Brainstorming A New Fangame

[Mustachio]

This is my first thread in the new Relic Castle. Such an amazing overhaul and everything feels and looks better now. So I want to open a new discussion thread to kick off my return to the Pokemon fangame scene. I want to focus on a rather simple topic for you all and I'm excited to hear what your responses could be. The topic I want to focus on is what are your methods for brainstorming a new concept for a fangame, and how do you go about coming up with gameplay mechanics, story, and how you want the game to be?

 

[Vendily]

I brainstorm by having an idea file, just a simple text file, on my computer and my phone that I add to whenever I get the tiniest idea, be it mechanics or plot points or just something I want to mull over later.
I also have a second file, though I haven't copied it over to my computer yet, and I use it to brainstorm every direction I can go with for that particular idea, or just questions about that idea.
Questions are very useful, you don't have to answer them now, but they can help lead your thinking or bring up possibilities you never thought of. (You can also bounce ideas off a friend, because they might ask different questions)

Spoiler: Idea process

Entire species of pokemon are disappearing.
Why are they disappearing? Can they not live in the place they used to? Perhaps use one of the climate changing plot points?
Is someone taking them? Perhaps they are not purely disappearing, but are going extinct or becoming endangered.
Are they disappearing or did they never exist? Perhaps one of the time travel plot points?

Huh, some of these questions are good, into the idea file they go.

 

[MadDeodorant]

Honestly, if you're looking for a way to begin brainstorming, do what Pixar does. What they do is begin with a what if question. For example, what if toys were secretly alive? Toy Story. What if our emotions were conscious? Inside Out. What if the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never hit earth? The Good Dinosaur.
Of course you can't be this open with your what if questions, but try to make some up that make sense in the Pokémon world. Like, what if Pokémon were only discovered at the time of the player's story? Now, an idea is not enough. You have to carefully develop it, otherwise you might ruin the idea.

 

[Taq]

Well the simplest thing you can do is ask yourself this
What can I do that's different?
This can help brainstorm a bit already but I think you can take inspiration from real life, this can include being at a circus may make you want to do something that involves the circus or maybe watching a film wether good or bad can give some inspiration, even just puns on words Humourous can lead to fun things. As an alternative, I usually just think of random ideas and try to incorporate them, this allows for you to use things something that hasn't been done before. But, if the idea can't work, I recommend keeping the scrapped ideas for other projects where they might fit or you might end up realizing how to use it later.
This atleast how you can start with it, MadDeoderant did a better explanation on how to the execution properly.