Freaking out big time

OK. So, the Stink Bug idea may have some potential, but I'm not convinced. What exactly am I teaching people with it? Is it any different to any other standard casual game that involves balancing a health/life resource?

So, now I can't sleep. I read the full project spec tonight and it's got my head in a spin. Yusuf suggested we use our creativity and design a game about something we're passionate about. What do I really care about, or am really passionate about? We also need to have a learning goal for players - something we want players to learn as a result of playing the game. I'm thinking, what do I know that I can teach people? What am I good at?

Believe it or not I'm just stumped. Is there anything I'm really passionate about? Yeah, lots of stuff, I've got opinions about everything. Anything in particular? My mind draws a blank. What do I love? My family? My dog? My friends? Not sure there's a game in that...

OK, what do I know well enough that I can develop a game around it in order to provide a learning experience? I've had a million hobbies from dancing, reading, drinking, making jewellery, pottery, stone carving, knitting, cooking, glass bead making etc etc.

Dancing has been done to death - not fun unless you can take part and certainly not so much just on the screen.

Reading - well nothing game like there. Perhaps a choose your own adventure story? Fill in the blanks to make your own story? Add your own character? Make your own character? All been done before. None of great appeal to me.

Pottery - might be ok, learning to balance the speed of the wheel and the shaping of the clay. Boring quickly though. Only so many outcomes. Hardly time pressured or really engaging.

Knitting - matching patterns (I do like pattern/puzzle games). I think there'd be a very limited target audience and really hard to engage people.

Cooking - Virtual Masterchef? Iron Chef online? Time pressured recipe filling? Not fun without a complete sensory experience (not being able to taste or smell the fails takes all the fun out of it)

Jewellery/glass bead making. Both have potential.

I love, and am good, at both. re the glass bead making - to make a glass bead, you need to heat the glass and the rod at the right temps, and apply the molten glass to the constantly turning rod as it becomes a bead. If you are too slow or too fast, the bead becomes misshapen. If you heat the glass too quickly it smashes. If you hold the rod with the bead on it too close to the flame it melts away. If there was the capacity to make your own beads using whatever glass you wanted, that would be way cool - but that might need Flash (at the minimum) (and a hell of a lot of coding).

The other thing I'm good at and love doing is making beaded jewellery. There are simple to complex patterns that you can make that turn the smallest beads into really cool ropes etc. There's one pattern in particular that I like making - the African net beaded necklace. It can be a bit tricky until you get the hang of it, and becomes more tricky as the number of loops and colours involved in the necklace increase. Maybe I could make a game where you had to match a pattern by selecting the correct colour bead and 'threading' it through the correct bead in the pattern (i.e. clicking on the right bead to thread it through). In theory, that would only require a few art assets (another assignment parameter). It could be randomly generated re colours and you would have to follow the pattern to match the necklace shown.

I'm not sure how it would be scored and/or if it would be time pressured. It would certainly satisfy my initial desire for a puzzle/pattern game. As people got the hang of the basic pattern, you could increase the difficulty re number of colours and loops (and maybe even change the pattern?) Or start with no timer in the 'tutorial' then move to timer (like bejewelled - play timed or classic?). So people would be learning how to make a necklace and solving a puzzle, which would both make me happy!

Not sure if the game would stall as incorrect beads were used or the wrong bead was threaded through. Or is whatever they create, plotted out, and they're scored on accuracy? Can they unthread the beads? Is it a two player game where two people race to complete the beaded necklace?

The jewellery idea does limit my market to women/girls. But really, its ultimately a pattern game - how important is the premise if there's interesting game play? e.g. Atomica. I got sucked into that and that was just puzzle solving. Did I ever care i was supposed to be a scientist linking atoms? No. Zuma - did I ever care I was a frog? Did I ever question why I was a frog on a mission? No. But at least these are both fairly generic games i.e. not exclusively appealing to men or women.

Or maybe i can make a game where the character is a stressed woman, and you have to help her juggling everything in her life and coming up with ideas about everything before her head explodes...

*sigh*. Arrgghh. *sigh*