New Arcade Era

   I for one miss the old arcade days. You could walk into one with a pocket full of quarters and find new unique games to play and old favorites to come back to. Old school games were so unique because nothing was defined back then. There were no genres to default to (aside from many games being space shooters) and simple premises became world famous hits. I think mobile games are a resurgence of that. Players can browse the market with a few dollars on hand and find new small experiences to love and tell others about. There should be less focus on becoming the next Angry Birds and more attention on making a special game that could become a hit.

Status Report #2

   Learning a bunch about multiplatform IAP with Unity and brainstorming ideas for simple to make games that could be done within 3 weeks.

Random Brainstorms

   You never know where a good idea will come from. People sometimes ask game designers "How did you come up with this?" and the answer is always either unique or unknown. Game inspirations come from a combination of all past life experiences and are triggered by some new one. It could spring from playing a minigame and thinking about ways to expand it, or a theme that looks appealing, or even some memory of playing with toys all those years ago... An idea may even come about from boredom. I know I thought up a few on long car trips. Just leave yourself open and write down anything that comes to you ASAP. You are the only person on Earth with whatever idea you come up with and it's up to you as a developer to choose which of the thousands to bring to life.

Variety is Good for the Brain

   The value of experiencing  multiple game types is immense for game designers. To be able to know about games across all genres (and even undefined ones) and draw fun elements from them can really lead to great breakthroughs. Just imagine if Call of Duty never took on RPG elements for it's online deathmatches. I am always looking for new types of games, just to see what they do and where the fun comes from. You can look into a genre that bores you and see why other people like it so much and build on that, and maybe take it in another direction. Even bad games have a lot of game design lessons to teach if you're looking for it.