Happy summer, everyone! This month's optional onegameamonth.com theme word to help give you ideas for your next game is:

SOLAR.

As the sun's energy beats down on the world, warming us, feeding plants, disintegrating everything over time, and letting us see all the colours of nature, know that it also provides a myriad of story ideas for games that stretch beyond the obvious. Make a game about collecting energy via photovoltaic panels, about planetary orbits and gravity, about EMP blasts from solar storms that knock out satellites, or ships that use solar sails to cruise around.

Extend your game's reach beyond the confines of the solar system by travelling the speed of light, or stay close to home and simulate a garden or a sea full of algae. You could make a game about bouncing light and mirrors, or about shadows and everything they may conceal. Make a game about vampires avoiding the sun, or a contraption simulation full of epic fails like the wings of Icarus as they get too close to the light. Measure distances or speeds in light years, or create your own virtual planetarium. Explore distant stars looking for extrasolar planets, or simply fly around in the summer breeze as a dragonfly by a pond. You could write about toddlers avoiding the nightmare that is application of sunscreen, or a cyberpunk adventure complete with mirror shades and a thinning ozone layer. Make a sandcastle building game on the beach, or become a sentient solar flare, caught up in a swirling vortex of gravity.

Remember, you don't have to make a game with Solar in the title, nor do you even have to use this theme word at all. There are tons of awesome game jams going on right now, and you're free to save this theme for another day, or another year. If you make a game that has anything at all to do with the word, be sure to put its URL in the monthly theme achievements section of your #1GAM profile to earn an additional 250 experience points. Did you know that you can fulfil any of these achievements at any time, not just in the month they are announced? This is just a fun way for me to add one new possible achievement to #1GAM every month so that the high scores are never capped at a maximum for long.

One Game A Month is a big community of people like you, who aspire to make games. By working on something small each month and forcing yourself to get the the finish line quickly, you are building up your gamedev muscles and learning new stuff constantly. Don't let the fear of getting burned stop you from achieving orbit. Don't beat yourself up if you don't finish, and don't plan to make a giant game of massive proportions; you're more likely to get sucked into a black hole if you aim for the stars than if you simple step outside and see where the adventure leads you. Try to make something small - design a game that has a single mechanic, perhaps inspired by the theme word, and plan to finish early with time for polish. #1GAM games are training exercises, sketches in your sketchbook, and portfolio builders. Take a risk. Learn something new. Keep it simple, and let the sunshine in by thinking optimistically.

Whatever you choose for this month's adventure in game development, remember to power through the dark times and emerge again into the light of day. Good luck, and have tons of fun.

- Christer Kaitila aka @McFunkypants
- twitter.com/McFunkypants