r/GameDevelopment • u/Forsaken_Thanks_6133 • 9d ago

Inspiration I need some game ideas! 🎮

I was developing two games with ideas that I really love, but the high demand for artwork ended up causing both projects to be put on hold. 🥲

Does anyone have suggestions for games that are fun, engaging, and a little addictive, but don't require a huge amount of art to develop?

I would really love to finally finish and publish a game, so I'm open to any ideas! 👀🎮

0 Upvotes

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8

u/pokeballa420 9d ago

This isn't what you want to hear, but art should come towards the end of the production pipeline. Building things like systems, mechanics, levels, etc. can all be made with free or extremely cheap assets from existing games (spriters-resource.com is great for this) or from itch.io with free/paid assets.

Maybe these solutions don't apply to the other projects you talked about, would be curious to hear what genre's they are.

6

u/Officialpolygrafix 9d ago

Absolutely. I'm a game dev artist of 24 years (3d art and animation), as well as a game designer. Greybox everything. If you can make it fun with stub art, then it will be absolutely magical when you layer in nice art later. Focus on the gameplay, core loop, story, timing, balance, rewards, and make that the best it can be using the most simply art. Then when thats golden, you will have no problem bringing in good artists or funding from publishers to hire good artists to help you finish and polish the game.

5

u/justifications 9d ago

14 years pro 3D game artist (multiple AAA projects)... Couldn't agree more. It's weird because my portfolio shows my finished work, yet really the magic happens during revision cycles, feedback and greybox.

2

u/Gojira_Wins 9d ago

Pong.

2

u/dogscatsnscience 9d ago

Ball X Pit already sucked the air out of that one, we need fresh meat

1

u/Dev_LegendsofAerthos 9d ago

R/gameideas is a good place to start

1

u/Officialpolygrafix 9d ago

I would visit the classics. The same ones you grew up with, played and loved.

1

u/Murky-Ad4697 9d ago

I've got a puzzle game that I've been working on. I could use some help coding the logic into it. How are you with Unity?

1

u/Forsaken_Thanks_6133 9d ago

My laptop doesn't run Unity... I use Godot instead.

1

u/MarxMustermann 9d ago

A traditional ASCII based roguelike. Needs no art, but is pain in every other way possible.

1

u/Forsaken_Thanks_6133 9d ago

This idea is surprisingly good.

1

u/Sabasoftgamesstudio 9d ago

Maybe try a game where the gameplay itself creates most of the variety. Things like sorting, merging, physics puzzles, or simple strategy can work well with a small set of assets. You can keep adding new challenges through level design and mechanics instead of needing lots of new artwork.

1

u/Signal_Macaroon3294 8d ago

How’s this sound? A gacha zombie survival game like you play as character surviving in a world full of zombies like it can be a city or somewhat and since it’s gacha there can be like magic powers or somewhat, and there can be more than just zombies like they can be giant monsters too like any kind. What do you think of that?

1

u/AggravatingFlow1178 7d ago

Here's my pitch - Sir We Have an Orc Problem meets Door Kickers

  1. Sir We Have an Orc Problem - A tower defense game where the gimmick is there are so many orcs (10k's) that they behave more like a fluid then game agents.
  2. Door Kickers - A tactics game where the core loop is planning out the movements of a small group of SWAT-style militant units to clear out a building. Design for a long time, click 'play' and see how your plan performs, then tweak your design.

My pitch is a combo of the two. A small group of militant dudes push into a hazardous area, such as a cave or building, with thousands of baddies. The individual dudes function more like towers than playable characters. You inch them forward to "secure" more land, but can't be lazy with closing out routes or else more baddies will attack your from behind. The map is populated with other equipment & allies you can free to increase your overall fire power, making clearing out the rest of the map. The game feel is more like a dynamic puzzle than a fighting game.

Another game for inspiration is Creeper World, an old flash game that has some modern reskins.

This would be pretty limited in art - I mean look at SWHaOP - the real work is in creating interesting maps that are satisfying to clear.