How to get inspired - how the big function

Everyone of you may know the big game dev companies like PopCap. Did you know, that they just don’t care what other devs are doing? They just don’t care about what is currently “trending” - instead, they follow their own ideas - that implies that they also don’t care if this idea was actually done before.

The last year there was really a lot of copycats. Newcomers think that they just jump on the train and do some easy money. That’s a wrong assumption. Why: Because it is so easy ~1 million of other newcomers do the same. So your app will never be recognized at all and you waste your time doing it. Flappy Bird Clones had shown this pretty well. Only some very very very very few devs were actually sucessful in copying a well known app.

Getting inspired is the way to go. Inspiration can be:

  1. A badly made app, which you can do much better. There are lots of this - sadly to say - just search the market you will easily spot badly made games which may be a good idea but they are just made so bad, that they scream to be made better

  2. Getting inspired by things you or people around you are actually using, needing or where they are unsatisfied with current products. You have to talk to people - just watch them, what they are doing. Ask them, what they like, make them an app. If they like it - many others will like it too!

  3. Get inspired by other things. Surf around paid assets. Look to them. Maybe you get an idea about what game could be made from those asset. This can be sprites, backgrounds, sounds … just let you inspire - and make a great game

… and I mean make a great game - not in terms of features but a game which actally feels like a real game, a game you would pay for to play it, a game which just looks good. If you make a game, which does not appeal you will not be very sucessful with it - play it - does it get you hooked? If it does (and I mean if it REALLY does) it may be true for other players as well - hand it to your friend, let them try, look if they keep playing, how they control it. If they put it right away telling you, that “it’s nice” - scrap it - it’s crap. I learned this the hard way, wasted a lot of time.

ad 1. I do NOT want to force you to copy anyone elses game. Play other games and look if you can really improve the idea of it - or make something which is based on that idea but aims for a completely different target group. i.e. Making a Zombie Game for kids in kindergarten, with lovely bees instead of zombies. I know a lot of people will just not understand what I want to say with this, they will just copy and that will just not work - sorry. Look at it like this. Every FPS out there is actually a “copy” of Doom. Why don’t we play still Doom? Right. Because other games deliver a better experience in some manner. And that is what you need to accomplish.

Not doing crappy clones looking like flushed down the toilet twice. Have an idea and make the best out of it - buy graphics if you cannot do it yourself; this nad other assets can be purchased for relatively cheap money and they do not only give you more idea about your next game, they also will help to make your game getting appeal.

I mean really … just browse tru the market … there are tons of crappy games …

And of course I did nearly all of the mistakes above by myself :slight_smile: But at least I tried to get the best out of it, even in my early days :smiley: So, stop reading around here, get your game done!!

You made few good points :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot :smiley: thats I need :cool:

From one side I agree that it’s good follow own ideas, but that can be very risky business if you don’t do proper market/user research. I agree that with copycatting you can’t get far so it’s better to find middle way…

It’s the same as with Facebook. It wasn’t the first social portal (there was MySpace), but they used same idea with different execution…