time. The game would be html based you would collect codes which would unlock other sections in time. Perhaps a downloadable spreadsheet could be used to store your codes. There would have to be a text entry box in the page to enter codes

FORCE OF NATURE

About a young girl who can manipulate things with her mind

ROLLING SHUTTER

A video installation that records people in a virtual mirror situation, but with a slow horizontal scan - left pixel line at real time and right most 10 seconds delayed… giving the impression of being stretched going one direction and squeezed going the other.

GARDEN

A virtual garden that has real nutrients, sunlight, water etc, plants grow procedurally depending on how much nutrients they get.

COMMON ENEMY

A game about the fact that we need an enemy to band together

ROGUE CHESS

An adventure game where you have to defend your king through a forest of chess pieces and sacrifice your pieces to protect your king,

A GHOST IN THE LEAVES [INFERENCE]

A platform game where your player is a collider that interacts with environmental materials

… like snow or leaves falling. In some cases it might interact differently with different objects which fall on it or otherwise are illuminated by it. Another interesting aspect would be to get gravity to pull the particles around by having the world locked to the camera location and having the camera rotate to get gravity to move in different directions, so you would see how the wind is blowing by watching the leaves, and would get blown about by it as well. This is an extension of the idea about paintings that move

ALIEN ALONE

A 2d gravity game with control over the boosters ( camera locked to the rocket ).

The aim is to get through an endless runner without running out of fuel. You can even land and refuel - I think I worked out code for this navigation, where you steer from distance from ship to angle relative to the ship

RAINBOW HIDE

a game where you have to get past guards like metal gear solid, but instead you hide in 2d by blending into the background

WILDE BEASTIES

you're trying to juggle a mad load of different species invented in Dr Wilde’s lab

BLACK SHEEP

PILES

A node-map game where to go deeper you have to go broader

TURTLE SHELLS

A turtle game where you must break open puzzles to take on more answers - answers prompt more questions

This is based on an episode of Veritasium - where he talks about having to break preconceptions to take in new information

LIGHTNING

A simulation of lightning that takes a hexagonal grid and takes in a charge and a path until that path reaches the bottom of the screen then the resulting node path lights up like lightning.

DISCOVER

A game about navigating a neural net towards a new discovery - you activate neurones which gives you power to access new random experiences. You have to build a narrow or broad network to get to a goal first. Like neural checkers

PONZI - Tabletop game

A game where points are awarded in a ponzi scheme - you need to buy and sell into each other’s schemes to win You might need to set your own price and rewards system (in secret - by writing on a card) You might have to have a scheme price - or you might want to set your own price (knowing how much you have to pass up the chain You have to pay a proportion of your earnings up the pyramid

SUSTAIN

Given variables you must designate behaviours and frequencies to achieve the longest life - This could use the ML in Unity

PREJUDICE

A game about prejudice towards high and low choice groups

OVERWHELM

A VR experience where you are the blue dot in the orange mass

IF I WERE YOU

A game that puts you in the position of your opposition and makes you argue for them. (This is the only way I have changed someone’s mind, to one of truth).

SPLIT

A split screen game where scenes are revealed through split screens

WHISPERER

A monster whisperer who helps feuding monsters get along by creating symbiosis

GENTLE

You are a monster and everyone in the game is afraid of you, you have to assemble a team to tame a larger beast

ONE TASK

An organiser called one task

PERSONAL SPACE

To proximity Neutropia

DISARM

A game with high powered guns where your objective is to play against yourself.

TREE ARCHITECT

There is a root structure that grows when cut

BAD ASH

A game where you control a gun nut

CIRCLE OF TRUST

A game about spheres of loyalty

PIXEL SMASH

A game based on a pixel art aesthetic where every pixel is a collider

RE-JIG

A game where you build puzzles but must break them to fit new pieces

NON-SAVE GAME

Remember game I was thinking about where you can only save leaving game

DEAD AIR

A sound only game where you are left blind and need to escape with your daughter

HUD

You wake up in a world where your are trying to break free of a feed in your vision

MYTE

A game where the smaller you are the stronger you become.

NERF WAR

A 1st person shooter where the protagonist shoots nerf darts

Q

A game about queuing

ENCIRCLE

A game where you capture an enemy by circling it.

PENGWINGS

Incorporate cannibal robots

DARWINGS

A variant of Pengwings

STEALTH GOD

Populous type game

UP

A game where you pull tension on tramps to propel an infinite character up

STICK FIGHT / BUN FIGHT

HIDING PLACES

YELLOW ROAD

UTERO

THOUGHT

A game where the protagonist is a thought bubble.

NO MANUAL

A fat lazy woman with no military training is abducted by aliens

UNDER-BITE

About a stray dog - against the odds.

MATHS TETRIS

PARADOX / CATCH 22

COG

WATER-FILLER PROBLEM SOLVER

WHEELCHAIR WIZARD

A platform infinite runner game

ELEMENTAL

A platformer where you can shift between different elements

FOLLOWERS

Agents follow your touch

CAMP

A game about escaping from a prison camp through starvation

VERMIN

A game where you are a bug trying to escape the hands of humans

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