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[GregWS]

And that you guys for taking my suggestion!  Sorry I didn't get a chance to help; crazy weekend.

It's quite interesting to see so many of these ideas in one place; there's definitely some really good ones I hadn't seen before.

Given thread size will be a long term problem with something like this, I wonder if we should just create a big poll, and whenever a compo is chosen, it is removed from the poll so the votes going towards it can go towards something else.  Of course, only serious/feasible ideas would even make it to the poll, and whenever good new ideas came up they could be added.  I heard that it was Derek who had final say in compos, so maybe let him choose which ones should be on the poll.  That way, no one would ever have to skim through 85 pages to see what compos have been suggested, they could just vote for what they like there and then.

[Gainsworthy]

Man, a big poll's gonna have verr many quibbles, verr much confusion.

I kinda like the idea of an admin or two looking over some of our discussion and giving us some choice cuts to select from, rather than hundreds. Just saying.

Although there are a few repeats and unfeasables in the list, so that does drop the number. A little.

[GregWS]

I still think a poll would be fairly successful, even with say, 10 options, because there have been numerous times in this thread where lots of people have gotten behind an idea.  And the options in the poll would be fairly unique, so there wouldn't be people arguing over little details; those could be sorted out after.

[Gainsworthy]

Oh yeah, 10, 20, 30 options would be fine. But, our backlog is probably growing towards 200.

I'd chuck in my ten choices, but that'll probably just kick off new, confused debate. If we go the Compo Select melee, I think there should be a new thread made, at least.

[William Broom]

I'm fine with the way it's been done before, really. A poll would be messy and open to raids.

Also, I had another idea:

Revenge of the Idea Men
This competition begins with people posting threads about their awesome ideas and trying to recruit people to work on them. The idea can be as detailed as you like, but you cannot actually make any of it - no code, no sprites, no music, not even concept art. The idea man has to rely on his recruits to do all the work. For their part, the recruits are not able to influence the idea at all - they have to do exactly what the idea man says.

Of course, you aren't limited to fulfilling one role, and indeed most people will be working as idea men for their own game while coding/spriting/etc for one or more other games. It's a finely balanced reciprocal relationship. On the other hand, if you really are a guy without any skills but a brilliant idea, then this is your chance to get it made. But there'll probably be a huge crowd of ideas floating around, so you'll have to work hard to make yours stand out and attract workers.

[Gainsworthy]

That is an amusing and clever idea. Potentially heartbreaking, potentially genius. I dig it. Sounds more of a long-term thing, though. Like two month-er.

[n0wak]

Nah, you just end up with several different games (levels?) for each of the anticipated programming languages/programs/whatever.  Each person could make a few games apiece to fill 'em out a bit, if necessary...

That sounds not so good. The ideal situation is to make game data rather than the actual logic shareable, preferably in some standard format like XML, PNG, WAV, etc. and have different interpretations of the same data from game to game. But this would require a lot more planning and you can't really just throw something in the oven and see if it bakes.

[Mr. Yes]

Chutup, that idea is amazing. It would be incredibly fun to participate in that. Though, I don't like the name.

[battlerager]

Though, I don't like the name.

Operation Fallin Angle 2: Electric Boogaloo

[medieval]

Revenge of the Cheetahmen II

 

[Melly]

List of my share done.

Compo that forces indie devs to make things they'd normally never make:

- edugame compo
- advergame/sellout compo
- sequels compo
- ultra-casual games (I know this was more or less suggested already)
- sports games (what is it about indie devs and sports games, anyway?)
- games which improve your self-esteem
- uncool games

Attention Whore Compo

Goal: Make a game that gets (or is intended to get) major attention on the internet or other media. You could...
* Make it topical, like a US Presidential Elections Street Fighter
* Make it about some controversial issue like school shootings or 9/11
* Get it endorsed by a celebrity (Maybe get a Youtube celebrity to blog about it. "Tay Zonday's Pro Golf Tournament 2008" or "Leave Britney Alone Chess" should do the trick!)
* Make it blatantly plagiarise so many copyrights that it gets C&D letters from Disney, Nickelodeon, etc. (This competition has no monetary prizes, so they would have better things to do than sue you. But you can still try to get C&D'd! Actually they might end up offering you a job...)
* Make it shockingly offensive to a major religion and/or ethnic group
* Make a drive-by shooter simulation that's so realistic and fun that it inspires people to actually go out and kill people. Then they will blame their actions on your game, in court, thereby attracting major media attention to this latest event in the ongoing "videogames cause violence" war
* boobs

Message games

Games that have something to say. Something important (to the author).

Short, no goal compo

A learning game competition

Full of useless (but tasteful) information.

The Cockpit Compo

* Create a game played from the cockpit of some vehicle (it could be a plane, a spaceship, a boat, a submarine, a mech/walker, or any number of other things)
* The cockpit controls must not only respond to game interaction (such as if the player hits "turn left", the joystick might move), but must also BE interactive, adding to the gameplay. This means that there should be buttons, toggles, dials, gauges, needles and more. Extra points for including buttons for "eject," "fire suppression," or "windshield wipers."
* Multiple perspectives are still possible in a first-person view: maybe there could be side windows, or a "free-look" mode around the cockpit.
* Don't simply have the cockpit/dashboard be in the game, make it part of the game.

Reversed roles

You play as the evil empire which is out to stop the player(s) (who may also cheat with lives, resets, etc). This is difficult to pull off though as the player would need decent AI. Worked in Dungeon Keeper though.
For example, you may play as the horde of zombies attacking a cottage, or the Space empire which can barely stop a single spaceship, or the ghosts in Pacman, or whatever.

