This is my last submission to the 10 ideas a day streak for now. My goal for this streak was to improve on my creative thinking, as I believe that can be treated like a skill you can train. So this last submission is devoted to more ideas to improve.

1. collect inspiration & ideas in a filterable/searchable system/database (tags) to spark new ideas (by association)/ collect for later reference
2. train Neural Network on idea database, to automatically generate new, similar ideas -> possible inspiration
3. find new ideas together with other people to diversify results
4. Separate process into a) analyzing problem and defining goals b) find ideas (judging-free) c) judge and select ideas based on defined goals
5. Try out clustering method -> could be daily creative exercise around random word
6. This streak accidentally used a creative technique - an idea marathon -> can keep on doing that, but in notebook I carry it with me, which makes it way easier to fit in the day to day
7. Travel -> new impression, unfamiliar environments bring fresh perspective
8. Participate in a creative writing class
9. Idea finding process is like a Recurrent Neural Network: formulate goal, create output, measure quality of output based on goal
10. Create more text generators to facilitate associative thinking

This was a fun streak! I really felt like I there already was a change in my ability to come up with ideas, putting me in the right mindset.

And I created some maybe interesting ideas on the way :D May continue this in analog form in my notebook.

Today I chose a random theme using https://www.randomlists.com/random-words and added the modifier of "3d prints" to it - I want to come up with 3d printed products.

1. tiny modular boat as child toy - you have a basic case and can add objects, fisherman etc. as you like (maybe Lego-compatible)
2. Toy for adults: little rowboat with mechanism to move the paddles
3. Contest: who can make a boat go the fastest/longest? All parts must solely work with 3d printing.
4. Little "boat garden" for cress, to swim inside glass bowl -> sponge inside soaks up automatically with new water
5. Make custom 3d printed "waterpark" with channels for boats to swim in
6. little ocean diorama: Print ocean floor with beautiful corals -> fill up with transparent resin -> add boat to top part
7. On longer sail boat trips, use battery/generator powered 3d printer to quickly fix broken parts/for little repairs; note: must be very manageable, as there is not much room on board, also potential fire hazard -> optimize printer or use on bit larger ships
8. 3d print and sell boat in bottles with great detail and few manual work
9. swimming boat in water bowl, which has an uneven surface on the bottom for underwater plants to grow on and move with the boat
10. Collect plastic part in oceans and find a way to use them for 3d printing

To switch things up, this time I asked my Twitter followers to give me a theme. Well, I got this. Not my favorite theme but I'm gonna try.

1. You explore an abandoned house. As you make your way trough the building a narrative forms from the things you find lying around. You observe, trough the documents and objects, the family dynamic and how it fell apart. (could be game) - I explored such a building myself once .. very sad
2. You wander trough the dream world of a person, meet both good and bad sides, meet the people that bullied them in school, that didn't ever let them feel safe or able to trust someone outside of family. The game could be resolved with the notion of moving on and growing, but still it's hard and it may influence them, but it hasn't have to control them. (the game is about gaining control about the dreams, the inner world)
3. Game where you experience the world trough the eyes of a pig in a stable .. would make the graphics simplified, to make it more universal/ to allow for a bit distanced reflection on the matter, while stile letting emotion and empathy in
4. a game where the main character can be robbed of their ability (to move, communicate) partly or total, by another character of the plot. But they change, sometimes they are nice. You never know when it breaks out again, and want as character just for things to be normal.
5. A game. You meet a strange girl, with a face filled with a void of stars. You're curious, you follow her, try to understand. Can you?
6. A game where you play as a witch helping people to get rid of their problems. In this world, mental illnesses and/or "baggage" can be visually seen as monster - but only by the witches. Your goal is to help people, but you maybe can't always. You fail, feel guilty, get better. Swore that this will never happen again and you try your best.
7. The game starts with the players character relation to the other main character. They never like them, always feel endangered around them. But then the other surprisingly dies and you as character try to make sense of it, try to understand. Was he really all bad?
8. You are a crow, a spirit, searching for food. You have chicklings and they are nearly starving. You fly out and find yourself next to several violent scenes. Who will you help? Your chicklings or the humans? Most players will probably try to help both, but this shouldn't be possible to highlight the dilemma. A game about life, and how life needs death to keep on circling.
9. An experimental game or short movie, where the player is swathed in fine strings. As the piece progresses, the character is facing their fears, but often their strings grow more and thicker. But as they keep on fighting, more and more strings go, until you see the body beneath made out of a field of stars. Then the body vanishes.
10. You find an old set of VHS tapes. For some reason you decide to start watching them. Soon you can't stop. Scenes of family life, but inbetween things are breaking, things are falling apart, characterized by the static of the TV. Exploring the wish of the character to act, to help, the player finds themself in a made up, distorted universe, together with the family. They try to help, but in the end, it was all just about looking back. Things are long gone. Who are they know? Did they ever get over it?

