Done.
- Audio-only games
- Airship 2600 compo
- Anagram compo
You are given a series of letters/anagrams, and must use them as your games title and components. Say like, IGBN = Infinitely Growing Banana Nife (reference) ;P, with a little bit of cheating.
- Colour swatch games
Base idea is make a game using all and only the colours in a colour swatch from a site like
http://kuler.adobe.com/ or something AND have the game relate to the name of the swatch.
- Combination of two previous compos
- Iron-chef style compo
Everyone starts with the same ingredients: some backdrops, a font, a sprite sheet and a few sound-effects, and the prize goes to the game that most brilliantly expresses the ingredients. I.e. you won't win if you make a whole lot of new assets. It might work best if there was an initial phase where everyone had a chance to contribute a single asset of their own choice - a piece of art, music, sound, code, text, or whatever else.
- Controversy compo (Nintendo censorship guidelines-breaking)
http://www.filibustercartoons.com/Nintendo.php- Realism vs. surrealism
The aim would be to bring realism to genres which usually don't have it (e.g. puzzle games), and non-realism to genres which do (e.g. simulators).
- Fake work
Games that to the casual oberver would look like the player is actually working. A simple idea might be a text based adventure that looks like a word-processor or a resource management game that looks like microsoft project.
- Postcard game competition
Entrants must go on a vacation somewhere and, while they're there, instead of sending back a postcard, write a game influenced by the events that have occured on the holiday.
- Political games
Not necessarily current world politics or non-fictional politics either.
- AI-focused compo
- Uber-awesome theme
You know, ninjas, pirates, Megaman, bagpipes. Something so obviously uber-awesome that it's indisputable.
- NES games based on movies
But actually completely unrelated to the source material.
- Adult gaming XXX
- Remake Super Mario level 1-1
- Bunch o' games compo
Basically make a game that is made up a bunch a little ones. It could be a mini game collection, or one with different modes.
- Sequels to games that never were
- Dual fusion games
Where you take two game mechanisms or themes and create a new never before seen combo.
- lotsacolorcompo
- Compo where the games get a score based on how many compos from the list it would be able to enter.
- Vanity project games
Games that involve their creator(s) as central characters/themes. Can be autobiographical or just plain fantasy (or both).
- Holy text games
Games based on passages from the Bible, the Qur'an, the Necronomicon...
- Game based in Stratford City, London, the site of the upcoming Olympic Games.
- Goalless games competition
- WWII Game Compo
Take the most overdone, beaten-to-death formula, and give the prize to the person who successfully reinvents or reinvigorates the concept.
- Practising a profession
The gameplay should revolve around performing this job, not around dealing with alien invasions.
- Everyone is given a number of music files, and they have to use them in the game. The winner's are the people who make the best game that uses the music in the more interesting way.
- Anti-games
E.g.: Tetris, but where the object is to see how high you can stack the pieces
- Sandbox game competition
- Mouse-only games
- Games that use only a specific set of buttons
- Realistic games
Platformers where everything is very horizontal, fighting games where its over within a couple of blows, etc.
- Games that involve drawing stuff
Like Crayon Physics or Line Rider.
- Super gore compo
- Exploration game compo
Absolutely no combat allowed.
- Movie/book inspired games