What if YOU could design a video game?

[Jeivar]

. . . supported by a talented group of programmers, plenty of time, and a plentiful budget? What kind of game would you make?

I've been thinking about this, and I've decided my own fantasy project: A superhero, RPG pseudo-sandbox game.

*It would take place in a large, detailed city, possibly a fictional one, or heck . . . maybe even one in a completely fictional world for maximum creative freedom.

*A complex and dark story, featuring playable flashbacks from the heroes' pasts, showing what led to the current situation. The history of superheroing, and supervillainy, would be revealed bit by bit, with snippets from conversations, background radio and TV, and the flashbacks.

*It would feature several playable superhero characters, of wildly different personalities, power levels, approaches and worldviews. At least one of them would be a grim, Batman/Rorschach-esque urban detective, and at least one would be an optimistic Superman-personality, with a power-level similar to Storm or Spider-Man.

*Different play-and-combat styles depending on the character being played in each level, each one playing and revealing a part of the overall story as the Big Bad's plot rolls forward. Each one would have different side missions depending on their powers. Superman-dude might help disaster victims or fight a rampaging giant robot, while Batschach smashes through skylights down into mafia meetings, and interrogates thugs in alleys

*Some RPG-choices, that affect the endings. Perhaps Superman-dude might become a true beacon for the populace, or become more jaded and harsh. Or Batschach might find hope and inner peace, or descend into true savagery.

*Highly interactive and destructive environment. Superman-dude might smash through a roof or wall while grappling with a foe, a telekinesis character could throw all kinds of things, and Batschach would throw people out through windows and use chairs and radiators as weapons.

*Background news reports detailing how the player has been handling things so far. Superdude might hear about Batschachs reign of terror against the underworld, and Batschach would hear about Supers flashy, big-time heroics.

*Basically all those things that make superhero-fight awesome: Fights on high-rise rooftops, exploding building, fights inside blimps, prison riots, ticking time bombs, hostage situations, and what-have-you.

So, what would you do?

[chiasaur11]

Having read about it, my response probably would be "Something like Halo ODST. "

If it lives up to its potential, I kinda need that game.

[BRC]

I typed up an idea for an RTS way back when and posted it here. I probably still have the text file, though people made some really good suggestions in the thread and I'm too lazy to find said thread (it probably got purged), read the suggestions, and put them into the document.

[Thanatos 51-50]

I, too, would go with the super hero sandbox with moral choice.
I've been refining the basics of the system four a while. Original concept had four power sources and three paths per power source. The thing is that the Natural, Science and Tech sources kept overlapping so much in my head it became crazy and I integrated them all and called it Tech.
So, when you create your character, you go through a kind of inteactive backstory, with the whole batman-esque murdered parents and nigh-unlimited funds backstory. During this process, you choose, via some some of loyalty to retain either your Electronics Tutor (Technology) or your Philosophy Instructor (Magicks) - as you are a rich kid and have private tutors.
The shunned tutor becomes the BBEG of the game tater on.

Then, later, on your birthday, your parents give you a chance to go to one of three events (Current thinking is a exclusive, way underground UFC -style event as a spectator (Offensive tilt, meaning blasty spells or light armour and rifles), a performance art piece/broadway show (Utility Tilt, general Batman Wizardry or just plain Batman), or something else that could easily construed as a Defensive tilt (Turning you into Iron Man or some Magickally-based nigh-invulnerale flying brick).

Then your character's mother/father would give some sort of speech on morals and Heroics and working for the good of others.
And then they get brutally murdered. Being rich enough, you are emancipated instead of sent into the system.

Years pass, and we go into the game, as a Tech/Magic-powered hero in an enviroment condusive to your powers, where you make small-time decisions with spawn ripples into the pond that is the city. The Game would feature.


Champions Online levels of character customization (For your later years. Chillin's will just frustrate the player to create a character that they use for what is essentially a five minuete tutorial.)
Usable Secret identities. You can move in your Secret Identity without attracting Random Encounters. You will still have access to some or all of your powers.
Using your powers whilst in your Secret Identity will compromise it, negating the Secret Identity Protection v Random Encounters. (This means you will have no rest from upstart wannabe heroes or small-time villians looking to make a name for themselves)
Morality that works! Instead of being judged on a Good v Evil scale, you will be judged on Kindness v Cruelty and Violence v Non-violence, with usable solutions for every problem. You can manually steer yourself down the Evil Dictator or Paragon of Virtue Path if you so desire, or have them game select one for you, with good being Kind and Evil being Cruel.
Tech v Magic conflict! Not setting it up as Good v Evil, but Magic saturation will dampen the effect of your tech abilities and vice-versa. You will be shown a bar on the screen letting you know where the balance stands.
Character upgrades that come in the form of new spells (Magic) or new pieces of kit (Tech). you can also choose to alter the saturation levels of the City. Is your mage having trouble in the Electronics District? Magic it up! You may find the route to be morally reprehensible, though, but hey, summoning deamons for power should be right up some alleys.

