Coming up with a game idea

Since deciding to give game development a go, I had to come up with an idea for my first game. Of course, any game enthuiast would love to create a game that emulates their favorite games. I'm a big fan of games such as Fallout 3, Call of Duty and others in the the racing genre. I'd love to make a game as full featured and polished as these - of course, I'm a realist and know that I don't have the skills or resources to pull this off.

Since this will be my first game, I need to keep it simple. I don't have any experience with 3D models and don't want to have the complication of trying to learn how to work in a 3D world on this first try. I've decided to keep my project 2D. I'll be doing all of the programming but I plan on getting help with graphics and sound from people in those industries that I know.

While trying to come up with ideas for a game, I wrote down ideas on index cards and came up with the following:

• Platformer featuring a dog and cat that work together to solve puzzles - for the kids
• Martial arts fighting game
• Ship's Surgeon - historical medical simulation - kind of morbid
• Motorcycle Team Manager

While all of these would make great games, I decided on the motorcycle team manager idea. This game will put the user in the role of team manager of a grand prix motorcycle team. They will be responsible for managing the teams finances, contracts, R&D and bike set-up during races. I chose this game idea for a few reasons. First, I'm a huge fan of MotoGP racing. Second, I always liked manger type games - I used to play F1 Manager on the PC back in the 90's and love the manager mode in games like EA's FIFA. I want to build a game that I want to play. Third, the game does not have the user actually controlling anything during an actual race so, I don't have to wory about physics, collisions, etc.

For my day job, I work mostly with data and this type of game is mostly manipulating the data behind the simulation. I don't expect this game to appeal to the casual gamer and understand that it will be a niche market for it. I do think that there are others out there like me though - people who are fans of MotoGP or motorcycle racing in general. If you've ever played one of the existing MotoGP racing games, you've probably noticed that these games can be hard to master - more so than car racing games. There are lots of motorcycle fans out there that might not be good at racing games but would want to play something that lets them control the behind the scenes running of a race team.

Well, that's how I came up with the idea for my game. Stay tuned for more info as I build it.