Games you could make
Game Ideas
Nathan
Founder and teacher at GDQuest
Management Games
Games like Drug Wars, Lemonade Stand, or Cookie Clicker. 
Dope Wars Screenshot 
Cookie Clicker Screenshot Management games can be a lot of fun and they don't require many assets. But don't be fooled: that doesn't mean they're simple to make! This game uses techniques you learned in M7 (Telling a Story) and M8 (Start a Dialogue), but also some techniques from previous modules: displaying text, buttons, changing images, random events from an array, signals, timers, and optionally resources and math if you want. Techniques you'll need to research: Nothing! But to make them good, management games can get incredibly complex, and that is probably a scale you can't tackle yet. You should start with something really simple. Challenge:Make a clicker game. It could be about a company that outputs a new mobile game every time you click. You will need: - A
Button. Every time the button is pressed, the company makes a new game, and it sells for $1. - A
Labelto show the current amount of money the player has. - Another button to hire underpaid game developpers. Each developper costs $100 and will increment the games you make by 2 every second.
Ideas for extra challenge: Make the hiring button disabled until you have at least $100. - A
Action Game
Games like Asteroids or Snake. 
Asteroids Screenshot 
Nokia's Snake screenshot Asteroids is one of the earliest games ever made, but it is still fun today. You control a spaceship that can rotate, move forward, and shoot asteroids. This game uses techniques you learned in M4 (To space and beyond) to M6 (Looting): moving a sprite, rotating a sprite, collision detection, instantiating nodes, removing nodes, spawning items at a location, cooldowns, physics layers and masks. Challenge:Make one level of Asteroids. You will need a spaceship, an asteroid, and a bullet. The asteroid needs to move in a straight line for a while and disappear. You can add a few to the main scene. Some requirements: - If an asteroid hits the spaceship, the spaceship and the asteroid are destroyed.
- If the bullet hits the asteroid, the asteroid is destroyed.
Ideas for extra challenge: - Instead of placing the asteroids by hand, make the asteroids appear randomly from the edges of the screen and give them a custom direction. You can do this with a timer that keeps creating asteroids.
- When an asteroid is destroyed, it spawns two smaller asteroids.
Techniques you'll need to research: spawning bullets, spawning asteroids at the edges of the screen. You can follow our tutorial Your First 2D GAME From Zero with GODOT 4! to learn both techniques. Here are timestamps for the techniques you need: click to reveal Hint
click to reveal Hint
click to reveal Hint
Text Adventure
Games like The Oregon Trail or Roadwarden. 
The Oregon Trail Screenshot 
Roadwarden Screenshot The Oregon Trail was one of the first massive video game hits. It involves the player crossing the United States in a wagon. It's a text adventure with a few illustrations. In this game, the player sees an event in the form of text and has a few choices. Each choice changes the player stats and events keep occurring until the player loses or reaches the end game. This game uses techniques you learned in M7 (Telling a Story) and M8 (Start a Dialogue): displaying text, buttons, changing images, and random events from an array. You know all the techniques you need to make this game! Making the content and making it flow well in the game is the hard part. Challenge:Make a game like Oregon Trail called "The Gamedev trail". The game will be a series of choices that the player can make. You will need: - A resource or data to represent an event. An event has text and a list of choices.
- A resource or data to represent a choice. Each choice has, which has some text and an outcome, like gaining or losing health, money, or another stat. Making a choice also leads to the next event.
- You will need to check to know if a choice is valid. For example, if a choice requires money, you will need to check if the player has enough money.
- If a choice makes health go under zero, the game should end.
After each choice, another random event occurs, until the player loses. Ideas for extra challenge: Show an image for each event. click to reveal Hint
click to reveal Hint
click to reveal Hint
Visual Novel
Games like Steins;Gate or Doki Doki Literature Club. 
Steins;Gate Screenshot 
Doki Doki Literature Club Screenshot Steins; Gate is a science fiction visual novel where the player makes choices that affect the story. It got wide acclaim across the world received numerous anime adaptations and follow-ups. This game uses techniques you learned in M7 (Telling a Story) and M8 (Start a Dialogue): displaying text, displaying buttons, changing images, animations & tweens, animating text. You can make a game in this genre with what you know. The bulk of the work in this kind of game is the story and art. Challenge:Make the player assume the role of a protagonist in a short story. To keep it manageable, make the setting small (one room, maybe) and the number of characters low (one or two). For example, the player might be a harmless vampire attempting to get hired in a blood bank. Ideas for extra challenge: Make sure each story bit has an associated image. click to reveal Hint
Shmups
Games like Space Invaders or Gradius. 
Vertical or horizontal shooting never stopped being popular. These games remain fun to play and easy to pick up. The genre hasn't changed a lot since the 1970s; modern "shmups" (short for "shoot them up") still have basic mechanics set by their grandparent, Space Invaders. This game uses techniques you learned in M4 (To space and beyond) to M6 (Looting): moving a sprite, pickups, collision detection, instantiating nodes, removing nodes, tweens. Techniques you'll need to research: shooting a projectile. Challenge:Make a game like Space Invaders. You will need: - A spaceship that can move left and right.
- An enemy type that animates left and right and shoots a bullet when it timers times out. The bullet will be tweened to the bottom of the screen.
- Two bullet scenes: one for the player and one for the enemies.
- The player's bullet will shoot from its position to the top of the screen.
Ideas for extra challenge: Instead of placing the enemies manually, make enemies spawn from the top and go down slowly with a Tween. If you also use a scrolling background, you have a good prototype for a modern SHMUP! click to reveal Hint
How do I start?
Where do I find assets?
- on itch.io
- on Open Game Art
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