[Erloas]

One of two options, nothing revolutionary but instead classic designs that I feel should still be around.

Option 1 would be a space combat simulator/open ended RPG. Not a simulator per trying to mimic real life as much as possible, but in being as realistic as people expect in those situations. Something along the lines of Privateer 1&2. I have been mostly disappointed by some games people claimed were about the same but really weren't as far as I was concerned.
Things like power sliding should be common, not this lack of inertia (or automatically reverse controlled as they say, not that they don't do inertia but that the ships automatically work against normal inertia, same end result, different justification). It has to be a game that is first and foremost designed to be controlled with a joystick. The joystick should be the native controls for the system, in fact it wouldn't bother me at all if mouse/keyboard wasn't even an option. The game should focus on the player doing what they need to to survive, an individual making a living in the ruthlessness of space. Option to be very in line with local governments, be completely neutral and never taking one side or the other or being as ruthless of a pirate as you want. The game not forcing you down any one path and a continuing and differing story line for major decisions, so at least 3 different primary story lines that probably completely diverge to the point of not being the same story at the end from one to the other. Not like Freespace where a story mission completely changes and resets your standing in the world no matter what you did before that and no matter how good or bad you were earlier changed how the story progressed.


The other option would be a turn based tactical RPG. A continuation of what Fallout 1&2 were in gameplay if not in setting. Not sure what the setting would be. But unquestionably an RPG in every aspect where character skill decides what happens, no mini-games, many situations that can only be handled in certain ways if you have the right skills and not where you can always find a good solution to every problem no matter what your skill set is. Probably a similar story system to mentioned earlier with truly diverging stories and decisions that change the progression of the world and story.

[Hunter Noventa]

I think I'd make a Super Robot Wars MMO. Which would probably end up with a system similar to champions, but not entirely the same.

But yes, giant robots, upgrading them, adding parts and weapons. Needing to build up willpower for your bigger attacks. All the mechanics are there for a bitchin MMO.

[Geno9999]

I would make either a Smash Bros-esque game were you can summon helpers, similar to Assist trophies in Brawl, but you can summon them any time and they can be killed. Make a fighting mode where you have premade "decks" for characters and a somewhat Action RPG Story mode.

Or, I would make essentially a Fire Emblem gone Mecha game. Have players control Transformer-like robots and standard military-non-transforming-mecha army.

[CapedLuigiYoshi]

Well, first several games with the various settings I've developed to establish them.

Then a few crossover games, one being Smash Bros.-esque.

Then more single-setting games.

And it'll all fall through on the first game, because if my experience with Game Maker has taught me anything, it's that I am not a good level designer.

[aje8]

An extremely compelx game that allows players to optimize and control every aspect of their character. Combat would definanatley be turned based, but whether grid-based group on group Fire Emblem style or menu-based 1v1 or few on few Final Fanasy style, I'm not sure.

The premise would likley be some sort of excuse for 1 to control many. I'm thinking disease master. Players would have control over every facet of their own character (stuff like Immune System, Physical Abiltiies, number of diseases, overall strength of each individual disease. and control over every facet of each individual disease. Your ultimate goal? Take over the world!

The rest of the world would be equally sandboxxy and put the player in control. To they attempt to target well-defended hospitals and such for a mass diease spreading and many casulaties? Or do they capture and randsom important people and even whole countries under the threat of deadly uncurable diseases.


Or, I would make essentially a Fire Emblem gone Mecha game. Have players control Transformer-like robots and standard military-non-transforming-mecha army.
I'd play that.

[warty goblin]

Million Worlds War

...My country said son, it's time to stop ramblin', there's work to be done.
The million inhabited worlds of the galaxy are at war, human against alien, alien against machine, machine against human. Historians argue endlessly about what started the war, who is to blame and who is in the right. For most people, this matters little. Some know their side is in the right and heap scorn and derision upon any who doubt, some mourn the senseless waste of so many lives, most try to survive.

