Any game you make should come from you, or at least the base idea should. "Simple, repetitive, and very addictive" isn't much, and part of developing games is thinking about the topic yourself. If for the sake of experience in programming, then you can just copy slightly more complex games than Pong, but creativity in making a game is a skill that is as important as programming and it does you no good to use others' ideas.
For the time being, just make whatever you want to. Good games come from peoples' emotions and you have to have something you thought, at some point in time, would make an interesting game. Even if no one particularly likes it, you'll learn and it'll be more interesting than just using someone else's idea.
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I have to respectfully disagree about avoiding copying. There isn't really any shame in imitation, especially for someone just starting out in the business. Dali said "Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing". Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but still: coming up with original ideas isn't always worthwhile if it takes too much energy from actually putting those ideas to work.
These dream projects can sometimes be better developed after gaining experience from something less inspired (like you said as well), one just has to keep in mind that it can take a long time for that to be realistic. Even though there are a lot of wonderful options for smaller developers these days to gather interest and also funding for their projects.
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Direct copying is a problem; imitation isn't. My point is that at the moment he isn't attempting to succeed, he's trying to learn. Creativity is important, even in imitation, and it's better to test it now when he's a beginner than in the future, assuming he does pursue a path in development.
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Certainly, I don't wish to discourage anyone from trying (or pressure into it either). It's pretty much a given that people will and should try to experiment with creative new things when working with any project. Just that there are plenty of opportunities to learn however you choose to go at it, it doesn't matter how much of a unique snowflake any given idea is either initially or ultimately. You just made it sound a bit like, if you don't do what you want right off the bat, you're doomed to work as some dead-eyed code monkey on sports titles and rail shooters for the rest of your game dev life. :p Maybe it's just me, though.
About the mobile game idea: I don't know how popular my opinion is, but I'd like to see more RPGs and text/point 'n click adventures on mobiles (I know, maybe not the simplest choices). Check out Candy Box 1 and 2, though. Basically you amass endlessly generated candies while unlocking more content and minigames etc. along the way. Low-tech graphics, strangely compelling, quite humorous too (reminds me of Kingdom of Loathing).
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Hello all!
I am currently in the process of learning game design. I have a background in both web development/design as well as programming in Java, C++, and a little C#. I decided to start learning game programming as it was the main reason I even started programming. I decided to start by targeting mobile devices since their games are generally smaller and not as complicated as say a game released on Steam. I however have no ideas as to what I should make the game about. That's where you guys come in.
Since this is my first game, besides like gimmick projects like Pong, I would like it to be simple. How simplistic? Probably as simplistic as Flappy Bird was. No, I don't want to make a Flappy Bird clone. But I want a game around the same type where it is small, repetitive, and very addictive. Ofcourse after I get game development down I'll work on better games, but this is just for starting.
I'm not trying to become the number one game, but simply learn game development. If I do end up releasing this game, it will be for free. If you guys have any ideas as to what this game could be about, please post them below.
Thank you!
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