This week I have spent fairly productively prototyping a simple Action Puzzle game playable in VR with Google Cardboard. This idea actually came from my Idea A Day project entry on 1/20. Here is an early screenshot I posted in the MSP GameDev Slack.

I just checked, and my entire game ideas journal (in google drive) is 49 pages of pretty densely packed text. The first few entries don’t have dates on ’em, but the first one that does have a date is from 2010-04-14. Since high school, I’ve always had a paper journal I keep on me almost always (in my backpack). I fill one up much less frequently than I used to, now that most everything is digital. Anyway, it’s worth noting that a full 20 pages of my journal are entries since starting this project. Here are summaries from this week:

2/11 – Deckbuilding meets autorunner. Essentially I was thinking more about the idea from 1/29 and also about generative dungeons and had the idea to combine them. So you would have a deck of dungeon crawling “areas”, and a character that does the crawling. The character would move forward one dungeon segment every turn, no matter what you play, so if there is an enemy there, but you haven’t played the right equipment for him, that might be the end of your run.

2/12 – Thinking about goals in puzzle games, came up with a Tetris variant where you have pre-filled spaces on the board and you have to surround them. In retrospect, this is kind of like a “garbage clear” mode, but where the goal is to surround all the garbage instead of clearing it.

2/13 – Another action puzzle game idea, this one like bubble bobble, but you can only shoot upward into one lane at a time. Either turn-based, where you shoot and move on to the next lane immediately, or on a timer, where you can shoot into one lane at a time, but move to the next lane after a set amount of time.

2/14 – I’ve found there are definitely days where I think of a phrase or a game title, and then that becomes the brainstorm. I start exploring what it would look like. Sometimes, it’s just dumb, like this day’s phrase: “Hungry, hungry tetrominos”. I sort of sketched out a bunch of mechanics. About the only interesting thing that came from it was the idea of doing a square grid puzzle game, but rotated 45 degrees. That has potential.

2/15 – Obviously a lot of my ideas come from mashing up existing games and mechanics. For 2/15, I basically just started by listing out match-3 mechanics, trying to find a combination that hadn’t been done in some way before. (That I know about.) I ended up with a (quite short) list of powerups in match-3 games, (so actually two lists now that I think about it, but one was in bullet points, the other in a rambling paragraph), but not really anything original or useful.

2/16 – I hesitate to link this here, since I may not keep this up forever, but here’s that prototype I mentioned in last week’s post, one I’m calling Line Combine. To play it, you basically just click the arrows and that shoots a line into the game board. It’s definitely too easy (and random), as I have played it to about 200 or so points, with no sign of needing to stop. I’ll probably update that link if I work on it again. One thing that would be fairly easy would be to introduce more colors at some point, which would of course make it harder.

Anyway on 2/16 I had two entries: One was about ShipDeck mechanical changes needed to remove ammo and fuel cubes. (Don’t think I’ve mentioned ShipDeck on here before, but it’s a ship building deckbuilder that I’ve been working on for over two years now.) The second was how to use some of line combine’s mechanics in an isometric two-player platformer/battler game.

2/17 – A text adventure (with text parsing, like Zork) where you move around in (and explore) a world that is basically just colors and shapes. You have to figure out what’s going on (there is an abstract strategy game being played), then figure out what the rules of the game are (it shouldn’t be one that is already known), and then figure out how to play against an AI to “win” the game.

2/18 – I am so excited about this idea that I’m dying to begin prototyping. But I’m committing to getting the VR prototype playable before I start another one. Essentially, it’s an astronaut themed six degrees of freedom game, but played on a grid. So the grid spaces are subdivisions of a cube, and you can rotate the cube at any time to change the plane on which you are moving. I imagine the gameplay to be a mashup of Sokoban and Threes!, and I have quite a few specifics, but I think I want to keep them under wraps for now.

Much of this week I felt pretty uninspired, and most of my ideas felt bland and pretty lame while I was brainstorming. (I forced myself to push through, but that won’t stop me from being apologetic about it.) Anyway, on 2/7 I spent at least ten or twenty minutes thinking about games to enhance or encourage creativity before realizing I was basically just re-creating improv games. Talking about improv games is probably worth a whole post, and I’m sure resources exist that describe and catalog them in detail, but the ones I played — while participating in Comedy Sportz in high school — were all “designed” very specifically to teach/reward creativity. I definitely believe that creativity can be enhanced with practice, hence this project.