So this was actually a good theme! Lot's of meaningful, darker things here. Thanks ludonaut for the theme! :)

It's already pretty late, so I'm gonna try to make it as quick as possible this time :D

Theme is from my generator again!

1. A place in an autumnal swamp, an old witch house - the player/film viewer finds the house and explores the lost magic
2. A tree is growing out of a ruin, with beautiful colorful leaves. It's a tale about the "cycle of life" and the relation of man and nature
3. A house cut out of colorful autumn leaves, set aflame in a video
4. You explore a lost city, overgrown by large, looming autumn trees. Who lived here? Why did they leave?
5. An abandoned mushroom house or tower. The player is tiny or could also be normal sized (wonders all around us)
6. A huge old tree has fallen down - a point and click game about exploring the tree and seeing all the species living in and from such "dead wood"
7. A skeleton covered by autumn leaves like a bouquet of flowers - lost but not forgotten, nature cares for it
8. Parts of an old apple tree have grown inside a lost childrens bedroom, transforming it into a surreal, dreamlike scene - game/film about the dream about being close to nature and animals; you meet a squirrel showing you around
9. A game about the "zone" around the Chernobyl area - you play as animal, and see & explore how nature reclaims the old buildings (set in Autumn)
10. Sleeping on top of a bed of colorful leaves you find a girl or woman - curious you get closer, but she wakes up, get's scared and run away. You decide to follow and soon discover the secret of her laying her (she is a spirit/symbol of nature) - but now that you learned how to live with nature you can't go back anymore

Today is a little experiment! I used my generator to give me a random topic and will try to come up with art ideas around it.

1. A movie/game where the main character is really hungry - he sees a fruit hanging high up on a tree and makes several (humorous) attempts to get it, until a girl suddenly appears and takes the fruit in a swift motion. He chases after her and a play between them two ensues. Then the girl introduces him to her world.
2. The witches garden - a game/installation where your task is to "babysit" the plants of the witch .. which have a life of their own (see "Pepper and Carrot" for style of narration)
3. An old lady in a shop sells the main character a special plant .. she is really nice and the main character likes her. Then she dies and the character is left with the plant. Soon they discover it has a life on it's own ..
4. The player meets a dyrad (a ghost connected to it's tree). Soon they discover the tree is about to be lumberjacked. (from here on player could either try to stop it or the tree gets cut down and a new sapling comes .. and he kinda has to watch over it, care for it.)
5. Art installation where plants are projected (with lightbeamer) into little glass jars - if possible: react on touch or other sensory input
6. A botanist's apartment that is filled with botanical illustrations come to life
7. There is a special flower that only blooms at midnight .. the main character is trying to get it, as it's a way to cure someone dear .. but next to the flower they meet another person, who appears to be ill themself .. who will they help? Someone dear to them or a stranger right in front of them? -> movie/game about moral dilemma
8. The player is a spirit that has the ability to inhabit plants and make them grow - game about moving around in the city, from green spot to green spot, with little city scenes, how people live, how they react on things growing
9. In a gray city, you enter a secret garden trough a back alley door. It's growing wild and is a bit dried out - the player finds out that the former gardner is gone and that he used to spread the plants around the city to bring people joy. - game about spreading seeds and plants in the city without getting caught -> player will see people smile and "blossom" themselves; nature as symbol for freedom, individualism, expression
10. A forest monster that forms out of plants, needles, etc.

I really liked this experiment! Was a really fun way of brainstorming, it just kept the ideas coming ^^

While I'm still a student, I heard from quite some people how much of a struggle it can be to earn a living as an indie developer.

As I'm also considering this as an option, I want to come up with alternate ideas about getting an income, besides the regular selling games as product and filling the gaps with contract work (not that there would be anything wrong with that).

