Themes

AnnetteJohnNoelSteve

Ludology Hex based Games

We could develop 1 or all of the board games developed for Ludology project. The IP would already be owned and they have

all been play tested already.

Puzzle

We have 50 - 100 puzzles already created for ludology class. We could develop 2D / 3D representations of the puzzles and come

up with many new puzzles for online distribution.

Charts

Okay, took a look first at this month’s Facebook charts. Cityville, Farmville sitting pretty but what I thought interesting was the rise in two girls games. I dunno how many games are out there for girls but I’d imagine it’s relatively small in

comparison to the more male-focussed games.

So this month the two big girl games are Mall World and It Girl. It Girl has gained 1.2million new users on last month. It’s one of the biggest jumpers. Theme of the games are basically shopping/ running a clothes store. You

customise your store, earn money, shop, etc. It’s basically teen girl aspirational.

It’s kind of hard looking at the charts as they’re so changing and really there’s a big variety of themes there. I suppose the Theme of popular iPhone games such as Angry Birds would be revenge and Cut The Rope  would be caring

maybe!

So, unlike those Themes suggested say by Noel and John, I guess they play on Theme as a feeling or an emotion rather than necessarily a thing and then

build that theme within a thing. In other words the theme hatches the idea.

Its all about the girl

Very fast growing sector of Market

Competitions

Overall: Strong focus and simplicity

Monaco - Grand Prize, Excellence in Design    French Heist Movie, theft,

Limbo - Excellence in Visual Art, Technical Excellence (Also won IndieCade - Sound)

    Boy in limbo, loss, haunting, dark colors and broken objects

Closure - Excellence in Audio     light, blackness, specific playable areas,

Tuning - Nuovo Award    puzzle, increasing abstract levels,

Independent Games Festival

Independent Games Festival

Heroes of Newerth - Audience AwardDestroy opposing team’s base, Multi-player, upgrades in levels,

Max & The Magic Marker -  D2D Vision Award,     Kid and his magic marker, Drawing, puzzles, child market

Continuity - Student Showcase Winner  (Also won IndieCade - Gameplay Innovation)

tile slides, that character moves through, puzzle, simple

IndieCadeSpirit by Spaces - Aesthetic

    Wind, unpredictability,

Migakure - Amazing    Fourth Dimension, missions, movement, change of visiable

Retro/Grade - Audience Choice    Time reversal,  space battle,

The Cat and the Coup - Documentary Game    cat, history, CIA, Iran, life of a prime minister

VVVVVV - Fun/Compelling    gravity, separation, saving others

Sixteen Tons - Finalists Choice    money, social, debt bondage, forced labor, Physical Game

IndieCadeGroping in the Dark - Jury

    kidnapping, escape, typography,

Humans vs Zombies - Kids Choice    Physical Game, Tag, One Zombie makes more,

Faraway - Sublime Experience    space, visual

A Slow Year - Vanguard, Virtuoso    seasons, observation, awareness, meaningful interactivity,

B.U.T.T.O.N (Bruttally unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) - Wild Card

    stand back and race to push button,

The Games of Nonchalance - World/Story    San Francisco, exploration, interactive

Dare to be Digital

Mush -     Move phone, cute character,

Sculpty -     sculpting, shapes, environment

Grrr!  -    battle, fantasy characters,

Epoch Defence -     ghosts, alien invasion, rewind time,

Twang! -    hooks, race,

Puzzles / Quiz / Knowledge

Game Shows / Knowledge

We could develop a question and answer based game. General knowledge or specific subject could be tested. we could

implement a 3d game show like interface like weakest link or jeopardy.

Memory / Mathematical / Spacial

We could develop a memory based game. The user would be shown a sequence of items - colors sounds shapes etc and be

required to repeat. Simon Boppit style. We could also mix in mathematical problems and spacial awareness problems. This

type of game is becoming popular with the elderly.

Casino / gambling

We could model the basic games played in casinos, roulette, blackjack (all card games), slot machines. Big market for front

end to the basic games.

Tile based games

We could develop a 3d environment for playing tile based games. Examples would be mah jong, dominoes, go etc.

Narrative / Story / Adventure / Emotional Theme

Loss

Game dealing with losing someone and the emotions surrounding it.  For example a FPS where you’re character becomes more

difficult to control as you’re squad mates are killed.

7 Deadly Sins

Game where each level represents a different sin.  Lust, gluttony, greed, etc.  could all be themes for a level where the player has

to find the princess, eat the cake, steal all the money.

Like this, seven deadly sins idea

Mythology

Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese.  Either choose one or create a mono-myth type hero’s journey in which

the player touches on various different mythologies.

Fantasy

Mainstay of games industry/nerd love.  Literally thousands of existing worlds to draw inspiration from.  Create a game where your goal is to stop the hero(s) from reaching his/her objective

and keep your evil empire in charge of New Middle Earth.

Sci-Fi

Up there with fantasy in terms of being widely developed as a game setting.  Create a game based on exploration of the galaxy, fight of pirates and defend ancient artifacts while

learning about astronomical entities.

"Art" Games

Deal with an aspect of humanity that makes people question or reconsider their opinion of an issue.

Title implies that games made without the express intent to be art are not art but still a definite type of game.  

Horror

Amnesia shows what can be done by a small indie team to make a scary game.  Make something graphically achievable but

effective at translating fear and tension to the player.

Ageing

Make a game about growing old.  At the start the character could be weak but full of energy, then grows bigger and stronger but

starts to get old and frail by the end of it.

Interactive Narrative

We could develop an interactive narrative in a 2D fashion with user choice as to which paths are taken. We could develop models of the various scenes in the narrative and lead the user to different

endings.

