TIMMY HAD IDEAS TOO

i went into maybe too much detail in my formatting but i think it worked out?

anyway here's a direct copypaste of my brainstorming document:

random inspirations:

1. batting cages
   1. Swinging at a ball isn't that interesting by itself. How can this be translated into more interesting setting/gameplay?
      1. Balls interact with each other. “Wacky physics”?
         1. Though we could also probably go with more concrete gameplay, less physics-based, more fake-physics where everything has a deterministic reaction to the kind of impact – see fighting games and how they handle "force" being "applied" to the opponent's body.
         2. Players get a sequence of balls with different properties - "standard," "expand," "bomb"…
         3. Baseball breakout?
      2. Keep swinging and hitting a ton
         (This can be applied to 1-A-i too.)
         1. Batting cage goes way too fast for normal interaction.
         2. Distance-based scoring? Cumulative?
            
            
2. pinball, but only the shooter spring thing (no flippers)
   1. how do we make that fun where is the interest? gotta be more than just the basic "sproing" and then you're done.
      (is this and the 'batting cage' idea one and the same? /can/ it be, perhaps?)
      1. 1-A-ii can apply here
      2. Alternately, apply it the other way around, where the baseballs you hit sorta boomerang like your hits are going against a light gravity
         
         
3. sidechaining (other things take the backseat to a particular sound/action)
   1. how does this conceptualize into game like uh
      (seriously, I can't get more specific since there isn't a game here yet. Maybe a problem statement for a later bit could come up lol)
      1. Could be a rhythm game. But that seems too straightforward let's get WEIRD
      2. Any “impact” by the player places things in the background.
         1. Yes this could also be a rhythm game shut up
         2. Endless runner material as well.
            
            
4. sometimes, i feel like putting my shoe in places that shoes shouldn't be
   1. How do we turn "place shoe" into a twitch action game (YEAH I'M GOIN SPECIFIC HOW BOUT THAT HUH)
      
      
5. sewing. putting three things together and then they're connected but only on a certain spot
   
   
6. red/blue boxes, each growing as long as you're hitting the button
   1. how can this red/blue box mechanic be applied competitively?
      1. merge with Barcode idea? Let's do that.
         
         
7. something about that freakin jackson hole town square is inspiring
   1. or how about no
      1. (RED TRUCK)
         1. (it looks different in the shade; sometimes you can't tell if truck is red or no)
            
            
8. timing - kirby megaton punch style
   
   
9. SUDDENLY, THE APARTMENT BUILDING STARTED FLYING
   1. Can this be made competitive?
      1. At the helm of the building, flying it through obstacles and trying to get to the stratosphere faster than anyone else.
      2. Climb to the top of a building to launch it? (too many buttons)
      3. Not competitive, but a superhuman with telekinesis trying to save the building: (l/r/both=up)
   2. Alternately, can this be made artful?
      1. You don't know how it got there, it was just in the air. You don't know why, or how it got there in the first place. You can't escape, and you don't know if you ever will be able to, or if you'll survive trying. But for the time being, it's beautiful up here.
         1. What sort of gameplay would fit here, though?
            1. Side-on with simple platforming?
               1. The ending could be timed
               2. Interactions more important than platforming challenge?
               3. oh god this would cause too many branching plots
            2. 45-degree top-down JRPG/Adventure-style?
      2. Ground perspective. You see the building flying through the air. It shouldn't be there. What is it doing? Where did it come from? Look around your immediate area (park? Room?) for things that could help you observe or contact the flying people.
         1. Almost point-and-click-y at that point
            
            
10. Barcodes. Scanning or generating. Something.
    1. Barcodes are kinda mundane letsbehonest. Let's make this INTENSE. Or at least weird.
       1. Competitive barcode scanning. For a scoreboard OR for multiplayer HECK YEAH.
          1. Frantically generate black ink with one button, possibly on an overlay (matching a given code)
          2. Make it go WAY TOO FAST. Because why not? Especially if it's something as simple as a single button, right?
             1. I mean way too fast. Prepare-players-to-send-telegrams-professionally fast.
          3. More accurate = higher score
             1. The item you actually scanned comes up at the end (based on percentage accuracy)
                
                
11. Something that feels like Jamiroquai - Planet Home sounds
    1. Can this be made 2D? We don't really have the budget for 3 dimensional assets
    2. Waves
       1. Water skiing-platforming. Waves launch you to higher platforms/planes, while you tilt forward/backward.
          1. could even blend the 'endless-runner' with the 'endless climber'
    3. Rolling terrain
       
       
12. "Unless we have bent the rules of time and it now flows backwards"
    1. How do we convert reverse-time shenanigans into movement without having AI movement at the start?
       
