8 ms·

Ideas for Game Clones to Code (2012)

156 points by maastaar 10y ago

jackson_1 10y ago
This is a great list, I've tried to order them into what I think would be easiest to hardest, so you can work through all of them whilst improving your skills! If you think the list could be ordered better let me know and I'll edit it! 1:Pong 2:Minefield 3:Tic-tac-toe 4:Memory Puzzle 5:Simon 6:Sliding Puzzle 7:Duck Hunt 8:Yahtzee 9:Maze 10:Typespeed 11:Lunar Lander 12:Nibbles 13:Katamari Damacy 14:Tron 15:Asteroids 16:Arkanoid 17:Flood It 18:Quoridor 19:Space Invaders 20:Scrabble 21:Othello 22:Quarto 23:Fruit Ninja 24:Tetris 25:Minotaurus 26:Connect Four 27:Missile Command 28:Abalone 29:Sokoban 30:Dr. Mario 31:Kirby’s Avalanche / Puyo Puyo 32:Checkers / Draughts 33:Pipe Dream 34:Blackjack 35:Grid Lock / Traffic Jam 36:Last Stand 37:Bloxorz 38:Bejeweled 39:Zoop 40:Rampart 41:Mancala 42:Snood / Bust-a-Move 43:Scorched Earth / Worms / Gorillas / Angry Birds 44:Stratego 45:Risk 46:Go 47:Diner Dash 48:Fire ‘N’ Ice 49:Chess
- jenscow 10y ago
  Ping isn't the easiest - it uses physics and is 'real-time'. Simon is the easiest, in my opinion. Simple logic and graphics.
  - chipsy 10y ago
    I would say Pong approaches easiest for a game with real time graphics, though. The difficulty of Pong depends to a large extent on how real you try to make the physics. For a classic-style implementation you flip some state bits to test a different axis depending on movement direction; all angles of travel and reflections are defined as a small LUT. The most complex test needed is the paddle boundaries. Relying on LUTs and state machines to avoid complex behavior is the cheat that defines a lot of the early arcade games, however tutorials tend not to teach them in this way and just immediately dive into trig functions and AABB tests.
- arsenide 10y ago
  Go is likely harder than chess: counting points (with dame not all filled), handling dead groups, handling ko, and offering support for superko seems much more challenging than handling an 8x8 board of pieces with fixed move patterns.
dandelany 10y ago
Great list :) I've been working on #43 (Dr. Mario) off and on for a little while - it's my favorite old NES puzzler, better than Tetris IMHO. My (very WIP) version is at http://mrdar.io http://mrdar.io - the single player version is working OK (except for buggy mobile controls), now I'm working on implementing multiplayer over websockets... It's a lot more challenging than expected, but I'm learning a ton.
- maastaar 10y ago
  That's nice. Thanks for sharing.
CJefferson 10y ago
jackson_1, if you read this, your posts are being marked as [dead]. jackson_1 posted a list of what they feel is order of difficultly, just giving a little snippet: 1:Pong 2:Minefield 3:Tic-tac-toe 4:Memory Puzzle ... 44:Stratego 45:Risk 46:Go 47:Diner Dash 48:Fire ‘N’ Ice 49:Chess I'd strongly disagree with this -- I'd prefer to do a Chess clone than a Pong clone myself. While doing a good chess A.I. might be hard, doing something reasonable is much easier than many other games on this list. Doing a good enough chess A.I. to beat 50% of people is fairly easy if you use the power of a modern machine.
- detaro 10y ago
  FYI, if you go to a [dead] comment's permalink (click on the timestamp) you should see a "vouch" link which allows you to make it visible.
teddyh 10y ago
They missed the most obvious one! http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-brainstorming-sessions http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-brainstorming-session... Edit: I thought they missed Breakout, but it’s in there, but they’re calling it “Arkanoid”. Bah.
newobj 10y ago
Sure, you could clone, or you could bring the ideas on Game Toilet [https://gametoilet.wordpress.com/ https://gametoilet.wordpress.com/] to life instead.
Zolomon 10y ago
There is also http://www.squidi.net/three/index.php http://www.squidi.net/three/index.php: "This is my attempt to document three hundred different gameplay concepts of my own creation. These ideas are free for anyone to use."
- kragen 10y ago
  Do we have any idea how many of them are fun to play? Or which ones?
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    Quite a lot of them are good-looking ideas, IMO. Beyond that, I can't really read the articles for you. Read a few of them and see what you think.
