I have an ever-growing file with ideas for various games and applications. A few years ago it contained a few gems like Grabble (Grammar Scrabble) in which you place words instead of letters and have to form grammatically correct sentences, and DoodlePad which was a text editor much like Notepad, but with the possibility to add simple illustrations by drawing with the mouse. Sometimes these ideas result in an actual product, but most of the time they never get further than concept stage…or a few lines in the ideas.txt file.

For fun I decided to check what I wrote a year or two ago. These are different game concepts that may or may not result in actual games later:

• TV show production game. Create small game shows and try to get good network ratings.
• Ninja school. That’s all I wrote – I guess it pretty much says it all!
• Game continuity. A game where the player dies but continues with his offspring. Affecting the game world results in changes for the next incarnation too.
• SimCity + Viva Pinata. Prepare environment for citizens to join. E.g. a doctor requires sick people and wealth, and provides health. The player never has active control over the citizens.
• Woggle or Worggle. Word-Boggle. Same idea as Grabble, but make a simple Boggle game where you have to string up sentences from words.
• “Modern fantasy.” A fantasy world that was common fantasy ~1000 years ago but have evolved. How would elves, men and dwarves live in a more modern setting?
• Vampire adventure game. Oh, so many snarky Twilight parodies that could be included…
• “Closed system RPG.” Nothing is ever added to the game world: killing enemies doesn’t give experience points – it gives you the person’s life force. Money is never created, it only shifts hands. The same thing with weapons and armor. Includes autonomous heroes/villains that “level up” just like the player.

Fun fun fun! A few of these might actually end up in real projects, if I only get my game development up to speed. I wonder if I should have a look at the ideas from five years ago too, to see what else I was thinking of…