Earlier this week, I stumbled upon old notes for other games I intend to one day flesh out and release. I tabled these due to the expensive printing costs. It occurred to me how strongly these games were influenced by other games, many of which are classics. It opened my eyes to how much of my creative projects are driven by being inspired by other people’s work.

For fiction, I had heard all stories are derived from seven basic plots. I believe the same is true for gaming, too. Instead of plots, game evolve from creative use and combinations of game mechanics. As I have designed Peggy (the tabletop game engine), the engine focuses on a few game piece types. For example, consider cards. Cards can be collected into decks. Maybe some have jokers, and some not. Cards can be randomly ordered, drawn one at a time, or dealt to players in relatively event amounts. Cards may be played face down or up. In some games, the rotation or orientation of the card is important. Cards can be marked with ranks and suits, or provided other symbols or text to signify different meanings. Cards can be stacked or placed side-by-side. Cards have been around for centuries, and any game using one or more decks of cards can be traced back to a finite set of game mechanics.

Those are only the games based on cards. I haven’t even gone into tracking score, randomizers (like dice or spinners), variations of pawns, or game boards. Then, there are other games requiring either targeted creativity (like charades or Pictionary), to openly creative games (like D&D and other RPGs). Combine any or all of these components in different ways, and you have a limitless number of games.

In a way, the games I have designed are closer to Fan Fiction than thinking up a fresh combination of components and mechanics. One of my favorite games from my childhood inspired Snipe Hunt. I enjoyed the random movement of This Game is Bonkers!. The backwards and forwards movement of that game is how I had designed the first versions of Snipe Hunt. Instead of making laps around the board, I set an objective more like Capture the Flag (fetch and bring back). The random movement while going after such an objective gave the impression of a wild goose chase. What better wild chase than a snipe hunt? The game evolved, and once again, inspiration directed the game so the setting is more like a hedge maze than wandering backwards and forwards around a perimeter. With the interconnectedness of the game board tiles, the maze is difference every time, and continues to change as the game is played.

When my friend and I had worked on our online RPG, Urban Legions, I felt inspired by another online RPG, Kingdom of Loathing. Other, earlier games also inspired the creativity we poured into that game. Games like the Ultima series or Bard’s Tale. Unfortunately, we brought this project to a halt when it was nearly crushed by feature bloat. Still, I think about ways to improve the game, and hope to one day revive it in a more focused design.

What are ways to focus such game with so much potential? One consideration is inspired to make the game a territory conquering game, like Risk or Warlords. Another consideration is to make it more like a base-building game, inspired by how I typically play Minecraft of gathering supplies and growing my homestead. Or, make it more of an exploration game, like Breath of the Wild. The more these outside inspirations impact the design, the more the game could potentially be a lot of things. Which is why I need to start small, inspired by one of those directions, and slowly build up from there. Once one focus is well established, another could be integrated at a later stage.

The other games, the ones I have not even prototyped, all had singular inspirations. One game I had prototypes put a spin on trick-taking games like Hearts or Spades. Risk inspired another idea, with a simpler objective reducing the window of game time. Monopoly’s collection gathering and property trading inspired another ides. One idea had been inspired by one of my least favorite games, Clue, but in ways I thought the game could be improved.

How have games inspired you? Have any of your favorite games impacted any non-gaming aspects of your life?