Vending machine game thoughts/ideas

A concept of a game-idea… Vending Machine Simulator. But not as in: drive around and manage your vending-machines. More like: the vending-machine is the game. I feel like there could be more to it. (Every bullet-point is an unrelated thought)

  • A card game, where a card is one product in one of the vending-tracks. You draw and place the cards randomly in a grid, like 4x4.

  • You have to use a vending-machine “from hell” where you have to buy strategically for the product to not get stuck. It can’t fall down too far. Or your product gets stuck and you need to buy the one above to unlock it, when it falls down and frees the other one.

  • There could be ridiculous products inside, like a broom or animals, monsters.

  • The numbers could play a role, where you don’t see the numbers and have to find out what you number is.

  • The challenge could be that your task is to buy a specific product, but ultimately it takes half an hour.

    • You don’t have enough money, so you first buy something cheaper, then try to sell it yourself etc. a bit like a point&click-game.
    • There could be a phone and some tools available to the player.
    • The player has to buy Y. Y costs 5$. The player has only 4$. But: The product Z costs 50ct, and has bonus points. The player searches for Product Z on their phone and finds the app. The player buys 5 times Z and can now afford Y thanks to the bonus points.
    • The machine could offer lottery tickets for machine-credits.

  • “The Venting Machine” with a T, however that might look

  • In each “round” you can ultimately choose to just punch the machine, you will get everything, but it would be the last round. Light kicking would trigger a warning, but you can go on.

  • Use a combination of shaking, kicking, paying, grabbing from bottom to get the goods.

  • A vending machine where you can add additional slots, and it can get ridiculously large. The higher it gets, the more fall-damage the products suffer. Or the longer it takes the robot arm to retrieve the thing.

  • A vending-machine-track can have different products, maybe the order in which the products are being inserted could be a mechanic

  • A vending machine kinda looks like a smartphone home-screen

  • The machine could have a “debug” mode or be hackable in some way

  • A vending machine cookie clicker style game. that would bring it back to the machine-manager-style game that I didn’t want.

    • 1 click is 1 fill of a product in one (of multiple) machine
    • you can upgrade to 1 click -> multiple fills
    • there are emerging trends and products can get stuck due to a hype ebbing

  • A cozy game where you load the vending-machine, and then let the day happen, people walking by. some are buying something. you can listen to their talking or thoughts, to fill it up with something they need. “I hope I don’t forget my cable tomorrow”. Next day: add a cable to one of the tracks. Person forgets their cable and is happy they can buy one at the players machine.

    • could include “love letters”, or other messages-in-bottles from people to people
    • could move through times like starting at middle ages and continuing to the far future, supporting the surrounding people

  • Could have a search where you have to actively find names for items, like Scribblenauts. try to find what objects the people need and store them.