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[Alex May]

To my knowledge nobody's ever done a game where you play the endless minions who are pitted against the all-powerful hero, although playing the zombies in Left 4 Dead could be close to that - I haven't played it. But imagine, let's take Doom as an example, there's an AI playing the DOOMguy hero, and you are put into the body of the nearest enemy and have to whittle down his health or whatever as best you can. If you die, not too much of a problem as there are tons more enemies in the level for you to take over. It could also work like an RTS.

I also want to see more games about scale - some games are good with that (Shadow of the Colossus, for example) and the best I've seen are Sins of a Solar Empire and Katamari Damacy, which actually have multiple powers of ten in their game scale. How about using this concept in RTS in terms of teams rather than the overall game - one player plays entities the size of ants, another plays the size of small animals like rats, another team could be human-sized. Obviously you'd have different numbers of units depending on the team to compensate for scale, and all the balancing would be pretty interesting. Like the human-sized team could have 3 big units, whereas the ant-sized team could have 10,000 units.

Or how about an RTS team with no units at all, something like the Creep from Starcraft's Zerg.

[increpare]

Or how about an RTS team with no units at all, something like the Creep from Starcraft's Zerg.

like liquidwar? (well, that has units, but...not qualitatively).  I do like that idea though.

[Jii]

Go straight from starting the game to playing, without a title screen/menu/etc in between. Sirlin said someone should do this but to my knowledge nobody ever has.

Minesweeper? 

To my knowledge nobody's ever done a game where you play the endless minions who are pitted against the all-powerful hero, although playing the zombies in Left 4 Dead could be close to that - I haven't played it. But imagine, let's take Doom as an example, there's an AI playing the DOOMguy hero, and you are put into the body of the nearest enemy and have to whittle down his health or whatever as best you can. If you die, not too much of a problem as there are tons more enemies in the level for you to take over. It could also work like an RTS.

I was expecting at the time that Dungeon Keeper would have been just like this, but it was a great disappointment to find out it was not. 

It's not exactly something that has never been done before, but I'd like to do a game where the interface is based purely on sound with no graphics or text. So that even blind people would be able to play it. Or probably blind people would be even better at it than others. The game would take place in 3D space, and to get a "picture" of the space you are in, you'd need to make sounds to a microphone and listen to how it echoes from the walls. There would be waterfalls and other sound sources to help you navigate.

[William Broom]

Voice-recognition-controlled command simulator, such as "Drill seargent" "Squadron Commander" or "Olympic rowing person that shouts to keep rhythm".


Voice-recognition-controlled real time strategy game. No hands, just shouting.

There was this crazy Japanese DS game I read about which was kind of like that. You had to shout "Punch!" and "Kick!" into the microphone to perform the relevant action.

[Pishtaco]

Voice-recognition-controlled command simulator, such as "Drill seargent" "Squadron Commander" or "Olympic rowing person that shouts to keep rhythm".

Some submarine games do this. I think Dangerous Waters had it built-in, and it's available in Silent Hunter 3, maybe with a mod.

Voice-recognition-controlled real time strategy game. No hands, just shouting.

There's the Endwar game that came out recently, that's supposed to do exactly that.

[Super-Dot]

To my knowledge nobody's ever done a game where you play the endless minions who are pitted against the all-powerful hero, although playing the zombies in Left 4 Dead could be close to that - I haven't played it. But imagine, let's take Doom as an example, there's an AI playing the DOOMguy hero, and you are put into the body of the nearest enemy and have to whittle down his health or whatever as best you can. If you die, not too much of a problem as there are tons more enemies in the level for you to take over.

I love this! To take it one step further, the AI could take control of your character when you're not controlling it. To pause, you just put down the controller, and the fight keeps going (but doesn't actually get anywhere, if the balance is right).

There could be a button just to make you hold still! So the AI doesn't kick in.

[battlerager]

Voice-recognition-controlled real time strategy game. No hands, just shouting.

There's the Endwar game that came out recently, that's supposed to do exactly that.

Yep, it works really well.

[Danrul]

Entire HUD on the crosshair in a FPS.  I drew up a sketch in paint a while back, though im not sure its applicable to post.

[Core Xii]

I'm hesitant to announce my original ideas to the public since, they are by definition, original ideas, and therefore of high value.

[Akhel]

I'm hesitant to announce my original ideas to the public since, they are by definition, original ideas, and therefore of high value.