So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun...
Every major power and every race marches their uncountable billions into combat, while trillions more labor in factories, producing the endless streams of warships, shells, missiles, tanks and guns their brothers, sisters, hivemates, bloodbonds, hunting pledges and circuitclones need on the front lines, so many light years away. Many will die in the factories, more will die to the steady attrition of bullet and shell and shrapnel. Those at home wonder whether their last sight of their loved ones will be the hands waving farewell from the transports. Most of the soldiers know they will never see home again.

...and they marched me away to the war...
You are one such soldier. This is your story.

Million Worlds War is a science fiction FPS built around player choice. The first choice you make is what race to play as:

Human: Humans can carry two guns, and up to 50kg of gear.

Kizlarth: Kizlarthi stand about five feet tall, are bipedal, but from the waist up feature near radial symmetry. They have four tentacle arms arrayed around a central mouth at the top of their trunk, and a pair of eyes on stalks protruding above this. They have no head to speak of. They move more slowly than humans, but have eyes that see into the IR, which highlight enemies, and can carry three guns and with 55kg of gear. Being aquatic in origin, they cannot drown.

Abelet: Abeleti are doglike or apelike in stature, and run on all fours. Due to this they are the fastest moving of all species. Being descended from powerful hunting packs that roamed the plains of their world millenia ago, abeleti possess a powerful bite, and a sense of smell that often alerts them to the presense of enemies. Since they use all four limbs for locomotion, they evolved a single powerful grasping proboscus on the front of their head, which they use to manipulate tools and weapons.This limits them to a single main weapon and a light sidearm however. Abeleti can carry 45kg of gear.

Mavish: Mavish are physically the strongest of the biological races, making use of a hydraulic musculatature, partial exoskeleton, and strong endoskeleton. Mavish evolved from insectiod lifeforms on a heavy gravity world far from the sun and wreathed in thick clouds. They are thus partially colorblind, but have unmatched lowlight vision. Their vast strength allows Mavish to bludgeon enemies, and carry 4 guns and 75kg of gear.

And how well I remember that terrible day, how our blood stained the sand and the water

The gameplay is combat heavy, but is designed for maximum replayability. Many maps are randomly generated, along with appropriate objectives- attack, defend, etc. In addition, before battle, you can select your combat loadout, consisting of weapons, armor, grenades, medical supplies and other accessories such as target painters and night vision goggles. You will recieve a briefing on enemy force disposition before doing so, so you won't end up carting a rocket launcher around a level devoid of tanks or hardpoints, or a sniper rifle when fighting in a dense urban area.

Combat would be brutal. Wounds would bleed, unless you applied bandages. Powerful weapons could wreck havok upon one's body- which is visible to the player should they look down. Enemies and friendlies can be incapacitated by enemy fire, and either could be treated by the player, forcing them to decide between saving others or putting themselves at risk. Weapon impacts would kick up sprays of dirt and grit, which would spatter onto the player's visor, as would blood from nearby wounded or killed. More powerful weapons can completely dismember their victims.

In terms of gameplay, MWW would tend towards the tactical, with cover playing a vital role in survival. Use of weapon sights, vision modes, et cetera would be critical to success, although this would not be as hardcore as a game like ArmA. Perhaps around Battlefield levels of fidelity, although with less plane camping.

Weapons would be crucial to the MMW experience. Most would be powerful energy weapons with distinctly different feelings and performance. I'm still thinking about this aspect of the game. All I know is that I want them to be genuinely futuristic, I'm tired of running around space with a dressed up M4.

[warty goblin]

Further thoughts, upon reflection.

1) You would usually have a choice of two or three missions, except for some major set piece battles.

2) You 'win' the game by surviving a tour of duty, which would consist of 6 missions on Easy, up to 15 on Insane difficulty. There'd be some other difficulties in the middle, with appropriate numbers of missions. You can earn medals for saving your allies when they are wounded, killing lots of the enemy or taking key objectives, but these don't give you anything new. On Insane if you die, the game deletes your saves for that character.

3) You are a grunt, not an elite super soldier infiltrating behind enemy lines. This means you are stuck in with a lot of other grunts. Unlike a lot of games, serious effort would be made to ensure your allies are competant, and so having them all die would be a serious handicap. Bandading them up thus is a viable strategy. Whether you heal, execute or abandon wounded enemies is up to you.