1. Sell (physical) merch of your game - this is still a topic not thoroughly explored. Could be especially applicable if the game has strong, memorable characters. Options could include plushies, artprints, 3D prints, artbook
2. Create tools/plugins (for gamedev) - might be an interesting additional income, but may require quite some maintenance work
3. Host local gaming events with entry fee or paid by venue (e.g. local multiplayer, make/play game with audience)
4. Not an income per se .. but one can benefit in many ways from a good network of indie friends and colleagues
5. Non-intrusive, optional Micro-transactions (see e.g. Viridi)
6. Interesting idea in "Meadow" -> unlock special skins, sounds, characters if owning other games by the developer
7. Offer paid gamedev tutorial videos/ebooks
8. Sell game assets
9. Teach making game workshops at schools or other venues
10. Sell soundtrack separately

Ideas to make game worlds more coherent and atmospheric

1. Try to get a feeling for "standing" in the world as player, while making it (Sauerbraten/Tesseract does this really well)
2. Pick up a laptop and go to the kind of places you make for the game
3. Try to understand how things work together and keep it in mind while making the world (e.g. species in nature; how did the hole get in the roof; why is this thing here and what is it doing?)
4. Have animals/NPC not only interact with player, but have a life on their own
5. Possible experiment: capture all 3D models (using photogrammetry) and Sounds on one spot -> create a digital representation of it, that comes very close to the original
6. Implement findings from Geology, Biology, Physics, Architecture, etc when making game worlds (e.g. erosion, earth history, species behavior)
7. Connect the gameworld to the narrative & game design (e.g. with color, light, elements, composition)
8. Besides understanding how things work, experience/knowledge in Color Theory, Composition and Light (Drawing Fundamentals) is immensely helpful
9. Travel to places, make experiences & studies, try to understand how a place feels and works
10. Make game worlds, ship them. Gather feedback and criticism of players.

10 ideas about using so-called "neural networks" to improve one's (creative) workflow

I'm not deep into neural networks (yet). I trained a neural network on text based works (Jules Verne) the last days (used https://github.com/karpathy/char-rnn).

1. Assist in writing - trained NN suggests sentences in the style of e.g. a certain author
2. Create dialogue, names, graphics, sounds for game and other digital media
3. Use as creative writing prompt - create summary to base text on/ or rewrite generated text
4. Use NN to exploit or close bugs in games and other software
5. Train NN on own coding style - suggest fitting code
6. Use well-trained NN to assist in decision-finding
7. Use NN to suggest related art for a given keyword as inspiration - trained on the things the user "favorites"
8. Train NN on pieces of artwork with desired style -> recreate similar artwork for personal projects
9. NN trained on artwork can also be used to input random inspiration, e.g. stuck with painting, NN adds something to it
10. If need to create a big, similar set of assets by hand, can train NN to do it for you

I hope this makes sense .. a very interesting topic. I don't get it completely yet, but I think it'll increase in use and influence in near future.
I attached my first test of training a RNN on 4 books of Jules Verne for a day. It would need a bit more time and data, but it already yields pretty interesting results.

Time to revive the 10 ideas a day streak, to get better at creative thinking!

Today I want to come up with ideas to increase reader participation in the "traditional" blog format.

While blogs had a great importance in the early 2000's, the audience seems to shift more towards video formats. I assume this comes from videos being more fitting for the medium of a 2D screen (blogs as relic of newspaper and early text-oriented Internet), more visually appealing and more "personal", with a stronger connection of reader and author (e.g. Vlogs, Streams, Social Media).

So how can blogs be adapted to be more fitting for the current point in time? How can we make them more visually appealing, interactive and personal? Here are 10 ideas.

1. Involve 2D visual arts (images, video) in blogposts, as they are the dominating medium (will prob change later towards 3D representation & VR)
2. Use headlines & images (other means of providing a clear structure) to make articles easily skim-able
3. If fitting include personal thoughts, experiences and stories to underline points (more personal)
4. For personal blogs, introduce yourself as person (e.g. image, short description or video), not as pure name
5. Provide easy ways for readers to participate by discussing the points highlighted in the blogpost
6. Include specific questions about the topic of the blogpost to spark discussion
7. Provide opportunities for the readers not only to discuss with you, but also with each other. The traditional threaded blog-comment system is probably outdated. Maybe a more "grouped" system as on Youtube would work, but without the upvoting feature.
8. Create "illustrative" cover images (with title text), that summarize the expected content and spark interest
9. Host a regular blog format all focused around discussing a topic or question with the readers/ encouraging them to share their perspective and and experiences
10. Provide more "modern" ways to keep updated with your blog. RSS is great, but most people use Social Media. Or use an email-newsletter, everybody still has an email-address.