I'm not a huge fan of Lost Garden, but here you go.

[Bree]

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

[increpare]

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

A FPS game where you have to rob a bank.  Only you don't have a gun.  All you have is a fork hidden under your jacket.

[Willows]

To my knowledge nobody's ever done a game where you play the endless minions who are pitted against the all-powerful hero, although playing the zombies in Left 4 Dead could be close to that - I haven't played it. But imagine, let's take Doom as an example, there's an AI playing the DOOMguy hero, and you are put into the body of the nearest enemy and have to whittle down his health or whatever as best you can. If you die, not too much of a problem as there are tons more enemies in the level for you to take over. It could also work like an RTS.

Perfect Dark for the N64, versus co-op mode allowed one player to play as the hero, and the other to play as the nearest enemy.

[Bree]

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

A FPS game where you have to rob a bank.  Only you don't have a gun.  All you have is a fork hidden under your jacket.

Joker simulation. Someone do it. NOW.

[Smithy]

To my knowledge nobody's ever done a game where you play the endless minions who are pitted against the all-powerful hero, although playing the zombies in Left 4 Dead could be close to that - I haven't played it. But imagine, let's take Doom as an example, there's an AI playing the DOOMguy hero, and you are put into the body of the nearest enemy and have to whittle down his health or whatever as best you can. If you die, not too much of a problem as there are tons more enemies in the level for you to take over. It could also work like an RTS.

Perfect Dark for the N64, versus co-op mode allowed one player to play as the hero, and the other to play as the nearest enemy.

There was also game like this a while back, I forget its name but you played as the evil space empire and sent wave after wave of drone fighters against the lone hero fighter.

[Core Xii]

I'm not a huge fan of Lost Garden, but here you go.

Wow, those points are really stupid.

Your game design is simply a starting point
A game starts out with 1% game design and end up 100% production and polish.

Exactly, and as an indie, someone else might have significantly better resources for production and polish than me. Thus their implementation of my idea would overshadow mine.

Unique mechanics are almost never copied
At this point, many people claim that their design possesses a unique ‘hook’ in terms of the game mechanic. Take for example the Sims. This game had a great game design with some very unique and innovative mechanics. Holy crap, if only “I could have thought of it first” I could have made millions. Wouldn’t you love to go back in time, create a copy of the Sims and sell it before the Sims brand was established?

...and since I haven't made the game(s) yet and established said brand, someone else could do that before I even get the chance to try.

If your design ideas are similar to another title, there is a good chance you are both cribbing from the same cheat sheet. Relax. Your super clone isn’t going to win or lose based off the game design anyway. Brand, polish and production values are more important.

...which are exactly what indie developers lack and make up for in uniqueness and experimentation of new ideas.

[Xion]

A game set on a chaotic battlefield... and the player doesn't have a weapon. A new breed of survival horror, possibly?

A FPS game where you have to rob a bank.  Only you don't have a gun.  All you have is a fork hidden under your jacket.

Ah, that actually gives me an idea for a game that's sort of skit-based rather than mission- or whatever based, where you are thrown into typical game scenarios but lacking a key component usually necessary to complete the task at hand. A space shmup where you have no ship and must jump from ship to ship trying to get them to destroy each other (and then climb around on the boss ship SOTC style). A stealth game where you're just a normal guy in broad daylight in a crowded street, trying to hide from everyone. A wild west game where you have no gun, just a single rubber band.

[Chris Whitman]

Regarding game ideas, I think something that can be summed up in the space of a few sentences is not worth spending years of your life on. Therefore, if your entire 'idea' is even subject to being ripped off, it probably isn't interesting enough to make an entire game out of anyway.

I know this has been done before, but I want to see more things that play around with genre or actively trick the player: puzzle games that look like action games, games hiding inside other games or other things that are unexpected and weird.

It's kind of difficult to come up with really new things, but it isn't too hard to use what you know in weird and interesting ways.

[Fifth]

I wanted to make a game once where the character goes about destroying the elements that make up the game itself.  As you progressed, the character would lose his abilities, the enemies and powerups would end up harmless and useless, or disappear altogether, the sound, music, and color would all be lost, and the last bit would simply cause the game to close instantly.  I couldn't think of a good way to make it work, though.

Has that been done before?

[Bree]

Not that I am aware of, but by all means, go for it.