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Me and 3 other friends want to make an indie title together. We all have ideas for what game we want to make, but we are facing the dilemma of making a decision on which idea we choose to actually bring to life. Naturally, everyone feels his/her own idea is the best, lol.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you resolve the issue? We though of perhaps starting a poll and having the public opinion make the decision for us, but that puts our ideas out for grabs (i.e. someone may steal them :P). If you haven't been in this situation but still have an opinion/suggestion, please voice it!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Decide on a commonly accepted genre among yourself. Then maybe create some game like a prototype which everybody accepts. From that ideas should 'grow'. \$\endgroup\$
    – Vishnu
    Jun 4, 2013 at 3:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ Based on the type of answers this is generating, mine included, I converted my answer to CW. Since really, it's just a discussion with people making suggestions. \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Jun 4, 2013 at 4:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ Nevertheless, a good question, and an important one for every team! +1 \$\endgroup\$
    – Maik Semder
    Jun 4, 2013 at 7:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ Don't worry about people stealing your ideas, because, as you say, "everyone feels his/her own idea is the best". Besides, things can only get better when people re-use other people's ideas, cf. most of history. Lastly, if you are worried that people within your team will steal your ideas then you have an other, bigger problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Eric
    Jun 4, 2013 at 8:05

3 Answers 3

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Each of you make a small quick and dirty prototype, or draft a design doc. Everyone plays each others games, or reads design docs of each others.

Everyone votes on the game they want to make. Nobody should vote for their own idea. Ties are settled by a 1d20 roll.

This has the benefit of everyone actually analyzing the validity of their idea. And once you decide, you have something already made to roll forward with.

You should be happy to have such problems. Have fun.

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I'd say to prototype the toy (not the game, just the part that don't have an "end") of every idea.
Don't need to polish too much, nor have music or menu. Remember, it's just a toy prototype.

Play for a while with every one of them, if it feels good, it's a good candidate.

Just remember to account for complexness...
A complex game to build probably won't work, while a simpler one, with focused objective, is way easier to finish, polish and even play.

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Do you want to make the game for yourselves as a hobby project or do you want to monetize the final product? If it is the former, go with Byte56's aproach. But if it is the latter, you should involve other people in the decision as well. Like that TV show where people present their startups to the millionaires and ask for cash, you should create a group of people (jury) who play games and present them your prototypes/draft documents.

Based on their feedback, you can decide, or at least you can decide the ties. You can also create an online survey and send to all your "facebook friends".

You can involve the whole team to create each prototype. This is to avoid the artist's prototype looking fancy but static and programmer's prototype ugly but playable...

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