2/5 – At some point I bought a giant tub of 1,000 square 1mm cubes in 10 different colors. They are great for paper prototyping. I spent some time on 2/5 playing with the cubes with my 5-year old daughter (mostly counting them). After she lost interest, I sketched out a quick game where you draw a number of them from a bag and play them onto a gameboard. In retrospect, it occurs to me this idea has a lot in common with my Action Go as board game idea from 1/1 and 1/2, but without tetrominos, and adding a couple of interesting mechanics. I will have to do some thinking about these together with an eye toward possibly integrating those new mechanics with the original idea.

2/6 – I finally got my prototype of the game I started on 2/3 working. The project’s preliminary name is LineCombine. I was happy with how quickly this came together, but I’m still not as competent in Unity as I am in Xcode. You can see a screenshot of the game at this point. Anyway, as happy as I was to have it playable, I realized quickly that it was way too easy. And not really all that fun as a result. My brainstorm for the day was about ways to improve this. Now it’s the age-old question of how much more effort should I put into a prototype that is not yet(?) all that fun.

2/7 – An idea for a go variant played with only blocks of stone groups that already have two eyes.

2/8 – Card Battler game where each card is an upgradeable tank, and deploys to a battle zone each round.

Also: A musical puzzle game where each whole note is a “class” of unit, and there is some kind of paper-rock-scissors thing happening, like how water beats fire, and earth beats water, etc, only all 7 notes on a circle defeat one another, the next higher note defeating the one below it (so a C beats a B, etc.). Maybe this basically just turns into a musical identification game.

2/9 – A physical board game idea with big chunky components that need to be placed on pegs. You take turns placing pegs or game pieces. Many of the pieces need two pegs (in various different positions relative to one another), and I guess the big twist is that the board consists of a right angle, so pegs can be placed horizontally or vertically. This one will probably be hard to balance/tune without a physical prototype.

Second idea on the 9th was a platforming game where you play as the spikes. Maybe the player jumps automagically, and you have to move to catch him/it on its way down, or maybe you are a jumping spike, trying to impale moving people running out of your way.

2/10 – Spent some time thinking about a board game recommendation engine, specifically implemented in VR.

I also came up with some ideas for 3D visualizations in VR. Not really games, any of them. I’m hoping the upcoming VR revolution will include a “demoscene“. I think we saw some of that when the DK1 first came out, but I didn’t have one at that time, (yes, I’m kicking myself for not backing the kickstarter), so I was only aware of it peripherally. Once the hardware is commercially available, I’m hoping that kind of thing is available for download.

Hard to believe we’re already 5 weeks into the year. For ease of finding these later, I added a category called Every Day to the blog and went back and re-categorized the old posts, so you can find them all in one place.

Last weekend was the Global Game Jam, and I’m surprised I haven’t written about the experience yet, but here’s the game I made with some friends over the weekend: Life is Hard.

1/29 – two ideas:
The idea was to come up with a “pool” building game (like a “deckbuilder” or “bag builder”) where the thing you are building would not normally be possible in a physical game. (Making it a digital-only affair.) The first thing that came to mind was to have the board be the thing you are building. I imagine it where you play a gameboard (or more than one) from your “hand”, then move your pawn on them to collect resources or victory points or something. Got into a few specifics, but it’s not probably an idea ready to think about building just yet. (Incidentally, I did propose something like this to my GGJ team, and it wasn’t as popular as the minigame idea that August came up with.)

The second entry on 1/29 was while I was writing up the previous week’s entries, and specifically the entry from 1/22. I did some more thinking about the opposite of Carcassonne, and how it could work to have tiles with goals or objectives on them (maybe in player colors), and also little wooden “walls” that you then place on the tile you play.

1/30 – Didn’t spend much time on this (since I was busy jamming), but I wrote up the only real idea I’d had for the GGJ theme of “Ritual”. Basically a game about the ritual of drug use, possibly a treatise on addiction.

1/31 – A combination of match-3 and “programming game” genres. Essentially you have a grid of gems (or whatever), and “program” some movement, then choose which tiles will make that movement. The more matches (sets of 3 or more) you can make with the same program, the higher your score for those matches.

2/1 – Another day with two entries this week, but both were pretty minimal entries (and likely influenced by my playing Realm Grinder in the background while I was working). Both also ended in “etc…”.

First was A collapse! variant with idle elements. Essentially you can upgrade the grid to make it grow, upgrade the number of colors, etc..

