Everyone is talking about (deferred) lighting systems, high-poly normal mapped animated models and other fancy effects, but I barely never see discussions about gameplay or game ideas. After all that is what playing games comes down to, you come for the eye candy but stay for the content.
Therefore let us think and talk about game ideas and share those!
In my opinion a(n indie) game does not have to have a unique key feature or put the main focus on a single mechanic - that's what currently almost all indie games/ platformers do that I can think of - because I think they get old really quickly, instead I think games should only do some things well, i.e. they should be fun.
I will start with a few of my ideas, please feel free to add your own:
1) A game that is centered around floors of a high building, maybe with a highscore focus.
2) An adventure/ platformer based on cardboard box figures, similar to the following picture (copyright is unknown to me, sorry):
3) A racing game similar to F-Zero for the SNES.
4) I've once posted the following story idea on the Sergeant Rampage thread, i.e. a story for a top down shooter:
What kind of levels do you plan for the actual game? I think an open-world Metroid style would fit nicely.
If you don't have any story yet, here's my idea:
You and your girlfriend are happy, your life, your (and her) friends, everything seems to be fine. One Sunday, like every other month before, you meet them at a big mansion, you all are having a wonderful meal together, a mafia-like family. Then, suddenly, your girlfriend tells you what a pathetic loser you are, that she is cheating on you for months and years and all of your other "friends" start to laugh and joke about you that you didn't notice it, but everyone else did. They can't stand you anymore, too, so they start to punch and beat you up, drive you to a harbor, shoot you in the belly, kick you in the water and drive away.
You survive seriously injured and you begin your vendetta, your rampage. This is where the game kicks in, you start with only a knife and low health and your goal obviously is to find and kill all of them (they are the boss enemies).
5) A Metroid style non-linear exploration based game where you fly a spaceship (or something else) and continuously get better and better (and get more abilities) by beating boss enemies, maybe on an alien planet that features some kind of mystery.
