What an idea is (Read this before posting)

[Admin]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to give you all a bit of insight before you wrote a 10 page long post about what you think our game should be for this project. It may be bit of a buzz kill, but it is the reality of the situation.

We are not making the next Mass Effect or Heavy Rain. We are not making a WoW Killer. We are not making the next best online FPS since CoD4. Please acknowledge this now. Look at other flash based games on the internet. Good places to look are Kongregate, Newgrounds, etc. The vast majority of well made flash games are short, but robust and entertaining. This does not limit what we can do as far as genre. We can make a platformer with lots of levels. We can make a puzzle game with hours of brain teasing pleasure. We can make an RPG with believable characters and epic boss battles. I don't want you to think we are limiting ourselves, but do know that we are not a huge funded company.

Keep your ideas SIMPLE. Don't go on for paragraphs detailing every last aspect of the gameplay mechanics and story. Most games can be boiled down to VERY short descriptions, and everything is fleshed out as production progresses. Here is a quick example about what I'm talking about.

Harvest Moon:
The core idea: Your a young adult who inherits a run down farm
The core mechanics(There are generally between 4-7 of these):
- You can get plants, and grow them on your farm
- You can sell produce for money
- You can buy animals and take care of them, and sell their produce
- You can court girls, and start a family
- You can spend money and time gathering wood to upgrade and better your farm


Think about it, that's basically all you can do as a character in Harvest Moon. The developers make sure these things work well. Everything else is either: Level Design, Artwork, Story, and everything else put in the game to happen AROUND you as a character. I may have missed a point or two, who knows, I haven't played it in ages. This is just an example of what your posts here should look like.

After you state these points, feel free to make small statements about what you think the background or environments of the game may be like, just try not to make it too lengthy. Remember that your idea is subject to constructive criticism, and the final project may be an amalgamation of several of the ideas proposed here.

Can wait to see what you guys come up with. Cheers.

[DoctorRheet]

Since you're the man leading this little operation, I think we'd all like to know what kind of a game you have in mind. I respect that you're letting us help with more than just the technical parts of developing, but you're in charge. If we think your idea is bad, we'll tell you. I'm sure nobody wants to be the first to say "Well, here's the type of game I'd like to make," but someone has to for the sake of getting conversation going. So, admin, mitch, boss, sir, what type of game would you like to make?