Subject: Subject 101

What do you make a game about? Any thing you want is the answer. The problem is, has it been thought of before. You'll have to forgive me. I'm a little hungry right now and thus I'm going to make a food comparison. Here it is. A game topic is like the jelly in the donut . . . where does it fit in? It always seems to me that with the really good donuts you don't know where the filling entered the donut. I assume they put it in after they make the donut because cooking any of that filling might be disastrous. A game topic is much the same way. Where does it fit in? Do you enter the thought process in terms of genre or just pain interest. And any way you approach it, is there any room on the rack for more of those kinds of donuts . . . er . . . games.

Let's suppose that we look at the market in the broadest sense. There is Cyberpunk, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Comedy, and a few other miscellaneous categories. Each category has its stereotypical game to go along with it. Cyberpunk is either Cyberpunk or Shadowrun. Horror makes you think of Vampire. Fantasy is of course AD&D. Thinking of a game to fit into the categories will inevitably lead you down the same process of thought that created those games. And ultimately you'll throw your hands in the air and say, "It's already been done!" We have to approach our game topic in another way. We have to ignore what is already out there. It's a difficult task, and what we create will inevitably be compared to what's already on the market, but there is no need for you to compare to existing games before the game is made.

Another way to approach the topic is to simply think of topics. Don't limit yourself to topics you think would make a good horror game or awesome fantasy. Just brainstorm on topics in general. Like reading through the library listings, or flipping through the encyclopedia. I'll do a bit of brainstorming for you to show you how. In the next paragraph I am going to ask someone for a topic. From that I'm going to begin my brainstorming with random association to that topic.

Music, instruments, piano, beethoven, deaf, ear, van gogh, sunflowers, violets, purple, royalty, masque of the red death, time, symbols, signs, astrology, astronomy, stars, black holes, metaphysics, ghosts, supernatural, darkness, night, dusk, light, sun, desert, scorpions, spiders, webs, sticky, gum, cotton candy, carnival, clowns, make-up, cosmetics, octopus, squid, 20000 leagues, submarine, beatles, beetles, rhino, savanna, grass, green, lawn mower, john deere, tractor, country, music

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