From Joystiq. Patrick Curry is a video game designer, and for every week of this year he’s posting an idea for a game—and they’re excellent, inventive, and well-thought-out (considering they’re weekly). Rather than summarising them here, I’ll just suggest you take a look at them yourself.
One of my favourites is the Blackout concept:
Blackout is a survival game with a realistic premise: you’re trapped in a large urban city that’s completely devoid of electricity. There aren’t monsters, zombies, or aliens taking over the city… just other people. How will you escape? How will you survive?
flOw is a Flash game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. You start off as a tiny creature swimming in a deep pool, and as the game progresses you get bigger and go deeper.
The game has nice sound and graphics, but the most notable aspect is the gameplay, which naturally unfolds and becomes more complex as new features and gameplay elements are introduced. There are no instructions that you need to read before you can play—you just get thrown in. New features and gameplay elements are introduced in a very natural way.
flOW is a short but rewarding game, and I recommend playing it.
Plasma Pong is the classic game of pong with the mesmerising twist of fluid dynamics—that’s the plasma.
You can shoot plasma from your paddle by holding the left mouse button, and suck the plasma back by holding the right mouse button. The screen starts filling up with the plasma, and the ball gets carried along through the waves of it. When you suck the plasma back, the ball will follow, and you can then release the right mouse button to shoot the ball back out.
The physics are matched by the psychedelic graphics; waves of multi-coloured plasma splash about and mingle while other sparks and particles swarm and spin like galaxies.
Plasma Pong also has a freeform sandbox mode, where you just play around with the system and the physics, which is as good as the actual Pong game.
It is based around a simple concept, so Plasma Pong may be lacking in replay value, but it’s certainly worth messing around with for a couple of hours.
Racer is a great free racing/driving simulation. It started out as a basic driving simulation and has progressed into a fully-playable racing game, with AI and the lot, and it is constantly being improved. It’s highly realistic and a lot of fun, so check it out.