Hello,

First of all, I'm new to this forum. Hi everybody :)

So, I am 16 years old and my goal is to go to a Game Development school next year.

I admissed, but you aren't automatically in. You get chosen. To go to the interview day I need to finish an assigment. It's nothing hard. Just a 2D single player game. But they theme of the game has to be Jelly. And for some reason I just can't think of any fun and original game ideas. I thought to post a message on this forum while I'm brainstorming, and maybe some of you could help me out.

Thanks!

- Jesper Klippel

I'm not so sure I would necessarily call developing a 2D single player game "nothing hard", but anyways...

What experience do you have making games and just what sort of requirements does this school have for this project? What limitations are you working with?

The only thought for an idea that I have at this time is that you might want to aim for some sort of a puzzle game.

Think about jelly, and its characteristics. There are different kinds of jellies. Fruit jelly is made from fruit, so you could do a game about collecting fruit to make jelly. Or how does jelly act? There are sweet sticky jellies, and there are slippery jellies like the stuff they put on an ultrasound device to check out a baby developing in the womb. So you could do something with stickiness, gloppiness, and you could also do something with slipperiness. You have to get creative - that's what you're being tested on.

Alternatively, if you're using the British definition of "jelly" (erm... I think that the term in the United States would be "jell-o"), then perhaps something involving bouncing, or changing between a liquid, flowing state and a gelatinous, bouncy state.

Did you ever play A Boy And His Blob? That's what I think of when I think of a game about a jelly or slime creature. Jelly the food sounds more like a game involving conveyor belts and sorting grapes into vats and jelly into jars. I've made jelly in a farming time management game, and made wine in a strategy tycoon game. A resturant time management game where you make jam sandwiches is another idea. Or jam is like glue, in a humor game you might have to glue broken things back together with jam.

Gray goo but with an inverted perspective where the player is the goo. Very trendy.

What genres you personally like? Arcade/RPG/etc? To my experience doing a genre/theme you like boosts creativity and generally helps greatly (for example, if it was me I would make "Jelly kingdom simulator" since I love strategies :D)

Maybe something about cute "gel" monsters, like the kind you see in JRPGs as your first enemy encounters. Where do they come from? I kind of imagine a gel ranch somewhere, where gelboys (Jelly Ranchers?) are raising and breeding (by division!) gels for eventual sale to dungeon keepers.

Jelly can flow. (gravity then means side view with elevation....)

Think about some game mechanism where you push objects into the way of the jelly to guide its flow towards some target goal. Pushing things that push other things... Some shapes (Triangle) splits the flow - something you want to avoid or are already their you have to guide the flows back together....

Small cellular automation for the flow (you can have parameterized attributes that varies the 'jelly' flow between different scenarios. The manipulated objects 2D shapes (with mapped surfaces that interact with the flow)

Could be machinery (pretty looking brass pipes and fittings to feed an assembly line).

Some Random events which disrupt things youve already places which you have to go quickly fix...