Second was another idle game idea where you start off as a barista just selling coffee, and end up owning everything on the planet earth, launching into space, populating other planets in the solar system, fighting intergalactic space aliens, etc..

2/2 – I had the idea to make a board game played on a computer keyboard. The game I ended up flushing out a bit was an abstract strategy game.

2/3 – Sometime last week I spent about an hour playing the new iOS game Open Bar!, which I would highly recommend. This Wednesday brainstorm I was thinking about its similarities (and differences) to Strata, a game made by my friends over at Graveck.

Similarities:
– lines must take up the whole width or height of the grid
– irregular grid shapes
– puzzles must be worked out backwards
– order is important
– both games have a fabulous aesthetic on top of a very simple puzzle
Differences:
– lines are put on the grid all at once, versus one square at a time
– simplicity of strata is only one row or column
– Open Bar is more about sliding hole puzzle, and/or placing one tile at a time

Then I came up with my own game idea that uses some similar mechanics. I then spent the rest of the day (and yesterday) prototyping it. I’ll post more about it if/when it gets farther along.

2/4 – I woke up from a dream where giant dice were chasing me. It was clear they were rolling, and when they touched me, the number facing me was how much damage I was taking. First dream that I can recall where I was actually inside a video game. The aesthetic was pretty similar to the cover of the Escape board game.

1/22 – I tried imagining a tile-laying game that is the opposite of Carcassonne, where the tiles contain both the people and the castle parts. I decided it should have a “barrel of monkeys” theme, and the castle walls are the walls of the barrels. Nothing more than a concept so far. I do think there is potential here, but like a lot of these “just ideas” I’d need to spend some time developing before I can even know whether it’s worth pursuing.

1/23 – A board game with “startup” theme. This brainstorm started out as working on the (SIX D SIX) dice game from 1/16 & 1/17, and when I thought of the theme, it all morphed and changed. The actions are super specific to the theme now, and I’m really happy where this is going. I haven’t built a prototype yet, but I think it’s to that point. I definitely want to playtest it soon. (I also ran this by, and got some ideas from my friend Nate.)

1/24 – Very short brainstorm while thinking about games based on dramatic films. I’m sure I’m not the first to think about these, but came up with the following (academy award winning mashups): Forest Gump endless runner, Lego Birdman, Need for Speed: Ben Hur, & GTA: West Side Story.

1/25 – Spent time this day adding to the design from 1/23. Then later I was thinking about (yet another) puzzle mode for Action Go, which I decided to start prototyping. At this point, I’m tempted to turn it into a stand-alone app and push it to the top of the pile of game ideas. I am working on a prototype already.

1/26 – Did a little googling, and couldn’t find a game where you actually play as Cthulhu. I imagine this as a god game, but one where you have specific mission objectives to drive individuals mad (by sending your horrific minions after them, of course). It would be really cool to tell the history of why or how you got to planet earth, maybe as flashbacks, and really get to the motivations behind the Erdrich horror. I love imagining that you have just been in the alien equivalent of cryo sleep until the planet is “ripe enough” for consumption.

1/26 – Separate bonus journal entry about “reactive architecture” game. Specifically a VR game where you are inside some kind of living building. This may have also been influenced by my reading/consuming (in less than 24 hours!) the absolutely fantastic science fiction novel Planetfall, by Emma Newman. If you read it, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

1/27 – Random ideas related to a “modular” abstract strategy game. This is not so terribly different from an idea I’ve been throwing around for at least a couple years, related to an app that would let you play various abstract strategy games on a bunch of different board types/sizes. Only this idea was for a physical game and/or set of rules. Probably influenced by my picking up (and playing my first game of) the modular board game 504, by designer Friedemann Friese.

1/28 – Mini game design for a game called Harpie Hangover. The name came first, and says it all. You essentially play as the Harpie, flying around and buying “potions” from townspeople and other goblins and fairy folk.

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post all week, and even spent some of the time while I was brainstorming composing the summaries that I would include here. (None of which were written down, and all of which have completely fled my brain, so maybe when that happens in the future I’ll actually take some notes.) But I guess my point was that posting these publicly is definitely having an influence on my continuing the project. A project that has, thus far, been 100% successful! 22 days into the project, I’ve got a few more than 22 entries.