       
13. "Joke's on you, I've always worn stilts."
    1. A clown trying to traverse a crowd
       1. Button for left leg and right leg. Have to manage balance and not-stepping-on-people.
    2. A dog attempting to reverse the "two-person horse" gag
       1. yknow I have no real idea on this one actually
          
          
14. A boat just went by blasting dance music
    1. I want to join them. I want to make my way there from shore.
       1. Will I go to the boat?
       2. Or will the boat come to me if I am worthy?
    2. I'm fine right here, seeing and hearing it from a distance
       1. You can't go to shore in the boat, but your aura can still make a difference even from far off
          1. Follow the shoreline in the boat. You have to hit a sweet spot though, of “not close enough to the shore to cause problems” and “not too far to keep people from hearing it”
    3. THE HOUSE BOAT.
       OH MAN.
       HOUSE BOAT.
       1. WAVE RUNNER RHYTHM GAME HOO BOY
          
          
15. The calming, yet terrifying, feeling of a seagull gracefully changing course. Beautiful, mesmerizing, but you can't help but worry it's going to divebomb you.
    1. Remember that XBox game where you have to swipe your cat away from your cereal? Like that, except not trash.
       1. The seagulls keep coming
          1. First-person perspective could work here. Keep the food away from birds. Sometimes birds will bluff, not be interested at all. You gotta make that judgement for yourself.
          2. Alternately, top-down, dodge the birds ahhhhhhh!
             1. (amusing mix of casually walking along the boardwalk and frantically jumping out of the way of diving birds)

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after that document, i took the subsets of ideas that made the most sense as full games, listed them, and rated them on a slightly modified version of the class' scale:

Innovation: (everybody's done it) 1 - 5 (nobody's seen this before)
Ease of asset creation: (Skyrim) 1 - 5 (primitive shapes)
Ease of programming: (good luck bucko) 1 - 5 (weekend project)
Total: (Assets - Programming) / 2 + Innovation

the following is copypasted from that document once again

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1-A-i-a – Batting Cages with multiball fighting game juggling (possibly include b)

• Ease of coding: 2-3
• Ease of art creation: 5
• Innovation: 4? i dunno man
• Total: ~8?

1-A-i-c – Baseball Breakout

• Code: 5
• Art: 5
• Innovation: 1
• Total: 6

1-A-ii – Long-distance wacky physics home run derby

• Code: 4
• Art: 5
• Innovation: 2-3
• Total: 7-8

3-A-ii-b – Endless runner with sidechaining

• Code: 2
• Art: 3-4
• Innovation: 2
• Total: 5-6

9-A-i – Apartment building race

• Code: 4
• Art: 3
• Innovation: 2
• Total: 5-6

9-A-iii – Save the building (single-player actually)

• Code: 4
• Art: 3
• Innovation: 2
• Total: 5-6

9-B-i-A – Story-based “you're stuck in the apartment building” sadface

• Code: 4-5
• Art/assets: 1
• Innovation: heck if i know but it probably aint happening
• Total: heck

10 – Barcode wars

• Code: 3
• Art/assets: 3-4
• Innovation: 5
• Total: 8

11-B – Side-on, waterskiing-platforming with multi-level platforming. Get as high as possible

• Code: oh god maybe like 2
• Art/assets: 3-4
• Innovation: 5 (at least genre-wise)
• Total: 7

13-A – Clown on very high stilts trying to go through a cloud

• Code: 3-4
• Art/assets: 3
• Innovation: 3
• Total: 6

15-A-i-a – Keep yer food away from the got dang seagulls

• Code: 5
• Art/Assets: 3
• Innovation: 2
• Total: 6

15-A-i-b – DODGE THE BIRDS AHHH

• Code: 3-4?
• Art/Assets: 2
• Innovation: 3
• Total: 6

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my top 3 ideas only had a score of 8, so that's just fantastic

here's the elaboration on those three ideas:

ONE: Batting Cages with multiball, fighting game juggling

Target: Digital distribution. It's an action game, potentially twitchy.

Code: 2-3. Distinct collisions would need to be programmed, rather than relying on Unity's physics engine.

Assets: 5. A hat and a bat and some baseballs. Sure the baseballs would need to be recolored/resized in some ways (if 1-A-i-b gets used) but the basics are incredibly basic, only needing some stylistic polish later on.

Innovation: 4? Not sure about this one because I don't play too many app games, so maybe "knock ball into other ball you just hit to send it flying further" could be a common thing, but I've certainly never heard of it (especially with fighting game "physics").

TWO: Wacky Physics Batting CagesTarget: Digital distribution. Same reason as above
Code: 4. Unity physics, and the debugging that comes with that.
Assets: 5. Same as above.
Innovation: 2-3. It's a wacky physics game, good golly never seen that before

THREE: Barcode Wars/Barfight (heh)

Target: Digital distribution. It's so twitchy. (But also I'd enter it in a festival because it's super abstract and weird)

Code: 3. Generating blocks is easy. While it doesn't seem too hard to compare two sets of blocks, I dropped the score on code just in case it is tough. Given that it's the only potential nightmare, and it's only one check, though? I didn't drop it to 1 or 2.

Assets: 3-4. Barcodes are easy. Creating a bunch of grocery item pictures for the result screen and polishing everything to the same visual style would be harder.

Innovation: 5. I've never heard of anything like it; the abstract minimally-colored space representing a familiar concept via Morse-code-like gameplay, in a potentially competitive environment? i like my ideas theyre good sometimes

all in all, i'd pick the barcode one