[List] Main themes for video games

This list contains "main themes" for video games. Some were dreamt, some were designated to be on theme for a specific game jam, but most of them were manifested while drinking beers with my good friend Tibor (by either him or me).

Table of Contents

Windy Physics

  • 2D side or top-down view action/puzzle
  • Player places permanent or switchable wind generators (like fans in The Incredible Machine) on a level that already includes walls and hazards, entry and exit point(s).
  • Objects (balls of various size/weight) will start appearing at the entry point(s) and their movement will be affected by gravity, wind generators and other objects (collision). The objective is to guide (the right type of) objects (to the right type of) exit point(s).

Junk tower defense

  • Player collects various household scrap parts during the day, builds towers, enemies will invade during the night (the player can fight them also, but is quite vulnerable)
  • Basic materials: iron scrap, electronic scrap, plastic, wood, glass, household supplies, chemicals, water
  • Special materials: vacuum cleaner, buzz saw, glue, tennis/pool balls, lighter fluid, flint, microwave ovens (magnetron)
  • Player finds blueprints or invents new stuff, can dismantle towers

Tower defense at sea

  • Build static or movable platforms on sea
  • Extract oil / mine minerals

Reverse city builder

  • Strategically destroy/dismantle dense (previously overpopulated, now abandoned), badly planned parts of cities

Dungeon Bouncer

  • Top-down view dungeon crawler / physics puzzle
  • You move the player by touch/drag aiming (adjusting angle and maybe "power" too): when released, the player will start moving in the specified direction bouncing off walls, colliding with enemies (attacking them), collecting items, destroying barrels/boxes, etc.
  • The number of bounces or the length of a "run" is limited but can be extended by items or spending XP.

Too Many Hands (old-school first-person shooter)

  • 2.5D view (like in Wolfenstein 3D or Doom), no mouse look, limited movement (forward/back, turning and strafe only).
  • The player character has about 4 to 8 hands and wields all of them at the same time (but weapons are gradually found/unlocked). When picking up a new weapon it appears in one of the corners or sides of the screen (slightly obscuring the view like in most FPS games).
  • The game is optimized for dual analog stick gamepads, where the left stick or D-pad is for movement and the right stick is for shooting: when the player moves the right stick to a side or corner the relevant weapon shoots. Using a keyboard for movement and a mouse for selecting/shooting weapons (just by moving it) is also possible.

Infinite Runner & Shooter

An infinite runner where you either:

  • Run backwards dodging obstacles coming from the direction you're running in and shooting enemies who are catching up to you, or
  • Run forward and deploy mines and various other traps to kill / slow down enemies chasing you.