4) I want the energy weapons to really feel like energy weapons. Plasma weapons shouldn't just do damage, they should heat body armor up red hot on impact, and noticably burn exposed flesh. Laser weapons would be hitscan, but suffer from diffusion over long ranges and would be unable to penetrate thick smoke. Some heavier energy weapons would cause targets to explode, if you're too close you take damage from the steam explosion. Some of the more basic and crude weapons would still use bullets, but these would be less effective than the energy weapons. Rocket propelled anti-infantry flechette weapons would be fairly common though.

Destructable enviorenments is probably too much to ask, but stuff like fences and trees would have to be destroyable.

[Athaniar]

As I mentioned in the last "design a game" thread (that I participated in), my favorite idea is the sci-fi RTS Hostis Humani Generis, about several alien species (and some human factions) fighting for control of the Earth.

More info:

For more than two thousand years, five powerful species have fought for control of the galaxy. Earth, however has been left untouched by war, thanks to an agreement between the species (although covert (and sometimes not so covert) operations have been carried out occasionally). Until now, that is. In late 2012, an alien superweapon impacted on the planet, destroying much of North America. None of the species wanting to claim responsibility, the treaty didn't last for much longer. Now, Earth is under siege. Can the humans, united in three major factions and armed with new weaponry based on technology recovered from the remains of the superweapon, stop the aliens, or will the Earth fall to one of the enemies of mankind?

Hostis Humani Generis is the latest RTS from Strategy Satyr Studios, already proclaimed to be the best sci-fi RTS ever. Some of its features include:

-Diverse factions! Play as one of the five alien species (the warlike and insidious reptilian Xeshari, the mentally powerful Grey Ones, the environmentalist Nommo, the mysterious insectoid Seers, or the even more mysterious energy beings known as the Arcani) or one of the three human factions (the European Union, the Red Empire, or the Arabian Confederacy) as you either defend Earth or try to conquer it.

-Fast-paced and tactical combat! Lead your forces, capture buildings, summon reinforcements, do whatever it takes to bring down your foes.

-Amazing graphics! Never before has a strategy game looked or acted this realistic. See laser fire being exchanged on the frozen plains of the Arctic, behold the Colosseum in Rome being torn apart by mechanical walkers, and watch in awe as a Blue Sun capital ship eradicates those who dare oppose it with its massive weaponry. Destroy almost everything, and look good doing so.

-Intriguing campaign! Experience the dawn of the war and its blood-soaked end through the eyes of any of the game's factions, and interact with many heroes and villains along the way.

The quote is not a quote, it just looks good.


Another game I'd be interested in is a Warcraft fighting game. I've gathered some ideas here (http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Xavius/Warcraft:_Arena_of_Legends).

[Shpadoinkle]

Honestly... it'd be a lot like Dwarf Fortress. I'd strive for an easier interface and include an in-game tutorial, though.

Going with DF as the base, I'd first make the display more customizable (i.e. it's plausible but not neccisarily practical to run it at whatever resolution you want). Second you'd be able to task specific units with specific jobs (i.e. click this unit, tell him "go here and do this," a la the Warcraft games).

Third, I'd add a sort of simple political structure, mostly for dealing with neighboring civilizations. It would pretty much be the same kind of thing seen in the Civilization series.

After that would be the ability to raid enemy civilizations and either enslave, slaughter, or convert the population of captured settlements.

Multiple settlements could be played one at a time. Settlements not being played still act as if they are (i.e. units go about thier jobs, repeating the last thing they've been ordered to do, or doing whatever's in thier command queue). So you could designate a huge building to be made in one settlement, go play another for a while, and come back to the first and progress would have been made on it while you were away. There would be an in-game alert feature to remind you to check on things like that either after a given amount of time has passed, or once some other condition is fulfilled.

To be less of a potential pain in the ass, the semi-realtime 'self playing' could be toggled on or off for settlements individually. If you're not playing a settlement and have the realtime feature toggled off, it won't change until you come back to it, similar to how The Sims is. It'll update if you interact with it from another settlement, but otherwise it won't change.

You'd be able to export an image of a given region and be able to edit it directly for use in a Warcraft style game. There would be default configurations of enemies (i.e. a couple dozen goblin archers with guard towers dotting the landscape and connected via underground tunnels, a la the Maginot Line, with however many camps you want that contain goblin melee units and thier trained animals, (or not, if you prefer) and patrols going back and forth between the camps periodically. They'd have some way of signalling each other (smoke signals or fireworks or something), but it would take time and you'd have a grace period to stop it before the rest of the enemy army is alerted. Just as one example.

