Hi all I'm gonna say this bluntly. I need an idea for a game. I know how to program, I've researched all the relevant game development libraries (except networking, but that can come later) but I'm stuck on the inspiration. I don't want to do a fps, the market is flooded, I want something original and innovative that will be fun to code. Open to any and all suggestions. Thanks Tom ps The game will be open source, for all of you to enjoy :D

Whale Simulator
Kinda like Silent Hunter series, without the crew or torpedoes. And you dodge harpoons and ram ships.
You start off as some crappy whale, then progress up to blue whale which is good for long distance and kelp filtering, then you unlock killer whale, and you slap seals with your tail.

That's an awesome idea.

You know, I've always wanted to see a game based on "doodles". The main character would be somebody's little stick-figure character they just hastily sketched in their notebook or something. I'm thinking it would some kind of an action platformer, similar to Donkey Kong or Viewtiful Joe.

The plot opens up with the hero stick-figure type character just getting drawn in the "paper world". But the conflict starts when the student's notes written in the notebook (like math and English reference notes) don't approve of the presence of doodles on their pages, so they attempt to drive them away.

Some level design features would be having to jump over tears in paper or erasers. The levels could also be dynamic by having a pencil draw in new platforms occasionally or erase some. Enemies would be the "note doodles" which were just regular class notes, but they came together to form "note/doodle creatures".

A fun boss fight would be having to battle a large unflattering doodle of a teacher while the student takes breaks to add little details to her. The doodle characters would freeze at moments like this, so the student doesn't become aware of their activities (sort of like a Toy Story thing).

The basic gameplay is an acion platformer (like I said before). I think it would be kinda cool if the hero could acquire a pencil at some point and use it as a weapon/tool. He could erase enemies with it or draw holes beneath them. The idea is to make it as practical as possible in regards to interacting with the world.

This entire concept just sorta came to me as I read your post, so it hasn't been fleshed out that much. Let me know what you think, or if you wanna wait for something better... I didn't know if you wanted something more adult oriented or not, so I went with this since it has a more broad audience and you never really specified who your target market is.

I'm full of new ideas. Not all are very good. Here are a few:

Idea 1:
COD style mission based fps (first person SLASHER), set in a tolkeinesque world. fighting with medievil style weapons and magic instead of guns.
Invent a new system for first person sword fights. My idea here is that when you swing a weapon the collision system extrudes the blade of the weapon along an arc and then applies damage modeling to anything which is touched.
The mouse moves the weapon,e.g. to block, and when you hold down the mouse button you swing the weapon, e.g. to cut somebodies head off.

Idea 2:
You are a ghost, trying to avenge your murder. You play the game by taking over the bodies of people, and controlling them with the ultimate goal of assassinating your murderers. Similar to Hitman, with the AI looking out for unusual behavior, with the exception that you are moving the AI characters around instead of killing them and taking their clothes. Could be top down.

Idea 3 (I'm working on something like this ATM)
Your city has been taken over by zombies and you have to cure the plague. The game is in a sandbox city, and the game engine is similar to the GTA3 game engine. The difference is that the city is full of zombies, and other monsters. You have freedom of movement, but the missions follow a storyline. You can find weapons lying around and you can loot shops. Missions are to collect research material, or to take out a key enemy, or lace the river with the antidote to the man eating piranha's so you can cross in a boat and get to the next island, etc.

Idea 4:
RTS game where you can take over any of the units you have built.

I'll continue if you like.

Whats your level of expertise? What kind of game engine could you create? (not that i'm implying that you should create a complete game engine, but i'm sure you know what i mean)
You dont really want to aim to create a complete game, just build the engine and then get it working with a few levels and characters.

Idea 5: you are a spider and you need to eat other arthropods to survive. The game is entirely played out in a large house, and since your a spider you can walk on walls etc. Other spiders are there to make life harder for you. Lots of dark areas to explore, and enemies are spawned randomly. Don't get stood on.

Quote: Original post by Sulphix
You know, I've always wanted to see a game based on "doodles". The main character would be somebody's little stick-figure character they just hastily sketched in their notebook or something. I'm thinking it would some kind of an action platformer, similar to Donkey Kong or Viewtiful Joe.

SketchFighter, it's not a side-scroller as you described, but it has the doodle theme :)

Quote: Original post by pinacolada

Quote: Original post by Sulphix
You know, I've always wanted to see a game based on "doodles". The main character would be somebody's little stick-figure character they just hastily sketched in their notebook or something. I'm thinking it would some kind of an action platformer, similar to Donkey Kong or Viewtiful Joe.

SketchFighter, it's not a side-scroller as you described, but it has the doodle theme :)

Sonuva*****! But, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. From what it looks like, Sketchfighter uses the doodle idea as more of an art direction thing. For my concept, the entire gameplay is built on the idea of doodles. I hope that differentiates the two enough. If not, then that's a shame.

'Elements' RTS: The races are fire, ice, earth and lightning.

You basically blast the other teams with sweet elemental FX.

Quote: Original post by Sulphix
You know, I've always wanted to see a game based on "doodles". The main character would be somebody's little stick-figure character they just hastily sketched in their notebook or something. I'm thinking it would some kind of an action platformer, similar to Donkey Kong or Viewtiful Joe.

I had a similar idea a while back, but never quite took the time to build an engine for it. It was like a mix of doodle sketches and WPN Fire (without the insane difficulty)