Hi!

I also agree, but the design of a new game it is necessary to "look to the future", because the good old game platforms ever coming to an end.

Good luck.

There are numerous books on this subject. May I suggest you peruse the following:

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design

Creativity is less like a sudden bolt of lightning and more like diligent, scheduled work. Put the time in and you'll get results.

I don't think the feedback will be this great.Thanks a lot guys. Those really are good advice.

Personally I don't find the creative spark to be something I need to work at - the hard work is taking an idea and turning it into something playable outside your head. ;) There are many great approaches to coming up with ideas. If I had to name one, I would point out that many innovative games are at their root an existing genre with some extra restriction or some extra freedom than the base genre. The player needs to problem solve in a new way, and *that's* exciting to me. And of course a great story and good polish help too. As far as themes, I like interesting mashups (e.g. retro sci-fi) or following an unusual situation to it's logical conclusion.

Personally I don't find the creative spark to be something I need to work at - the hard work is taking an idea and turning it into something playable outside your head. ;) There are many great approaches to coming up with ideas. If I had to name one, I would point out that many innovative games are at their root an existing genre with some extra restriction or some extra freedom than the base genre. The player needs to problem solve in a new way, and *that's* exciting to me. And of course a great story and good polish help too. As far as themes, I like interesting mashups (e.g. retro sci-fi) or following an unusual situation to it's logical conclusion.

thanks again.

I don't really agree with something I've heard repeated on here, that ideas are worthless... maybe bad ideas or mediocre ones, but really good ideas that can really improve your games chances of being successful, aren't all that common.

I don't really agree with something I've heard repeated on here, that ideas are worthless... maybe bad ideas or mediocre ones, but really good ideas that can really improve your games chances of being successful, aren't all that common.

An idea isn't worthless per se, but there are some caveats:

• Ideas are fast to produce compared to polished games. Therefore 99.99% of ideas never get made into games. The unused ideas... are close to worthless.
• Typically a bad idea with good execution will be more successful than a good idea with bad execution. Just look at the top game charts.
• The definition of an idea varies widely. A polished game design document is worth a thousand "wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas.

Hey, sorry if this is already mentioned, i'll read this fully later today or tomorrow but here are some tips.

1 I'd recommend looking at game development in a different way then what might normally be taken, identify the core elements of a genre, what makes it fun, consider why an rpg has levels, and if you really would benefit from this mechanic that is often a compulsion mechanism.

2 Unless you have a big studio and are triple A industry, don't make the game very large, you'll exchange quality for quantity and triple a will kick your ass.

sorry, low on time, be back soon.

I believe you should make games you enjoy, if you don't enjoy them then how else will another player like it? I believe every game developer should make games they would enjoy playing and want to play.

Yes, developers should make games that they enjoy, but we must be realistic and practical, too. We all have several genre of games that we like. Some genre are very niche and appeal to only a tiny fraction of the market, in some cases less than 1%.

Therefore I recommend choosing a genre of games that has a reasonable opportunity for good sales, but of course one that you enjoy. Later after a game dev company has several profitable games published, then there may be a reasonable risk to make a tiny niche type game, having profits of previous games as support.

I feel that you were basically touching on this issue of being practical.

I completelly and totally disagree :)

Niches is the way to go (and 1% of market is INSANELY huge :)). The thing is, are you AAA studio? Unlikely. Do you have sufficient marketing budget? Unlikely. Do you have resources to compete with the part of the market saturated by AAA games? Unlikely.

Actually, making non niche games is very risky, much more riskiy is making "popular games". Angry Birds, Minecraft and the like. These markets are already taken.

Besides, take a look at mobile market (typical casual non niche market), no one is able to earn any money there anymore, I'm keeping hearing about indie devs quitting that market over and over again. It's a suicide nowadys.