Bar Codes Progress Blog – Ideation in Layers

I’ve been going through one of my favorite parts of the design process: ideation. It’s the creative free-for-all where anything goes, and the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible—especially the strange, the silly, and the unexpected.

But to get anything useful out of it, you need some structure.

Or at least, I do.

Right now, I’m trying to figure out what kind of game Bar Codes might actually be. The name is a double entendre—which is basically my love language—so I want the gameplay to feel just as layered.

I’ve been exploring three different approaches to push the language and find some surprises. They’ve all led somewhere weird, and that’s exactly the point.

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Ideation One: Rethink the Obvious

I started with the most direct method: listing every possible meaning of Bar Codes. Not just UPCs, but anything the words could point to. Here are a few favorites:

• A barcode scanner at the grocery store (default mode)

• The unspoken rules in a bar or pub

• The legal “bar” and its codes of law

• Shower etiquette scribbled near the soap in a dorm

• Bark odes: dramatic canine poetry

• The tapping language used to communicate through prison bars

Some of them were ridiculous. Many were average. But that’s the point—to break out of the expected and start finding ideas that feel playful or provocative.

This wasn’t about designing mechanics yet. Just wordplay. A long walk through possible meanings to shake the dust off.

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Ideation Two: Word Juxtaposition Chaos Engine™

For this one, I split the title into “bar” and “code,” then built long lists of idioms and variations—bar graph, open bar, color bar, code red, cheat code, and so on. Then I started randomly pairing them, with help from ChatGPT. (This is one of the best ways to use it, honestly.)

A lot of the results were forgettable. A few had real spark:

• Sports bar + Morse code — You want to change the channel? You’d better know your dots and dashes.

• Tiki bar + penal code — A fruity drink with legal consequences if you juice the wrong pineapple.

• High bar + code of ethics — How far would you go, ethically, to clear the bar?

• Piano bar + Morse code — The pianist is sending secret messages through the music. Is that Ravel or a warning?

• Bar Mitzvah + cheat code — Arrange the Hebrew characters in the right order to unlock divine access.

• Error bar + dress code — An app that flags your outfit if it doesn’t meet statistical confidence levels.

Each combo felt like a story hook, or a weird little world begging for mechanics. Total chaos—but productive chaos.

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Ideation Three: Break the Words

Finally, I started breaking up the words themselves, writing them in strange formats or alternate spellings. The typography or cultural flavor alone can suggest a different tone for the game.

• Barz K.O.D.E. — A military hip-hop cipher game

• B’arQode — Davy Crockett starts a frontier software company

• B/\R C0de — A leetspeak puzzle-platformer for hacker kids

• Barr Köde — An Irish metal band with occult secrets hidden in their lyrics

• ||</> — A purely symbolic game of compression and syntax

• Bahr Kød — Meat-based deduction with Danish gothic horror flair

This one’s a gamble, but it’s great for throwing your brain off-course just enough to stumble into something fresh.

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What’s Come Out of It?

My goal is to generate at least 8 strong concepts and pick the 3 most promising to develop. So far, I’ve got 5, and here are three I think are worth sharing:

1. UPC Code Stacker A card game where players use transparent cards with fragments of UPC codes. Stack three cards to form a full barcode, then scan it into the Bar Codes website to trigger your next action. Challenges might include switching game rules or doing something absurd like asking a bartender for a lollipop.

2. The Code You Can’t Break Players or teams each get a secret “code” they must follow throughout the game—like never speaking, or never breaking eye contact. Breaking your code results in a penalty. The last team standing wins. It’s like Simon Says meets a social deduction experiment.

3. Guess the Word, Hide the WordEach player is secretly assigned a code word. One other player knows your word—but you don’t know who. Their goal is to trick someone else into saying your word. Your job is to stop it. Meanwhile, an investigator can ask targeted questions to uncover who knows what. It’s a language trap with shifting allegiances.

I’m not entirely sold on any of these yet, but they’re interesting enough to keep pushing. With a few more ideas in the mix, the right ones will rise to the top.

This is where it starts, digging through meanings, smashing metaphors together, and seeing what survives.