Razengan 10y ago
I've always wondered, is there a wiki for ideas? Something like a Github-equivalent for open-source drafts of video games, including standalone characters, combat systems and anything else someone thinks might be cool in a game. Somebody make that, please?
- squimmy 10y ago
  You're more than welcome to make one yourself. It could even just be a github repository. Edit: I don't mean to sound accusatory, but it is much more likely to actually happen if someone takes the first step.
  - Razengan 10y ago
    Alas, I feel the need for such a thing precisely because I only have ideas and lack the will to implement them. :( I specified game design because I think it would benefit the most from such an "ideawiki"; there's still lots of untapped genres or cool things from 20+ year old games that haven't been reintroduced in a modern way, but really there must be all sorts of apps that people have ideas for but are unable to make themselves,
- danohu 10y ago
  Try the half-bakery: http://www.halfbakery.com/ http://www.halfbakery.com/
  - Razengan 10y ago
    I was thinking of Halfbakery as I writing my comment! I thought it had gone defunct a few years ago.
siddboots 10y ago
Another one to add is Galactic Conquest, or Galcon [1], which is a sort of a minimal real-time distillation of Risk. I had a lot of fun implementing a version of it a couple of years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcon
erikpukinskis 10y ago
I love that none of these involve shooting people. I love video games, but I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone enjoys being a gamer these days... I watch a lot of game trailers, reviews, and gameplay, and very close to 100% of the games being made seem to be about murdering other creatures. I am often like "wow, that looks like a cool world!" but then I never buy the game because the gameplay is just shooting people in the face. Part of me thinks we should drop the pretext of a "Gaming Industry" and just start calling it the "Murder Simulation Industry". Of course of the same people who enjoy murder games, many like to eat food from murder, and live on land that was taken via murder. I start to feel like we have to make murder a super normal, everyday thing like this otherwise we'd have to face how violent we actually are, through our government and corporate intermediaries. Instead, we just crush virtual skulls and eat anonymous packaged food in our safe little boxes and pretend we're kind, gentle people. Feels good if you can keep the illusion up.
- bmer 10y ago
  I play video games that involve murder, and I wish I could disagree with you, but damn it...I can't. I happen to agree with everything you said. I like to play a top-down 2D space RPG, which has lasers, missiles, and all of that. I want to find a way to justify that playing that game does not make a bad person. Is this possible? Also, how would one make sense of enjoying movies like Star Wars?
  - kirrent 10y ago
    Yes, of course it's possible. Something like FTL is a fun, engaging game which makes use of conflict as a game mechanic and driving force. The game wouldn't make sense without it. You might as well bemoan the 'violence' of chess with its military units and combat. Video games can be enhanced through the use of violence just as books, film, and board games can. You're not a bad person for enjoying it. You're just a person.
    - bmer 10y ago
      But why bother using conflict as a driving force? Is it simply because we are used to conflict being a driving force in our entertainment for millennia (e.g. chess being set in a military environment, even though it could be completely abstracted away from it)?
gavanwoolery 10y ago
#49 ("Zoop") (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7501LkNvyI&t=36s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7501LkNvyI&t=36s) was a highly underrated game that is waiting for a clone (maybe one exists, not sure). It may even be better suited for touchscreens (with a slight redesign).
nickpsecurity 10y ago
A bunch of these are on the list that Google's AI was aimed at. Makes me wonder if they read it or there's a similar list they were drawing on.

