have you thought about eleminating one of less obvious elements? many immediatly eliminate either ponies or accountains. have you thought about eleminating explosions? or crystals? here is what im doing to brainstorm list all the combinations (id be embarassing if i missed one >_<) then link them together with one sentance in several ways ---of course you could try to implement all 4 if you choose--- ponies, crystals, explosions -crystaline ponies that explode -explosions made from crystals endanger ponies -ponies eat crystals to stop explosions -explosions neccessary to stop crystaline ponies crystals, explosions, accountaints -accountaints calculate amount of crystals with which to purchase explosions(bombs) -exploding accountaints need crystals -increased explosions force accountains to analyse crystal supply -crystals explode in reaction to accounting error explosions, accountaints, ponies -ponies ridden by small accountaints explode -explosion at pony championships causes acccountaints to save company's stock -accountains calculate pony inventory after explosion - supply and demand accountaints, ponies, crystals -accountaints buy ponies using crystal currency -accountaints trade ponies for crystals -crystaline ponies on which accountaints ride -ponies eat crystals - one of them is an accountaint (in a pony-sonified world) who are we kidding accountaints are obviously the weakest element here i mean sure you can make an economics game, but its difficult to do that with the other two elements - crystals - thats like fullfilling the europe element by chaning to arbitrary currency symbol from gp to the euro ponies? at least it is an item that can actually be traded. explosions? what does any accountaint have to do with explosions? im an accountaint, look iran stole some money, i say we bomb them!!!, because i have that kind of authority. itd also be easy to make a game about an accountaint who does not actually perform any accounting duties thats like making an FPS about a specific ethnic group of a certain sex fighting hordes of aliens. you say its about asian girls fighting aliens, but it could just as easily be black dudes, or white hermaphrodites. not saying its a bad element just saying that it will be (in my humble opinion) the most difficult to develop for - unless you worm your way out of actually using the element. this means that the amount of completed entrys containing accountains will be lowest, but it could also meant that those entries could be the most promising gl to all

nice way to come up with a concept. thanks!

Actually, I'm one of those rare people who is seriously considering choosing "Explosions" as the element I downplay, mainly because out of the four I find it the least interesting of the bunch.

Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Actually, I'm one of those rare people who is seriously considering choosing "Explosions" as the element I downplay, mainly because out of the four I find it the least interesting of the bunch.

Plus, if you aren't really interested in graphical effects, like me, they are likely to suck. Crappy explosions are bad enough normally but as a key game element they should be decent. If I end up using my RTS engine it has explosions already though (thanks to Sirob's particle system)... but if I go with Flex I might go another route entirely.

I've already threw out explosions. It just doesn't fit my game.