The last idea that comes to mind is the ability to create a single character (or take control of an existing one) and go on a solo adventure wherever the hell you want in the world. Want to explore a cave? Want to go to a goblin city and set things on fire at random? Want to go into town, buy some land, build a giant house, then knock it down so it crushes the entire block? Want to be Marco Polo? No problem, you can do all those things and pretty much whatever else you want. You could also create (or take control of) a group of characters and have them do this.

In short, it would essentially be Dwarf Fortress, but much more expansive. Although all this stuff might be included in DF at a later date, considering the ambition of the guy who created it.

[Thanatos 51-50]

This is my previous post, just spoiler'd.

I, too, would go with the super hero sandbox with moral choice.
I've been refining the basics of the system four a while. Original concept had four power sources and three paths per power source. The thing is that the Natural, Science and Tech sources kept overlapping so much in my head it became crazy and I integrated them all and called it Tech.
So, when you create your character, you go through a kind of inteactive backstory, with the whole batman-esque murdered parents and nigh-unlimited funds backstory. During this process, you choose, via some some of loyalty to retain either your Electronics Tutor (Technology) or your Philosophy Instructor (Magicks) - as you are a rich kid and have private tutors.
The shunned tutor becomes the BBEG of the game tater on.

Then, later, on your birthday, your parents give you a chance to go to one of three events (Current thinking is a exclusive, way underground UFC -style event as a spectator (Offensive tilt, meaning blasty spells or light armour and rifles), a performance art piece/broadway show (Utility Tilt, general Batman Wizardry or just plain Batman), or something else that could easily construed as a Defensive tilt (Turning you into Iron Man or some Magickally-based nigh-invulnerale flying brick).

Then your character's mother/father would give some sort of speech on morals and Heroics and working for the good of others.
And then they get brutally murdered. Being rich enough, you are emancipated instead of sent into the system.

Years pass, and we go into the game, as a Tech/Magic-powered hero in an enviroment condusive to your powers, where you make small-time decisions with spawn ripples into the pond that is the city. The Game would feature.


Champions Online levels of character customization (For your later years. Chillin's will just frustrate the player to create a character that they use for what is essentially a five minuete tutorial.)
Usable Secret identities. You can move in your Secret Identity without attracting Random Encounters. You will still have access to some or all of your powers.
Using your powers whilst in your Secret Identity will compromise it, negating the Secret Identity Protection v Random Encounters. (This means you will have no rest from upstart wannabe heroes or small-time villians looking to make a name for themselves)
Morality that works! Instead of being judged on a Good v Evil scale, you will be judged on Kindness v Cruelty and Violence v Non-violence, with usable solutions for every problem. You can manually steer yourself down the Evil Dictator or Paragon of Virtue Path if you so desire, or have them game select one for you, with good being Kind and Evil being Cruel.
Tech v Magic conflict! Not setting it up as Good v Evil, but Magic saturation will dampen the effect of your tech abilities and vice-versa. You will be shown a bar on the screen letting you know where the balance stands.
Character upgrades that come in the form of new spells (Magic) or new pieces of kit (Tech). you can also choose to alter the saturation levels of the City. Is your mage having trouble in the Electronics District? Magic it up! You may find the route to be morally reprehensible, though, but hey, summoning deamons for power should be right up some alleys.


Tech and Magic are the only two real skill trees, due to the dichotimy between the two, no, your Tech-based character cannot learn a to summon demons.

Offensive/Defense/Utility instead directly alters your stats


The Offensive role increases your damage output, speed, crit rate, and rate of mana/energy generation. While it doesn't affect any of your other stats, it will feel downright fragile compared to the Utility and Defensive roles.

Defensive increases Damage Reduction, hitpoints, and sends your saving throws through the stratosphere. It won't reduce your damage output, but you'll feel slower and clunkier than offensive types. This is liable to bother you less, as you're the only role that can outright ignore damage if it's low enough, and even gain invulnerablity to all but the biggest nukes at higher levels.