156 points by maastaar 10y ago

This is a great list, I've tried to order them into what I think would be easiest to hardest, so you can work through all of them whilst improving your skills! If you think the list could be ordered better let me know and I'll edit it! 1:Pong 2:Minefield 3:Tic-tac-toe 4:Memory Puzzle 5:Simon 6:Sliding Puzzle 7:Duck Hunt 8:Yahtzee 9:Maze 10:Typespeed 11:Lunar Lander 12:Nibbles 13:Katamari Damacy 14:Tron 15:Asteroids 16:Arkanoid 17:Flood It 18:Quoridor 19:Space Invaders 20:Scrabble 21:Othello 22:Quarto 23:Fruit Ninja 24:Tetris 25:Minotaurus 26:Connect Four 27:Missile Command 28:Abalone 29:Sokoban 30:Dr. Mario 31:Kirby’s Avalanche / Puyo Puyo 32:Checkers / Draughts 33:Pipe Dream 34:Blackjack 35:Grid Lock / Traffic Jam 36:Last Stand 37:Bloxorz 38:Bejeweled 39:Zoop 40:Rampart 41:Mancala 42:Snood / Bust-a-Move 43:Scorched Earth / Worms / Gorillas / Angry Birds 44:Stratego 45:Risk 46:Go 47:Diner Dash 48:Fire ‘N’ Ice 49:Chess

jenscow 10y ago
Ping isn't the easiest - it uses physics and is 'real-time'. Simon is the easiest, in my opinion. Simple logic and graphics.
- chipsy 10y ago
  I would say Pong approaches easiest for a game with real time graphics, though. The difficulty of Pong depends to a large extent on how real you try to make the physics. For a classic-style implementation you flip some state bits to test a different axis depending on movement direction; all angles of travel and reflections are defined as a small LUT. The most complex test needed is the paddle boundaries. Relying on LUTs and state machines to avoid complex behavior is the cheat that defines a lot of the early arcade games, however tutorials tend not to teach them in this way and just immediately dive into trig functions and AABB tests.
arsenide 10y ago
Go is likely harder than chess: counting points (with dame not all filled), handling dead groups, handling ko, and offering support for superko seems much more challenging than handling an 8x8 board of pieces with fixed move patterns.

dandelany 10y ago

Great list :) I've been working on #43 (Dr. Mario) off and on for a little while - it's my favorite old NES puzzler, better than Tetris IMHO. My (very WIP) version is at http://mrdar.io http://mrdar.io - the single player version is working OK (except for buggy mobile controls), now I'm working on implementing multiplayer over websockets... It's a lot more challenging than expected, but I'm learning a ton.

maastaar 10y ago
That's nice. Thanks for sharing.

CJefferson 10y ago

jackson_1, if you read this, your posts are being marked as [dead]. jackson_1 posted a list of what they feel is order of difficultly, just giving a little snippet: 1:Pong 2:Minefield 3:Tic-tac-toe 4:Memory Puzzle ... 44:Stratego 45:Risk 46:Go 47:Diner Dash 48:Fire ‘N’ Ice 49:Chess I'd strongly disagree with this -- I'd prefer to do a Chess clone than a Pong clone myself. While doing a good chess A.I. might be hard, doing something reasonable is much easier than many other games on this list. Doing a good enough chess A.I. to beat 50% of people is fairly easy if you use the power of a modern machine.

detaro 10y ago
FYI, if you go to a [dead] comment's permalink (click on the timestamp) you should see a "vouch" link which allows you to make it visible.

teddyh 10y ago

They missed the most obvious one! http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-brainstorming-sessions http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-brainstorming-session... Edit: I thought they missed Breakout, but it’s in there, but they’re calling it “Arkanoid”. Bah.

newobj 10y ago

Sure, you could clone, or you could bring the ideas on Game Toilet [https://gametoilet.wordpress.com/ https://gametoilet.wordpress.com/] to life instead.

