Choosing your Game Idea

At the heart of a great game you need a great Game Idea. Without it, your game will have no guiding influence when it comes to choosing how to continue it.

The Game Idea is the concept at the heart of the game that defines what the game is trying to achieve and represent. This takes precedence before even the game mechanics and, in fact, the mechanics can take form because of the idea.

Games that fail to follow a clear central idea will often feel incomplete or disconnected. For example, games where the theme and the mechanics do not seem connected and the theme could easily be replaced with something else indicate that the mechanics and theme did not come from the same source (the game idea).

Not all games have clear ideas behind them, and some games might succeed even without this, but the advantages of a clear Game Idea are more than just making an integrated and enjoyable game. It also helps with every step of developing the game, guiding design decisions with the central question: “What game will embody this idea?”

A Game Idea doesn’t need to be thematic, abstract games can be well-integrated too, but a theme is one good way of having a unifying idea. Alternatively it could be based on trying to do something new mechanically. Perhaps you have a great idea for a competitive puzzle game that could be the new Chess or Go.

Some example game ideas, and their flaws:

• I want to make a great deck-building game! – That’s just a game mechanic. Also, it’s a mechanic that’s been done a lot. What’s new about this? How is your deck-building any different from (say) Dominion?
• I want to make a zombie game! – Aside from the fact that everyone ever has now done this, this doesn’t define the game! Are the players the zombies? Or survivors? Are the survivors trying to do a particular thing? Are they fleeing for their lives, or trying to salvage goods, or trying to make a new society?
• I want to make a social game where players need to form into teams which can change dynamically, in a post-apocalyptic world! – Getting better. It sets up the theme (not innovative, but not every part of an idea has to be innovative). It sets up the context for the main mechanics (socially driven, so backstabbing and deal-making) with the variation from normal social games of having dynamic teams. But it is lacking a driving purpose or victory condition. What are you trying to achieve, why would you change team?

As you might surmise from these examples, a good Game Idea needs a few specifics. It’s also likely to be quite a few distinct points that fit together. If you can fit the defining idea of a game into a sentence I would be surprised.

Here’s an example of one of my game ideas:

Arachnida
In this game each player controls a species of spider over the period of a year. Each species is defined by unique abilities. Players move their spiders around to compete over the food supply in a number of spaces with different terrain types. The winner will be determined by the spider species that spawns the most new spiders, ready for the next year of growth, by having the best food stockpile.

This sets up the theme (spiders!), the method of play (area control, maybe fighting over spaces?), some interesting traits (unique abilities and different terrain types) and the final goal and victory condition (gather the most food). Exactly how to achieve these things is, of course, the act of taking it from just an idea to a fully-fleshed out game!

You could argue that things like eg game length, number of players, etc are also important things to include in a game idea. I think this is a mistake. If you take an idea and try to force it to fit the mould of something that isn’t natural to it then you will break the integrity of the game. If you want a game with specific targets like 1 hour length, or 6-12 players, then keep coming up with new ideas until you think of one that will naturally fit that target. Keep your other ideas! Maybe you’ll come back to them another time.

One last thing about your Game Idea. You don’t have to start off with it fully defined. Maybe you do just start with a game mechanic because you think it’s fun. But somewhere along the line, you need to define the idea behind the game. Further, the Game Idea can adapt and change if it turns out the original idea is flawed or fundamentally bad in some way.

Game design philosophy