Keeping everything level with the Utility role would make it severly underpowered. Utility roles are slightly faster than Defensive and have slightly more hitpoints than the offensive classes. Powers marked as utility in the stealth tree, however, will recieve huge buffs. Such powers include your stealth ability, temporary self-buffs, self-healing, faster "travel" abilities, better non-compromising Secret Identity Powers, as well as the ability to protect those irritating NPC civilians that might otherwise get creamed by collateral.


There are quite a large number of persuable storylines, each with a good and evil sub-path.
This is done by seperating the game into three teirs
Rookie Teir, where your character is just starting out. Hes still a fledgling mage or constrained to prototype tech. Your decisions are small pings on the alignment sliders. As soon as you choose a specific path and reach a specific level, which you cannot advance past - you unlock a sotry mission, tailored to your kindness/cruelty and diplomacy/violence sliders. That's one of four missions, each with two paths.
Depending on whether you chose to be good or evil during the story mission, you will unlock a series of contacts for the Hero/Villian teir. these will lead you through the story and again, each mission will have a set of two choices, one for kindness/cruelty, the other for diplomacy/violence. These will cause bigger hits on the alignment meter, and you can easily reverse your first teir choices. This is where Batman sees the damage his ways have been causing upon the city and decides to start being a paragon of virtue. Again, at the end of the main story paths, after hitting a certain alignment tilt and a certain level, you will get one more "Tier Change" mission, with two paths at the end - Good or Evil. The choice you make here will lock you in when you reach:

The Legend Teir! While Rorsach can still decide to become Superman here, the populace of the city will never trust him, and they will always see him as Rorsach. In fact, a drastic alignment switch in the legend teir unlocks a brand-new set of endings. This is the tier where your pretending to be a good guy can lead you into clapping your hands and BAM! Offworld slavery.
And they'll love you for it.
Here the city has been drastically changed depending on your choices in major, story missions and select side missions. Kindness/Cruely and Violence/Diplomacy choices grant huge boost towards your current tilt and only negligable tilting the other way.
A special series redemption/temptation quests will open alongside the main quest and you must complete at least some of these in order to perform a drastic alignment switch and the last second, you budding Villain with Good Pubilicty.

[Green-Shirt Q]

I would make a platform game. Maybe action/adventure. A game that's creative, funny, with a great story and characters but still with exciting gameplay.

I also think it would be a co-op game, as in you can switch between two different characters with completely different skill sets to solve problems. I like games like that.

[Copacetic]

An MMO, based on the Mutants&Masterminds system. Hey, DnD got at least two, it's about time M&M got one.


The main selling point would be the interactive part. In M&M, the fluffy bits can be imagined, but in games they cannot. Graphics and fluid areas would be key, with the actual gameplay mechanics fairly simply in and off itself, if you are familiar with with system ( if not, it's really easy).

Characters would be given a detailed model of their character to play with, not only for costumes and the like, but for customizing powers. Powers would have an origin point, and it could be placed anywhere on the body, to give it a unique feel. Want a character that burps lasers and shoots fireballs from his knees? Fine. Click here, click there, done.

[Triaxx]

A very similar system done in Champions online.

Three ideas:

1: S.H.A.R.D. Your character has flunked out of Super Human, Advanced Research Division. Not because the treatments failed, but because they worked, and became smart enough to realize what was happening and that they intended to use them as disposable super weapons, so he flunked out on purpose, pretending it failed. While he's in the backwoods and out of communication, an attack occurs, and he has to aid the individual resistance elements. Start with one State, and expand the game space one state at a time. Use sat maps to generate maps for the game. Have the actual military bases be centers for resistance in game, with equipment you can borrow.

The character himself is so insanely smart that if he see's an APC rolling down the road and the game shows two or three options to deal with it. Drop powerlines on it, drop a tree on it. Blow a hole in the road so it drops into a ditch.

2: An MMO, medieval stylings, airships and dragons. Put the dungeons on islands around the landmass, and then human NPC enemies on the mainland. Perhaps a few animals and small dens. Ships and airships or swimming are the only ways to the dungeons, providing conveinent ways to remove treasure, and mobile locations to spawn after death. Add airship to airship combat for extra fun.

3: Powersuited hero, but instead of just Speed/Stealth/Armor, you can also use the suit to climb any structure, and fire even two handed weapons with one hand. Go completely over the top with the abilities.

[Thanatos 51-50]

3: Powersuited hero, but instead of just Speed/Stealth/Armor, you can also use the suit to climb any structure, and fire even two handed weapons with one hand. Go completely over the top with the abilities.

