Whenever I get an idea for a game I write it down, usually in Notepad. A lot of these ideas are fairly unoriginal - ie rehashes of old arcade games.
If I spend a bit of time thinking about game play mechanics that are a bit different, usually by thinking about the game mechanics of old arcade games modified in various ways, then I usually get an idea or two that may be worth making.
I've got a folder on my desktop which is full of text files with ideas for various games - 99% of which will never even be started.
Another point - if I come up with an unoriginal idea then I usually am less inclined to be motivated to code something. If I come up with a slightly more original idea then I am more likely to begin coding it, and if it is simple enough, writing really bad code to just get a prototype put together (this can mean writing all the code with no functions, lots of hard coded values (ie no data files at all) and really messy code which is impossible to clean up once it is made.)
If I spend a bit of time thinking about game play mechanics that are a bit different, usually by thinking about the game mechanics of old arcade games modified in various ways, then I usually get an idea or two that may be worth making.
I've got a folder on my desktop which is full of text files with ideas for various games - 99% of which will never even be started.
Another point - if I come up with an unoriginal idea then I usually am less inclined to be motivated to code something. If I come up with a slightly more original idea then I am more likely to begin coding it, and if it is simple enough, writing really bad code to just get a prototype put together (this can mean writing all the code with no functions, lots of hard coded values (ie no data files at all) and really messy code which is impossible to clean up once it is made.)