Here are this week’s summaries:

1/15 – A top-down roguelike, but crossed with the various Dig Dug inspired games where you have to dig your way through the level. With crafting. So a bit like a 2D minecraft (á la Terraria or The Blockheads), but top-down instead of from the side. And you can dig/climb up or down at any time. (Unless, maybe, you’re being attacked.) I actually have some ideas about the theme/story for this too, inspired, mainly, by Ursula Vernon’s awesome book Digger.

1/16 – A new game for my dice-based game system SIX D SIX. This game is a two-player abstract with no luck or hidden information. You take turns adding dice to a gameboard. The dice you add must show a 1. You then also increment another die already placed. There are a couple of possible win conditions. I think it could also work with a score pad and counting points. (Will need to playtest to work out a bunch of the details.)

1/17 – Continuing some of my thoughts from the day before, I started designing two game ideas that essentially “hide” the components necessary to play SIX D SIX games (72 die, 6 of 6 different colors, and 32 black) in a euro-style big box game. The first idea involved moving die around a map, and the second (more promising) involves using the dice as sort of workers on an individual player board that represents a tech tree. You take actions with meeples, but of course all the actions are influenced by your player board. I really like this idea, and it’s been percolating.

1/18 – Idea for an unfolding game where you start out combining nuts and bolts and eventually realize you are working in a bomb/munitions factory. Inspired by the short film Uncanny Valley, which is well worth your 8 minutes. This could be combined with my idea from 1/9.

1/19 – Earlier in the week, I spent some time hanging out with Sean Berry, the creator of Algebra Touch. I showed that app to my 5 year old daughter, and my brainstorm time for the day was spent outlining modifications to that app that would alter it to be focused on basic math rather than algebra, and target a much younger audience.

1/20 – Thought about bringing some block-breaking games to VR. Three pretty good ideas here, I think. First was a collapse variant where you are trapped inside a house made of blocks, and break them (collapse style) to get out. Another idea involved a table where bricks appear, and you have to move them to a play area and match-3 with them. And finally, a crazy room full of piles of old looking junk, where there are three of a kind of every item. You can only move the top item on each pile, and once you get three of them touching, those items disappear. You are cleaning a hoarder’s house in VR, essentially.

1/21 – A board game (although I could also imagine it as an app) where you are plotting the shortest route to pick up kids via school bus. I actually think this has a lot of promise, and already did some sketching in a notebook for how the board should be laid out. Play is like Set or Ricochet Robots, where there are no turns, and every player stares at the board until they think they’ve found the best solution.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this week’s entries. Only 1/18 felt underwhelming when I re-read it, and I think it’s the first entry to really feel a bit like a cop-out on re-reading.

Last week I said I wanted to spend less time on these, and I mostly achieved that goal. I think most of the entries for this week were under 15 minute affairs, and several were probably more like 5 minutes. Here are some summaries:

1/8 – Another game imagined for the LED system I’d thought a lot about on 1/4. This is a two-player abstract, inspired by speed chess.

Brief aside: At some point last week, I was with my daughter at another kid’s place, and one of the children present was playing Cow Evolution, which I had never heard of before that moment. I think maybe I’ve played games with similar mechanics, but the developer has a bunch of these games in the store, and I spent a few hours researching them this last week. It was particularly fun to compare them to one another in terms of features and presentation. (They are mechanics-wise very similar, if not identical.)

While playing (at least in part because there is not much thought necessary), I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the game design behind these “evolution” games (they are more accurately about combining things), and where they fit into the game design family tree. They are certainly related to idle games, and unfolding games of course, but it’s also interesting to compare them to Threes!, 1024, and 2048. This line of thinking clearly influenced the next couple of journal entries.

1/9 – A Threes! inspired game played on conveyor belts. (As of right now, I think this was my most promising design idea for the week, and I’d love to spend some time prototyping it.)

1/10 – An idea for a game based loosely on these evolution games, but in reverse, where you begin with a human egg and divide cells until you have an embryo, or maybe even a complete human.

1/11 – Quick plot sketch for an open-world game set in the pre-historic era where you get to ride wooly mammoths and fight aliens.

1/12 – Thought up a 52-card deck solitaire variant that is surely not original, but might be fun. I haven’t tried it out yet.

1/13 – I read through a C++ tutorial on creating a grid like the one behind geometry wars. Then came up with this idea for a game set on such a grid, where you have to deform the grid using first your fingers, then (on subsequently more difficult levels) by placing objects on the grid that influence it in various ways.

1/14 – A roguelike idea where every space in the dungeon has potential to branch out into a new level.

Anyway, there were some gems in there. (And writing this inspired a new entry for today!)