...In which the author fishes around for a good idea, and finds a very strange way to give you all ideas...

The Concept of the Game

You very first thing has to be to have a basic idea. This should be what you sum your game up as to other people, so it's got to be short. 'populous mixed with tamagotchi' is such a short idea.

Certainly it shouldn't sum it up completely, but it ought to be enough to give everyone a handle on the game.

Now, sometimes you'll have further hinderance when making the initial idea. You may be told that you have a film licence to connect to, or perhaps a certain genre to conform to.

While such advice helps you churn out derogatory games, it can be a real hinderance when you want to make something unique. Which you ought to do.

So, for this 'example' let's bung in such a hinderance. The game is to be marketed as a sequel to 'syndicate wars' - but I don't wanna just make syndicate three.

Ideas

How, in the name of all that is full of holes, do you have an idea?

Sleep is good. You don't think well unless you are rested. Copious amounts of game playing, book reading and film watching all help - but not in the direct 'steal their ideas' way that some people imply.

Just go away, find somewhere nice to relax, and do something else. Then write down every crazy idea that enters your head.

Even if it's not germane to the discussion at hand - write it down. It'll be useful later. One tip I have is to just keep writing, and put the side idea in brackets or something, so that you can pull it out later.

So, let's trawl through my list of old ideas, and see if any of them fit the bill...

The insane idea list

[Insult a parked car taking pictures, when it drives off, tires are nailed] [Video marked 'play me'] [A single detail after a meeting] [Slow, total perception, crowd scene] [The alpha conspiracy] [Maybe it's a giant chess piece] [Pick me up] [Little girl with a red balloon] [It wasn't a golem, was it?] [Box of dynamite beneath a park bench, found by a tramp one morning] [It's cocaine, that's what it's made of] [Why fired?] [An opportunity for the beurocrats to talk] [Traffic lights fail] [Telephones stop working. Again] [Someone who isn't the police handing out parking fines] [News travels slowly in this town] [A fake state of the art bomb removal machine] [You go back to bed, we'll go save the world] [Given the choice, he chooses to keep it - no sermons] [Lions] [An uncomfortable silence] [Kill them all] [Tai Chi] [Blow up the airport] [Hello doctor, are any of your patients the psawn of satan?] [Twilight zone of taste] [Two cars, stopping in the road] [A tape of dying animals] [Mark + Frank] [Lightning god] [Bomb at the mobile phone tower] [Jade Puma] [A parade of learner motorcycles at 2am] [A JCB in a back garden] [A zebra crossing leading to a sheer wall] [A tape - which does not fit their machine] [Ilfracombe] [Proper british camping weather] [A stuffed dinner jacket suspended from helium balloons] [Dusk] [Assassination politics]

My Idea

I *like* the name 'the alpha conspiracy' but I'm not sure what it means yet. It conjures up the right image of a shadowy organisation, which is definately fitting to the 'syndicates' theme.

So, lets have you play a member of this organisation, whatever it is, and you go and carry out its missions (which can be very syndicate style - planting bombs, capturing people, that sort of thing) while at the same time trying to work out what the organisation IS.

I'm thinking third person fps style, but there are far too many fps games. And we don't want just another boring spy who walks around and shoots people. So I think I'll steal a leaf from those skateboarding games, and have you rewarded for 'coolness'

Special moves, combo moves, performing moves quickly - for points.

This is kinda cool. Let's have the short description then.

James bond meets Tony hawkes in a lara croft style game, set in the dark futuristic world of syndicates.

Spot the buzzwords?

Come on, what publisher WOULDN'T buy that description?

If they don't buy that, then tease them with the multiplayer possibilities - co-operative play, head to head deathmatch....

The next thing, is to write a 'first experience' - what the first half hour of play is likely to be, and what an 'average' hours play is likely to be.

After that, we write a spec.

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