Make a toy
I started studying game design and development this fall and have spent the last few months reading about and creating tiny game experiments.
In the lessons and literature we've been told a great way to start is to build a toy. Something that is intuitive and interesting to interact with on its own, without a stated goal or any rules. Like the way you can pick up a ball or a frisbee and just experiment to see how it works.
I feel like I get the point of this, but don't yet have a great understanding of what a toy really is, what the limits are and how to actually make a good toy that can be developed into a game. So I've been thinking about doing a little toy making challenge.
Once a month, hopefully, I'll roll up a random game mechanic and a random word as inspiration. And somehow that is going to turn into a toy.
For the first one I've rolled terraforming as the game mechanic and watch as the word.
Not too bad of a place to start.
The inspiration for this is partially from Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design and his students experiment with creating a whole lot of games in seven days.