Pervasive Game / Global / Map

Location based or using real world game objects.

We could develop a game based on the world globe or maps of particular countries. Different industries or activities based on

transporting people / goods around the maps and building settlements / factories or mines. Civilisation styled or planet

colonisation based.

Adventure

We could take a classic novel that is now public domain and create an adventure telling the story and presenting the user with the choices to complete the story. Eg Shakespeare Dickens The

bible.

Real World Activities

POLITICAL THEME

Make a game that acts as a simulation of real world politics.  Players could act like in sim city but with a focus towards getting

elected, getting your friends into positions of power etc.

Kind of like football management or Sims, where you start off as an independent candidate with little cash and have to hire a

campaign team, run a team, choose policies, etc. If successful you might get approached by a party and again bigger

campaigns, etc. Various issues thrown at you, scandals, choices such as taking bribes — which you may or may not get caught out for. — sorry just reading back over the doc and see John,

you’ve already suggested this idea. Great minds think alike, eh!

Shopping

Games based around shopping and the shopping activity. Grafton Street could be modelled and a user could roam around and see the different shops and items within the shops. We could sign up

shops that have a web front end and transfer to their secure purchase server. We could scale to the different shopping

centres - Stephens green, Jervis centre, Liffey valley etc. This could be linked to other games - grocery shopping leads to cooking and recipes, Hardware shopping leads to DIY tips.

Really like the idea here of grocery shopping leading to cooking. This may verge towards a cooking game, buy maybe some sort of challenge cooking something or coming up with a recipe for

the ingredients you have. I dunno. I’m just riffing.

Fashion, Clothes and accessories

We could model male and female fashion with human models. We could go 2D or 3D and dress the models. This could be a front

end for creating avatars and online visuals of presence. We could have rails of clothes and score people for matching

elements.

Maybe something here involving colour clashes to do with skin tone, etc. Like a style guide for what colours to wear and what

not to wear using 3D models

Cooking

We could model a kitchen, larder full of ingredients, and kitchen pots pans and utensils. The user could be given a recipe and need to collect the ingredients, prepare and cook them and present the final meal. Could be a learning tool for preparing

meals.

Yep, some one mentioned to me about a learning tool cookery game I think that may be used in Kevin Street for trainee chefs.

Basically you’re told to collect the meat from the van outside, put it in the right fridges and then chop it up in the game using the

right colour-coded chopping boards and knifes (ie — green coloured knife and board for chicken, red for meat, etc)

Art / Creation

We could develop a game that allows the user to be artistically creative. This could be follow along with the great masters ie paint the mona lisa. It could be 3d sculpture. Alternatively it

could be a massively large 3d creation environment like minecraft.

Home Building

We could create a home builder. Design your own kitchen from elements. Layout your bathroom or do a bit of home decorating. 3d model of the house could be created and then the user could

outfit and decorate the house.

Newsgames

Make a game that makes a point about a current news issue.  Global warming type simulator where you try to control

emmissions as some sort of Kyoto type world leader, see how animals die out or begin to thrive based on your decisions.

Serious Game

Try to find an issue or topic and use a game to teach people about it.  For example an FPS fire simulation where you can play as

either fireman or burning occupant to see how what you do affects your survival.

Stylized Game / Classic Rendering

Minigames

Simple classic arcade games in a new format - multiple levels 1 from PacMan 1 from Galaxians, 1 from Breakout - we could

extend this with simple arcade / platform implementations. We could also model simple sports eg bowling rowing etc.

Pixel/Retro

Popular art style among many indie games and developers.  Often includes constraints like 8-bit, low resolution, limited colour pallet

etc.  Make an old style platformer or top down shooter ie. Galaga, etc.

Voxel

Not very common, seen in a few games, likely to increase in popularity as a style among indies. Platformer with voxel

graphics, 2.5D look, destructible environment, power ups, etc.

“Nintendo Hard”

Make a game that’s proper old school hard, think Megaman, Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV.  Example could be a music/rhythm

game requiring precision timing, very unforgiving when mistakes are made.

Anime/Manga

Popular art style, used largely in JRPG’s.  Western take on the style.

Highly Stylized

ASCII

Drawing

Vector Art

Physical Dexterity

Music / Rhythmic

Rhythm/timing based game.  Move your character in time with the music and gain boosts in speed or jump height etc.

We could develop a dexterity and timing based game in the genre of Rockband etc. We could model the instruments and display

the music in a novel innovative way.

ALBUM MUSIC THEME

What about an album as a game. Like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon. Creating a world based on the songs and music and a game within it. Maybe the gamer plays along to progress so

it’s not just a performance game but has a performance element.

Physics based games

With the physics and particle system within unity we could devlop a complex interactive game. This could be based on cogs, ball,

light, fire or particles.

Cycling / Driving

We could model a variety of vehicles and terains for a driving game. We could model cars tanks, boats and place these in various environments - land, sand, water and snow and ice.

Again, just riffing here, but what about something regarding cycling and cycle lanes. I know a lot of cyclists have difficulty with motorists who don’t look when they’re turning and don’t

observe cycle lines. Or something linked to Dublin Bikes initiative ivolving 3D tours of interesting places for cyclists to go

through — for tourists. It could be linked into geo-cashing perhaps?

Simulation

We could develop a simulated envoirnment. This could be electronic circuits, Factories, A nuclear power station. An example of this would be the ALU developed in minecraft.

Olympics

We could develop sports based games based on the olympics. A stylish 2d game with a range of sports, 100m dash, swimming

etc. You could play as a particular country and progress through the games wearing the national sports strip.