"Nailing Jelly To A Tree"

In almost every game you can change the world, save the world, or at least achieve some sort of positive outcome. In this compo, you are engaged in a futile exercise. Maybe you're taking on an immortal enemy. Maybe you're using sandbags to stem the tide of a rising flood. Maybe you're bailing water out of a leaky boat, and the leak keeps getting bigger. Maybe you're trying to save the life of a patient with multiple organ failure. Whatever you're trying to do, it won't work.
Tetris is an example of an exercise in futility. But simply producing a score-attack game with no ending will not fully express the theme of the compo. It would have to be Tetris where every block is a complex, 12-square puzzle piece, which doesn't fit together with the other ones.

The Early-90's Crappy Corporate Cash-In Games competition!

Everyone chooses a large corporation, and makes a game based on them. If said corporation has a mascot or logo that can be used as the main character, all well and good, but if not, why not just make one up? It worked for McDonald's in Global Gladiators (Read: Didn't work)! Genre is entirely up to you, but pretty much all early-90's corporate tie-ins were platformers, so why bother putting any thought into it?

Edutainment for something entirely ficticious

Can it blend? Game Competition

Taking a bunch of concepts from other games, and blending them together into a goo of originality.

Games that make you crumble as a human being

Creative Output Compo

Games that (when being played) output pieces of art:
Be it some image, an animation, a piece of music or anything else. (a short story)
Those things should (if it's possile) be output as external files. (image file, mp3, etc.)

A self-creating Gameworld

So the game has an (more or less) open world in which the player can (more or less) freely interact. The world should be expandable with content other players "created" automatically when playing the game.
That sounds weird and complicated but just check Spore:
The players universe can be populated with the creatures and constructions other players created during their own game.
These games wouldn't even need fancy network programming:
The developers could think of alternative ways like:
Exchanging certain codes or files or something like that.
This way the worlds should get even richer and more interesting.
Also: "indirect communication" between players is possible because you could tag the content with the creators name or something like that. I imagine that to be fun.

Infinite Games

Games that can be played indefinitely if the player is so inclined and skilled.

Games with graphics made from real objects (like plasticine, live human beings or real locations)

Games about a tragic-comic misunderstanding

Co-op games

Backwards

You have to put the princess back in the castle. Or take the bullets out of as many army soldiers as you can. Or travel forwards in time to solve puzzles, when time is normally going backwards.

PC-Speaker game competition, where games' only mode of output will be via the PC speaker

Ninjas, Pirates, Barbarians

Barbarians, Hobos

Mash-ups

Audio-only games

Voice controlled games

E-mail games

Games controlled via camera

Games where you play multiple games simultaneously

4D games

Location-based games (GPS or something)

Biographical Games

TIGSource Christmas Special

In December or so. It wouldn't have to be just Christmas games, it could be all holidays, its just that 'Christmas Special' implies that all entries must be super corny, eg saturday morning cartoons.

Tigs Compo Collab

So basically we all work on an Indie Wario Ware Ripoff.
But each tiny portion of gameplay is the compo-entry of a certain
participant (or team).
So we all create those little portions and in the end someone takes em and MASHES THEM ALL UP to a large ball of sex.

Revenge of the Idea Men

This competition begins with people posting threads about their awesome ideas and trying to recruit people to work on them. The idea can be as detailed as you like, but you cannot actually make any of it - no code, no sprites, no music, not even concept art. The idea man has to rely on his recruits to do all the work. For their part, the recruits are not able to influence the idea at all - they have to do exactly what the idea man says.
Of course, you aren't limited to fulfilling one role, and indeed most people will be working as idea men for their own game while coding/spriting/etc for one or more other games. It's a finely balanced reciprocal relationship. On the other hand, if you really are a guy without any skills but a brilliant idea, then this is your chance to get it made. But there'll probably be a huge crowd of ideas floating around, so you'll have to work hard to make yours stand out and attract workers.

<--->

Kept the original descritions where possible, didn't add two ideas or so (like ripoffs) that just seemed like jokes (more than usual).

[Melly]

Not much time today, but soon I'll start a new stickied thread with the full list (and unsticky this one). I'll also try to find a way to clean up the list a bit for duplicates.

[agj]

Good job, Melly. I hope a single post can hold them all.

[GregWS]

Yeah, great job!  Thanks for all the work you've put into this! 

[Gainsworthy]

Categorised as well?

Melly is a Badass fellow.

 

 

 

[Valter]

"Nailing Jelly To A Tree"

In almost every game you can change the world, save the world, or at least achieve some sort of positive outcome. In this compo, you are engaged in a futile exercise. Maybe you're taking on an immortal enemy. Maybe you're using sandbags to stem the tide of a rising flood. Maybe you're bailing water out of a leaky boat, and the leak keeps getting bigger. Maybe you're trying to save the life of a patient with multiple organ failure. Whatever you're trying to do, it won't work.
Tetris is an example of an exercise in futility. But simply producing a score-attack game with no ending will not fully express the theme of the compo. It would have to be Tetris where every block is a complex, 12-square puzzle piece, which doesn't fit together with the other ones.

This. Definitely, definitely, this. I like this idea more than any of the other suggestions given so far. A "Futile Games Compo"

[Melly]

Good job, Melly. I hope a single post can hold them all.

Can't. I'll use 2.

Categorised as well?

Melly is a Badass fellow.

 

 

 

I'm not sure I said that... o.o

I'll see what I can do, but no promises on that front.

[shig]

A compo about games with screwed up physics.

Either games where you can change the laws of physics to solve puzzles or a game where the laws of physics are completely different and the player will have to find out how stuff works and adpat to it in order to win the game.

[Melly]

Done. New thread up and stickied. Migrate all discussion there please.

Locking this thread.