Three Hundred Game Mechanics
The "Three Hundred Mechanics" project by Sean Howard may not be the sweaty cross-country road race of sexual discovery I've always dreamed of taking*, but it's still quite eye-opening. Howard is attempting to come up with three hundred discrete game design ideas, each of which he writes up in a small dossier with a concept screenshot. He's only into the 60s so far, but has already shown amazing tenacity. He's going to be a walking encyclopedia of game design once he's done (if he isn't already).
Project Page [Squidi.net via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
* Sponsorship opportunities are still available. I'm looking at you, Valvoline.
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And most of them terrible...
Lots of them are pretty good, though. I know Squidi is infamous for his innovative concepts of intellectual propriety, but don't want to let that get in the way of appreciating these ideas, even if he imagines that he can "own" them as a result of committing them to pixel.
The whole armchair general of game design thing is depressing me, though. How many of us are not only too lazy to make games, but too lazy to bother telling anyone about the games we don't make?
In other words, can someone make a Gradius RPG with randomly generated levels and a Total War-style strategy map, plez? Chrs!
Lots of them are pretty good, though. I know Squidi is infamous for his innovative concepts of intellectual propriety, but don't want to let that get in the way of appreciating these ideas, even if he imagines that he can "own" them as a result of committing them to pixel.
The whole armchair general of game design thing is depressing me, though. How many of us are not only too lazy to make games, but too lazy to bother telling anyone about the games we don't make?
In other words, can someone make a Gradius RPG with randomly generated levels and a Total War-style strategy map, plez? Chrs!
I do find it ironic that Squidi has become an icon of overzealous, miserly, copyright swaggering, and BoingBoing is linking to him. Even more so than the Penny-Arcade fiasco (ridiculous) is his whining about the "theft" of his "Negative Space" game concept (pathetic).
That being said, the man has some interesting ideas, at least. I read his blog on occasion.
Amusingly, his "Sh'mup tactics" concept rather resembles the Japanese game R-Type tactics.