So this were 10 (random) ideas to make blogposts more fitting for the current developments. I hope you found some inspiration.

10 ideas about a better toolset (from an artist, who is also coding)

1. it's all about automatizing those tiny tasks you do the most
2. Gamification can be used as tool to upkeep motivation and steer behaviour
3. brushes do a great deal to speed up digital painting
4. a good asset pool/ library saves time and work
5. a toolset can not only help to work efficient, but also to develop an unique artistic style
6. it's crucial to manage your time, energy and attention throughout the day in order to work productively (try out the simple & effective Pomodoro method)
7. for game development instant testing can help to quickly iterate and get a feel of the world
8. the best toolset is useless, if your personality don't live up to it (experiencing the world for a strong visual library, treating finishing as a skill, etc. etc.)
9. if you work mainly on the computer, you may want to use a tool to block out distractions, such as Social Media
10. have an open mind and try to recognize patterns in your work life, you then can automate

10 ideas about alien plants (in games)

1. take a real world plant and add glowing parts to it
2. combine two different real world plants into one
3. a distinct, characteristic color palette in contrast to the earth
4. pulsing is good, makes things feel crazy and alive
5. inspiration can also come from the microcosm of the earth (mites, tiny fungi, etc.)
6. pollen can be used wonderfully to make a scene feel more alive
7. don't make it to different, or else people won't recognize, but make it different enough
8. some plants could have tentacles like the honeydew plant, to consume organic matter
9. it's important that everything in an ecosystem is linked logically and audio-visually together
10. inspiration can also come from creatures of deep sea (crazy structures, glow, live from chemicals)

10 ideas to make cities greener

1. rooftop gardens can help to produce vegetables, regulate climate and increase biodiversity (as seen in Bologna, Italy)
2. guerilla gardeners illegally turn empty public spots into flower fields
3. spread seeds of native species for free among citizen (as happening in Leipzig, Germany)
4. vertical gardens both indoor and outdoor can improve live quality and climate (as seen in Malmö, Sweden)
5. community gardens can help to produce vegetables, regulate climate, create ecological niches and connect people (as seen in Berlin, Germany)
6. parks are very costly to maintain - should be partly turned into community gardens and city forests
7. spread information on how to create ecological niches (e.g. many greenflies on roses can nourish little birds, wild flowers are a place for many insects, birds and little rodents)
8. it's even possible to grow vegetables indoors (e.g. IKEA has out-of-the-box solutions for this)
9. a variety of hanging plants can be used to effectively use space
10. a project where a box of chicken travels around the city, which helps to increase awareness for food production (as seen in Leipzig, Germany)

10 ideas on creating alien worlds

1. reference/abstract earth creatures to make monsters more believable
2. every monster has an unique sound scheme, creating all together the ambient (communication, warning, hurt)
3. experiment with glowing surfaces, making the alien forest even more interesting at night
4. a soft pulse / movement in the wind helps to make things more believable
5. add some pollen to the air to let the world feel more detailed and alive
6. study real life "aliens" such as horseshoe crabs (blue blood) or snails
7. palettes could consist of a dominating terrain texture contrasted by a complementary glow color (around plants)
8. new technologies like the Occulus Rift make those worlds more tangible
9. lowpoly/ proceduralism/ shared textures can help to speed up the implementation circle of new species
10. alien worlds are rarely explored in games by now, the potential is huge (new recent genres include space garden sim)

10 ideas how gamification can improve daily life

1. placing the alarm clock on the other side of the room and add additional feedback for turning it off -> make standing up a fun task
2. create an app where you can only record 1s every day - the programm automatically cuts it together -> visualize growth and increase self-awareness
3. a social platform to share progress on creating niches for little animals (flower fields, moss gardens) -> increase bio-diversity and life quality
4. create a platform to explore upcoming artists -> help artists to start out
5. similar to geocaching hide tiny secrets in areas extended by a narrative layer -> encouraging outside activities
6. Real-time feedback on electricity usage by a counter on the wall -> encourage saving power
7. create a tiny monster to introduce your biography -> make information interesting, lasting
8. send postcards which show an area map including a red cross (hidden place) -> encourage outside activities
9. use the Pomodoro method to chunk down your work into little 25min tasks with 5min breaks in between -> work focused, steady energy
10. this streak itself has gamification elements: social feedback & sense of progress (also a clear goal to achieve) -> help you to make creative thinking a habit