Game Idea Generation

I’ll keep this quick.

I’ve found that coming up with a game idea that’s small in scope (but actually GOOD) can be a massive pain in the ass

… until very recently.

After finishing up Demon Knives I realised that the idea phase of game dev is absolutely KING. And that I should be spending 1000x longer just farming ideas.

(instead of jumping on the first one that sounds good)

So I’ve spent some time thinking of ways to generate a bunch of new game ideas and here’s the best method I’ve found so far…

1. Go to the steamdb search

2. Check the ‘Indie’ tag (I also chose to tick the ‘Survival’ tag to narrow it down a bit more)

3. Go through this list one by one, looking at the Steam pages to spark ideas

4. Bullet point out any ideas or inspiring concepts that jump out along the way

Here’s an example of what I came up with:

(feel free to steal any of these)

5. Keep going until some bangers strike

There were a few ideas that jumped out at me that I’d be keen to prototype:

Factorio, but farming - Centered around growing resources and researching new stuff. Basically just 1:1 Factorio but replace the resoruce depots with crops that you grow yourself.Factorio, but tower defense - You farm resources to automate turrets and defend your core. Going all in on this survival theme.Factorio, but sidescrolling - Terraria x Factorio, literally just take the content and translate it into a sidescroller.

… maybe you can tell I might be itching to make a Factorio-like next ;)

I picked these ideas based on what I'd enjoy working on. Not ones that have a small scope, that's a topic for another day.

That’s the proccess. As promised, I kept it quick.

Happy idea hunting lads!

-randy

p.s - this holds the title of my 2024 meme of the year