Almost daily, I am regaling Rebecca with some weird thought or idea that could be turned into a product or solve some perceived problem. Some of these ideas are useful for future applications to be created, but others are just too big for our little shop to tackle. Thats ok. Ideas are cheap for the most part. Just tell all your friends and family that you can create software products for their phone or pad, and then wait for all the great ideas they will feed to you. Everyone has some ideas that they would like to see come to fruition. Most of us just don't have the time or skills to bring those ideas to life. Again, that is ok. Creating ideas can be invigorating and can really keep a conversation alive, especially over a few beers. After some discussion, I decided that even if I do not have the time to create a product, I can certainly blog about the idea. Originally, I was worried about someone taking the idea and creating a product on their own. Now I am of the mind that if something was created off one of my ideas, it would be cool to see the product in the real world. If your never going to use the idea, might as well make it available to everyone. Who knows what could happen?
One of the ideas that has been banging around in my head for a while is a game using 'glyphs'. Each glyph would show a different symbol and represent a different power or ability. Add lines or symbols to the glyph to enhance or alter the power. Hopefully, by looking at the glyph you could quickly determine what the power is and how the glyph performs. In my mind, the glyphs are more Chinese or Japanese, but you could use Celtic or even make up your own language. The trick is to make the glyphs recognizable and fairly unique.
Once you have the glyphs designed, you can make all kinds of games using these symbols. One of these I could see is a game that makes you protect your 'mother ship' or 'king symbol' from destruction. The king gets it's own unique symbol and if you lose that piece, you lose the game. Simple enough right? Every round a new wave of enemies attacks the king's group to try and destroy it. Survive the round and get some bonuses or enhancements. After each round, you can buy more stuff for your group before moving on to the next level.
Now each glyph would be placed on a circle or shape that represents a drone-like device. The drone is pretty simple. It could hover in place, maybe attack other drones that get too close, or protect nearby drones using it's unique power. Maybe after each round, you can enhance the glyph drone or add another drone to the protecting group. Add in some colors for the competing abilities and to make the drones easier to recognize. The drones will circle or hover around and protect the king drone.
In my mind, this is a top-down looking game. Probably a 2D game that has the group moving through a map and getting attacked every so many minutes. Think of the old 'Spy Hunter' game to visualize the group moving across the the background scrolling map. You would move your drones around your kings group formation by just touching and 'picking up' the piece and moving it to another location. Once your finger gets to the new location, pick it up and the piece starts operating in the new area.
Anyway, you probably get the idea by now. It could be a fun game or it could be a bust. The neat thing about ideas are that they are always perfect until they are implemented. Once you implement the idea, it might not be all that you expected or better than your imagination. Who knows?
I do know one thing, ideas make great blog fodder when you are looking for a topic.
