New games from old

One of the easiest ways to come up with a new game is by combining elements of two or more traditional games. Pongling is a good illustration of the success of this strategy. Combining Breakout (the authors refer to it as Pong) with bowling (hence Pong-ling) results in a game that is different enough to be "new," and challenging enough to be fun.

In my role as "inner pediatrician" I often help the inner-child grow by teaching it to create its own games. Most of us, in our attempts play grown-up, test ourselves against "official" games. We lose faith in the games that we make up ourselves, and allow ourselves to be judged as players by how well we perform in the games that other people have created. After a while, we believe that we have neither the license nor the ability to create games. Which is why kinds of fun we had as children becomes more and more difficult to achieve. Because we are no longer the authors of our own play experiences.

(thanks, Milk and Cookies, for the link)