Lemma Soft Forums

Hi I wanted to ask where do you get inspirations for games you develop. Do you perhaps get inspired by other games, talk to your friends/co-developers about ideas, or suddenly get an idea like in a dream/daydream or you focus on the task of making a certain type of game and research everything around it and then carefully plan it.

As for me I am a mix of all of the above mentioned.

Some of my ideas are inspired from public domain books and short stories.

I frequently develops fangames of games like Touhou and Seihou Project (the latter might require some researches tho). So it might not be a surprise when I use those two games as inspirations for my games.

Also, Undertale and the hit game Genshin Impact also are another major influences on my games too. TBH, Undertale is like my pathway to game dev.

May God bless all of you ~.

I think it depends on the person and environment. What is good for one person does not work for someone else. It is all about how our brain works.

Personally, in my mind, I often have some alternative ideas whenever I watch a movie, read a book, play a game, talk to people, etc. Books or visual novels are probably the most ''productive' for me mainly because I can stop at any point and think about alternative stories or endings. I guess that is why I read so slowly, lol.

I like to look at famous writers to see what inspires them or how they create. For example, I really like Tim Schafer process to create a character:
“I have a little character template that I try and fill in the form almost like a social media form of what that character was like. I try to get to know every character and then by the time I’m writing dialog, I’m just improvising like an actor almost.”quote-source

Or 'What if?' question for the development of the story like a lot of writers do (like Stephen King)

I think story development and getting ideas for the story are two steps of creating a story. Ideas come from inspiration(based on some events in life or in a book), while story development is a process to turn the idea into true art.

There are a lot of interesting books for story development. Personally, I can suggest Story by Robert McKee.

My (never completed) visual novel was inspired by a couple of asset packs from Open Game Art. You never know.