Though I really like the process of creating games, I can't think of any interesting idea for a game to make. I made 2 very small games based on my own idea before, but they turns out pretty bad. The only game I made that my friends would even consider playing are tinkered clones of retro games.

I have been making games for about 10 years now as hobby but it wasn't in the last year that I really started to think about what makes a game fun. I always assumed that all it takes is a good idea for a game to be fun, but it turns execution of that idea is just as important.

I started reading this book and it has made me realize how much work goes into making a game fun. By duplicating other games, you can bring in a lot of the mechanics and balance of the existing game to make yours fun without even knowing it. When you create your own idea, you need to balance the game.

This involves taking a look at your ideas and evaluating what makes it fun, what ruins the experience, and what needs tweaking. Then you take that information and make changes to your game and evaluate it again. Your original ideas may not have been bad, they just needed some balancing.

Take a look at the core design values for league of legends, for example. In that article are a few of the many important things to think about when making a game fun. They have a focus on multiplayer, but many of it still applies to single player games too.

Seconding "limiting yourself" as a powerful creative technique.

Thirding and fourthing because I think it is just that important!

I'm a jazz fan and musician. The amount of mileage you can get from a few simple constraints -- a series of chords or a short melody -- is endless. It's going on a tangent within an accepted or acknowledged framework where GREAT ideas are born.

I'm a jazz fan and musician. The amount of mileage you can get from a few simple constraints -- a series of chords or a short melody -- is endless. It's going on a tangent within an accepted or acknowledged framework where GREAT ideas are born.

Once, Mile Davis said something like that : "Why bothering playing all those chords? You just have to play the good ones"

It's a little off-topic, but well, it's a nice quote ;D

Its kind of ironic that limitations can be so freeing, but its really obvious once you see it. Having limitations lets you know where the practical boundaries are in clear terms, and keeps the set of things you need to reason about small and nearby so that it can be considered quickly, allowing you to move forward. When the boundaries are vague or too distant, your considerations are too numerous and far-flung to be made quickly or decisively. You end up becoming paralyzed by the unbounded possibilities, and even when you are able to make a decision, you will often be haunted by questioning whether you made the right call, which will sometimes sing you the Siren's Song of re-doing things, negating the forward progress you might have made.