hey guys,

I've been tinkering the idea of creating a simple game for iOS. Unlike my usual game Project, this one is not driven by passion and conviction, but more as an exercise and to get things going: have a finished product as a portfolio piece and maybe earn a couple of bucks while I'm at it, as well as clearing out my friends and families' suggestions of how "I should do an iOS game"

I'd be using UDK and the idea is to make a simple game, something doable in the span of weeks to a 2-3 months tops.

so far in my mind I have a remake of the classical metal ball in a maze game: a concept with a simple enough implementation (no need for AI, very little art, etc),and to add some flair it'd be controlled like a board, tilting the phone to make the ball roll

however not being an iPhone owner I can't tell if there's 20 versions of such a game already. and since it's not even a powerful game premise, if it'd be appealing at all..

therefore I'm here to hear out any ideas you might have on the matter. it might be related to the ball-maze game concept, or an entirely different game concept as long as it's a simple one. the internet might seem like a good place to go search for ideas, but everything I've found is either too complex, too weird or too personal. I've searched wide and read my share, even tried a couple of 'game idea generators'. and now I'm here

as a side note, I have a random dungeon generator coded for my own game in the UDK, so a game that relies on random dungeons/mazes could be a very feasable one. be it the ball maze game, or something else.

How about a fat guy rolling around in a maze eating cakes and hamburgers. As he eats more stuff he gets fatter and fatter. The challenge is to avoid the doctors who wants to make him stop eating (collision) and avoid having him get stuck. The level is done when he gets a heart attack, which is measured by a meter on the side and increases as he eats more. You could call it "Gluttony", "Fatman" (like pacman) or "iChew". I don't think there is such a game out there. The story would be that a skinny guy gets dumped by his girlfriend and then fired from his work. Being depressed he wants to commit suicide and chooses to eat himself to death. Not sure if this game would pass the apple filters though...

Making fun out of fat people is old, boring and offensive. On the one hand it might cause some negative attention which would be free marketing, but on the other hand you would be branded as a immoral bad guy. Perhaps it would be better to replace the human with some roundish animal that likes to eat a lot.

Anyways, no matter what game you make, there will probably be at least 20 versions out there. It's like this with all products. Your task is to make it better, more price-worthy, more fun, prettier and in general more interesting then the rest!

a tilt version of pacman? that actually sounds brilliant!

the AI can be very simple (continuous pathfind towards the player) which would make things easy, and I can make the graphics and overall theme a casual and funny thing on itself (as opposed to a serious game).

not too fond of the 'fat guy' theme but a cute fat pig or something similar could be good.

thanks for your input :)

Id explore more multi-touch options that could have multiple players to use the same screen. Instead of sphere in a maze maybe players could guide a spinning top through a maze. The players need to tilt and gently touch the edges of the top, but not too much or it'll topple. It implements a timed aspect and players could earn different tops that are more effective for different aspects required to achieve each maze. The tapping elements could require two fingers to rotate and position and move small walls to guide the top along with the tilting. Cards could be earned/spent to keep a top spinning, wing cards could fly the top over walls and holes, hammer cards could break walls down but leave rough terrain (harder to navigate and slows down the top), etc. Let me know what you think.