Ah yes, I knew the time would have to come where I could no longer hold the doors of my tireless mind closed, and let a flood of free thought and philosophy spread throughout the already furtile community. Longer longer could I help myself and leave myself plunge into a motivation crisis alone and cold, even though my mind is more ready to create something of sigificance than ever and i've managed to have a game up there in shiny colours for the first time in several months.

Enough tangent stuff however, i'm here simply to lend my brain to you all, and give you a small but what could be important one for those who feel it's important to have ideas in games.
Of course i'm essentially here to discuss approaches to ideas for games, but i'd like it to be more than just another one of those articles, even though I know I shall cop critisism for some of the patronising, and repetative things I may say...but I wish to get a point across ladies and gentlemen...mainly the latter...if I can call you lot gentle

Ooops another tangent I'll try to stay on track here!

Now basically, i'm sure many of you people have heard something similiar to this time after time, but the most original and exciting ideas that you will ever come across come from your own life and the things you may, or may have not done.

I suppose i'll try to explain with a rather embarressing anecdote and a look into my strange twisted childhood, if I may.
One of the best, imo, and original...if not too far out...was one i discussed on the "Wierdest game ideas" thread of the Misc Forum...
http://www.create-games.com/forum_post.asp?id=21160

There ya go...basically it was an extension of what I use to do as a young boy in my garden...basically going around killing weeds and dead flowers off the ground with sticks...very strange to see, but the thought patterns behind it kinda made more sense...
Basically an alternative world, reality, existance if you will, where I was in an imaginary world where these inanimate objects were actually monsters and tried to attack me, and killing them would give me experience and what not...just like an RPG...
From that, and after many many years of neglection, but contemplation of a conversion of my thoughts into a digital medium, the ideas came to me...

However, the point i'll bring up here is you need a time for thinking.
For me, it would naturally while doing my mundane and non-neuro stimulating job, where I have all of the time and privacy in the world to think, and because i'm in the outdoors, just like in my youth, my thoughts can flourish and a piece of my youth comes back to me...mixed up among my knowledge and know how of Click, you can almost work out how to do events and formulaes while digging holes, as I do.

And that's my story really...I found an idea by revisiting my past and working on a conversion.

Now it's you turn!

I'm not saying go out and steal Muggus's award winning idea, or make fun of his stupid childhood...i'm saying look back, look forward, look around you...

Think about your life as a whole, think of the little things you enjoy, the games you played away from the electronic world, where all the processor power you needed was in your head!

Think about how much fun it would be to make a game out of the time you and your mates had a water fight with water guns and water baloons...think about making your own soapbox racer or billy kart and racing them down the steepest hill in you neighbourhood and badly hurting yourself...think about the bugs you use to catch, or the figurines you use to play with, or the matchbox cars you use to race!

There's a gold mine inside your head you thought you may have mined dry where you were young, but you can still use that gold today...all you need to do is put it together...
Example...you water fights...
Why not make an action game out of it, where it's your gang vs the gang from the other block and you fight in your local park and neighbourhood for victory and for their pocket money so you can upgrade your wimpy water squirt pistols for a nice beefy Super Soaker!

It's just the little things...the things you enjoyed once upon a time can be shared forever...immortalised in 0's and 1's, enjoyed by thousands of others, for you to be proud of!

Just summing up here anyway...
My heading is kinda lie...this not so much the main philosophic approach to gaming ideas...it's more psychological...like you being the patient on a sofa, lying down, remembering your past, but rather than a psychologist there taking notes and asking questions, it's you computer, and your giving it the details and telling it how it works and it's giving you the feedback in the way of making your experiences into a game.

The main idea here however is giving yourself the time and situation to firstly remember these type of things...and secondly, using your Clicking expertise, putting together the missing links to make your dreams come true, in a way.

I'm not saying that they have to come from the past either...what if you had a dream, a thought, a vision...what if there's been something that you would like to do and you know enough to make it come true some other way...what better way to express yourself really!

Your mind is full of experiences, dreams, thoughts, ideas and memories...some of these reflect times of enjoyment, and happiness...why let them fade when you've got a golden opportunity?

Thanks for your time! And I hope I didn't ramble too much!

Mike Morgan