We used to have an entire ideation talkgroup, but it could have probably fit in one topic, splitting off as interest picks up a particular idea. That’s my thinking here, so let’s try it out! 
Everyone is encouraged to share ideas they have. I share nearly all of them here because I have more ideas than I can accomplish given my scheduling (some of the really bad ideas I keep to myself, thanks!).
Share ideas. Make things.
Who represents this space?
Each “official”, in whichever capacity, is given a geofenced profile. Then one could point to any point on Earth and filter by say, “local and regional elected officials” and get a list of people with contact info.
Presuming players use a grid with nodes to interact with the game, make a game resource (“mana”) tied to particular nodes (“mana fountains”), and resource is given out to all present players evenly.
Start the game with few nodes, so players start in clusters, but are incentivized to de-cluster for resources.
Mechamagical Mystery!
You are a Golem Intelligence Factory (GIF), a magical construct, playing to find out what happened to the world, where now only “magical” beings exist.
Game loop repeats itself as player’s golem is destroyed/incapacitated. Having learned new skills by experience, while also sending back new materials and artifacts to the factory, player creates a new golem with enhanced abilities for next loop.
Setting note: fallen golem may be salvaged, but also reprogrammed and used by other factions, meaning powerful boss-like character made from “dead” golems.
AIDI Model as TTRPG NPC guidance, potentially also character stats. Not to be taken serious!
Hardwars
Mecha battles, where machines are based on real life hardware data from Wikidata. We determine a baseline data model to generate units from, to ensure all that data is included for all possible hardware in Wikidata.
Wikidata has real life information about tons of potential gaming objects. You could generate…
Are you…, a format to discuss media in a spoilerful way. Name the topic, “After you {watch|listen|read|play} $media”.
Examples:
Then we know these are spoiler-filled recaps and deep dives, not for a first time consumer.
There is a tabletalk game to be made from the “cultural kitchen sink” approach some media takes, with Keroro Gunso particularly in mind. A lot of examples tend to be anime shows, but there are select works in other media.
Anyhow, this would be neat to slice up character classes along specialized/niche approaches based on world view, while providing problems to be overcome as a group. That’s where the, um, “genre” really shines for me.
Imagine a game where players are given the task of accomplishing their actions given a particular attitude, and then having to work together with other difficult sorts. Scales wildly.
Powers That Be
You are a guiding entity. You guide groups of people in some purpose.
Form a party. You ability to inspire grows so both the amount of people in your party increases as well as your ability to use “dictations”.
Each party member has its own tracking, but they grow along build trees.
Encounters and sessions are interactive stories told by using party members to get through obstacles.
A new ruler of the Spirit World is chosen, and in order to rule wisely they must choose an Advisor to “contain” the Authority. They choose a friend living nearby, who doesn’t even naturally sense energies, let alone spirits.
Now they must “contain” the Authority, which manifests as a powerful child.
Hilarity ensues.
Strategy combat game using chess pieces and cards with moves and stats on them.
There are 6 possible units, with different numbers allowed corresponding to the chess pieces. So: 1K, 1Q, 2B, 2Kn, 2R, 8P. That breaks down to three “rarities”: 1, 2, or 8 instances of a given unit.
So a card might say, “Pawn - Basic Attack” or “Queen - Fireball”, and you know how many instances of that unit you may have in your squad. It also means really powerful units as King and Queen can be designed to not overlap, allowing certain combos to be special.
Last Generation
A Capital Ship is dying, 90% of the living structure is abandoned, there is a single settlement left.
Find out what happened, survive as long as possible.
Each player has a personal pool of cards they constructed from keywords and stat templates. Each card gains experience as it is played, but may only level/upgrade when not in active play.
Cards are included in a “roster” of agents sent to each game, and each player draws from the combined rosters contributed. That means… in order to level a card it has to be drafted a played by someone in a game, and after the game is over a given card may be upgraded.
Each card in the game is created by a human, and any player playing it gives it XP.
Instead of “cards”, players use bookmarks. And make. Them. BATTLE!
Oh! BATTLEMARKS!
Online card game played with ante, but instead of losing the card, it is copied for the winner. Because there is no lost of cards, use as a mechanic to interact with ante, including adding it to other cards, so new players have a way to quickly collect more cards.
“This is not home”
A portal opens on many worlds, sucking residents in, who have to find their way out… if they can.
Procedural dungeons where the rooms are created by players, and others play through existing layouts while adding their own rooms, based on their character.
“Following the trail among the stars”
Researchers have found the traces of an ancient planetary migration, with clues to the next intended destination. You are part of an expedition to find which worlds the ancient ship/fleet visited, piecing together where they came from and the ultimate fate of its journey.
Ideas to incorporate:
We were riffing off each other as we discussed the daily experience of all the people involved in the “Age of Exploration” (it basically sucked for nearly everyone), and Clover uttered a phrase I thought would make a great game title:
Boats and Bad Ideas
An idea I’ve played around with but would like to actually experiment with: auto-deleting user accounts; in WordPress, specifically.
WordPress has a lot of other tools that are useful for building online interactions, and includes a decent user account sub-system.
My idea is to generate accounts with null email addresses and UUIDs as usernames, and then auto-delete them after some amount of time based on need.
One usecase: ephemeral game accounts, allowing to track user stats on a website, without knowing who they are, an attribute I appreciate but do not receive by default in any user account system.
I’ll probably delete them on a timed script, with wp-cli or something.
Oh yeah! “Permadeath”-type games! Straight-up deleted!