I came across a very good game called Light Bot. It is a game which is good for beginner programmers. I am about to create a game, but, I am lacking good ideas (like the Light Bot idea). How do you guys come up ideas for your games or software?
edit: I am probably going to use Allegro/C++
An XNA tutorial I've been going through for 2D gaming uses a simplified version of Scorched Earth to introduce a lot of concepts like Texture, turns, angles, drawing, tradeoffs, etc..
http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/series2d.php
There are a number of other tutorials (for XNA), that if you are brave, might give you some basic game ideas to translate into the particular environment you will use.
An alternative strategy though is to start with a game you love and try to make the next version of it. An awesome XNA game (incomplete) is a sequel to a Microprose game called Birth of the Federation. The author used it as an excuse to learn all the latest and greatest MS technologies. http://www.codeplex.com/Supremacy
Think of an interesting mechanic - particles, gravity, rotation, reflection, whatever.
Make it into something that a user can interact with - a toy.
Then add in some kind of goal and scoring system.
Easy!
:P
Same way you come up with ideas for anything. Steal shamelessly.
Here's a site: http://www.mygameideas.com/top_rated_ideas/of_all_time
Check http://www.mechanicalcat.net/tech/ld48/wiki/ThemeSuggestions for some interesting ideas from the 48 hour game programming contest.
I use weird ideas my kids come up with for game designs, for example when my eldest boy was little, we used to avoid stepping on crack / lines on the street. He then said to me, can you create me a game and we came up with Line Jumper a 2D top view jumper - not finished, but it gave me an idea! Try applying simple concepts to create original idea - they are usually the most fun and addictive games - check out indie games like peggle, water bugs, hammer heads, etc.
brainstorming and discussion and free-association and copy-catting are all useful, but then use techniques from the masters to refine the good ideas into great ideas
Evolution is the best way. Start getting your hands dirty by creating something to begin with. Try it out, see whether it's fun, think of ways of making it even more fun, then riff on those and iterate on that. Don't be afraid to throw out bad ideas or to contemplate crazy ones; just keep on hammering away. It's extremely unlikely that you'll design an amazing game up-front without doing any coding first---games need to be fun, and you just can't design fun without a bit of suck-and-see.