Zolomon 10y ago

There is also http://www.squidi.net/three/index.php http://www.squidi.net/three/index.php: "This is my attempt to document three hundred different gameplay concepts of my own creation. These ideas are free for anyone to use."

kragen 10y ago
Do we have any idea how many of them are fun to play? Or which ones?
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Quite a lot of them are good-looking ideas, IMO. Beyond that, I can't really read the articles for you. Read a few of them and see what you think.

Razengan 10y ago

I've always wondered, is there a wiki for ideas? Something like a Github-equivalent for open-source drafts of video games, including standalone characters, combat systems and anything else someone thinks might be cool in a game. Somebody make that, please?

squimmy 10y ago
You're more than welcome to make one yourself. It could even just be a github repository. Edit: I don't mean to sound accusatory, but it is much more likely to actually happen if someone takes the first step.
- Razengan 10y ago
  Alas, I feel the need for such a thing precisely because I only have ideas and lack the will to implement them. :( I specified game design because I think it would benefit the most from such an "ideawiki"; there's still lots of untapped genres or cool things from 20+ year old games that haven't been reintroduced in a modern way, but really there must be all sorts of apps that people have ideas for but are unable to make themselves,
danohu 10y ago
Try the half-bakery: http://www.halfbakery.com/ http://www.halfbakery.com/
- Razengan 10y ago
  I was thinking of Halfbakery as I writing my comment! I thought it had gone defunct a few years ago.

siddboots 10y ago

Another one to add is Galactic Conquest, or Galcon [1], which is a sort of a minimal real-time distillation of Risk. I had a lot of fun implementing a version of it a couple of years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcon

erikpukinskis 10y ago

I love that none of these involve shooting people. I love video games, but I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone enjoys being a gamer these days... I watch a lot of game trailers, reviews, and gameplay, and very close to 100% of the games being made seem to be about murdering other creatures. I am often like "wow, that looks like a cool world!" but then I never buy the game because the gameplay is just shooting people in the face. Part of me thinks we should drop the pretext of a "Gaming Industry" and just start calling it the "Murder Simulation Industry". Of course of the same people who enjoy murder games, many like to eat food from murder, and live on land that was taken via murder. I start to feel like we have to make murder a super normal, everyday thing like this otherwise we'd have to face how violent we actually are, through our government and corporate intermediaries. Instead, we just crush virtual skulls and eat anonymous packaged food in our safe little boxes and pretend we're kind, gentle people. Feels good if you can keep the illusion up.

bmer 10y ago
I play video games that involve murder, and I wish I could disagree with you, but damn it...I can't. I happen to agree with everything you said. I like to play a top-down 2D space RPG, which has lasers, missiles, and all of that. I want to find a way to justify that playing that game does not make a bad person. Is this possible? Also, how would one make sense of enjoying movies like Star Wars?
- kirrent 10y ago
  Yes, of course it's possible. Something like FTL is a fun, engaging game which makes use of conflict as a game mechanic and driving force. The game wouldn't make sense without it. You might as well bemoan the 'violence' of chess with its military units and combat. Video games can be enhanced through the use of violence just as books, film, and board games can. You're not a bad person for enjoying it. You're just a person.
  - bmer 10y ago
    But why bother using conflict as a driving force? Is it simply because we are used to conflict being a driving force in our entertainment for millennia (e.g. chess being set in a military environment, even though it could be completely abstracted away from it)?

gavanwoolery 10y ago

#49 ("Zoop") (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7501LkNvyI&t=36s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7501LkNvyI&t=36s) was a highly underrated game that is waiting for a clone (maybe one exists, not sure). It may even be better suited for touchscreens (with a slight redesign).

nickpsecurity 10y ago

A bunch of these are on the list that Google's AI was aimed at. Makes me wonder if they read it or there's a similar list they were drawing on.