The Well of Ideas
There’s a concept I like to call experimental games. These games are the ones that aren’t meant to be published with the goal to become the next big hit, but rather they are a way to express the joy about making video games.
These ideas are sometimes really weird, but other times they are too great to be true. For a long time I’ve had my own list of experimental game ideas that I like to call the well of ideas. Inside this list I write down all of my game ideas that can appear at any time, no matter how weird they are. Every now and then, I take a look at that list and read all the ideas that I previously wrote down, some of them are bad as hell, some others are somewhat decent and a few of them are the ones I can’t wait to make them real.
But as I said, there are bad ideas in that list, that may have sound good the time I came up with them, but after reading it long after coming up with them, I know that I won’t be making those games because of obvious reasons. This is actually a fantastic thing, because I eliminate completely that feeling of remembering you had a great idea, but being unable to remember it, which feels bad, even though this idea is actually a bad one, but it could also be a great one.
Despite that, my head is a complete mess and reading my well of ideas is a hilarious experience because of all the weird things that are in there. I will make some honorable mentions so you can see some examples:
- A game where you play using four Wiimotes
- Here you are supposed to tape each one of them to your arms and legs and control a robot with them.
- An adventure game where you control a pig with a ball
Some time ago I saw this video
And then had the brilliant idea of trying to combine this with the monkey ball mechanics to make a Zelda-style game with a pig as a protagonist.
- A cassette-style Mega Drive cartridge
Back when I was tinkering with the Mega Drive, I had the weird idea of trying to make a custom cartridge that worked as a cassette tape, where each side could have different tracks but in this case, each side would be a different game.
As you can see, my head is a mess and my ideas are weird as nothing else in the world. But some of them one day might become real, like the one of Drawing Companions, that almost became a real thing but ended up being an abandoned project. And others would be left as a simple fun idea forever.
No matter what, creating my personal well of ideas, has been one of my favorite things to do. I never forget what I come up with and every now and then I have a really fun time reading it, so I think everyone should build their own well at some point.
As funny as it may sound, while writing this post I had to stop to add a new idea that I may or may not make in the future 😜.