Completely doable in my idea, even in the Rookie Tier. It isn't until weapons marked as "Heavy" that you'd need two hands, "Super-Heavy" would act as normal Heavy Weapons for you.
Climbing is, of course, an option for getting around the sandbox (Because every sandbox needs a travel mechanic), but your Secret Identity would even be able to drive sports cars and motor cycles (So would your Superself, but that might impose challenges on keeping a low profile/heroes off your back). Other options would include flight, superspeed, and hoverdisks.
Teleportation is a "maybe", but that's because I'm not sure on the mechanics.

[Destro_Yersul]

Space flight game. I've had a devil of a time finding a good one, and that needs to change. Maybe throw in some stealth/ground combat for good measure.

You play as some sort of bounty hunter. Your job is to chase down and eliminate various targets, all of which are hiding around the galaxy. What order you do them in is your call. There'd be parts where you got to run around inside space stations and bases, as well as an upgrade system that allows you to improve your abilities with certain styles of weapons or ships.

The ships themselves would fall into one of three types, and you'd get to pick which one you wanted at the start, choose a design, and upgrade it as you went along.


Light Fighters: very agile and fast, but lightly armoured
Utility: The 'bag of tricks' ship. Not the fastest or most heavily armoured, but it's got more cards up its sleeve than a street con
Heavy Fighters: Big guns and lots of armour, but slower than the other two.

And then of course you could upgrade their guns or buy different guns or improve various other systems, and each one would have a number of different hull designs for variety.

Then there'd be character combat style, for the base sections. There would be three of these as well.


Soldier: Big guns and lots of durability. This style is the one that's most able to go in guns blazing.
Hacker: The technological one. Robot drones to follow him around, ability to bypass certain electronic obstacles, that sort of thing.
Spy: Sneaky sneaky. Lots of stealth based abilities, and almost no ability to win a straight up fight.


Aside from all the various mission targets and other random things, there would be some sort of story. You could ignore it if you wanted, but it's there for people like me who obsess over story. Probably something to do with an increase in pirates robbing shipping lanes or something like that.

Oh, and the reward for these missions? Money, of course. Money for better ships, better guns, and non-skill based character upgrades. Cybernetics, that sort of thing.

[Morty]

I'd design a good, real cRPG. It'd look a lot like Daggerfall, except more detailed and immersible.
The general idea would be, thr main character gets dropped into a region currently undergoing several major political struggles, so he or she would have to navigate among them while accomplishing his or her own goals. At the beginning, the protagonist would be just another traveller, but as the futher in the game, the more importand he or she'd become. They'll never become a centre of attention, though - the main plot will focus on the protagonist, but not the political situation. It would be all set in a cold, northen climate, where no central authority exists and instead many minor chieftains and nobles fight for power.
Mechanically, I imagine it based on my own homebrewed system, except you wouldn't be allowed to play a spellcaster - they don't really fit the role the protagonist would take.

[Hyozo]

. . . supported by a talented group of programmers,
Would my college's game design club count

plenty of time,
I'm not sure my college's game design club counts.

and a plentiful budget?
My college's game design club doesn't count. Never mind.

[Fri]

My dream game is a cross between freelancer and cowboy bebop/firefly.

Basically, you start with a small freighter that act as your mothership, a small fighter, and a copilot as your crew. You do mission, trade, and battle pirate as usual. You can either control the fighter and assign the freighter to autopilot, and vice versa.

Then, since this is an rpg, you can collect new crewmembers as you go through the game. For example, another fighter pilot, a hacker, mechanic, etc. You can buy new fighter, upgrade your freighter, chat with your crew member, and all within an epic storyline.

[Mystic Muse]

I had a dream one night with a legend of zelda game OoT where Link was still fighting against Ganondorf but Link was evil. I'd make that.




also to annoy all the fanboys and fangirls out there even more I'd make Link female.:smalltongue:

[playswithfire]

I've been mulling this, but it's more of a framework than a specific game. When I try to make the example more concrete, it ends up with a DnD feeling to it in terms of setting.

What I'd really like to see is a more impressive MMO version of the work done in the True Story (http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1328228) experiment. Plot is generated by the actions of PCs and NPCs, where these two are hopefully difficult to distinguish between. PCs as well as NPCs would be able to offer quests, provided they have the rewards to pay those who complete them. The initial game state would probably be purely NPC and allowed to progress for a certain number of simulated turns. Then PCs would be introduced in the Alpha and Beta with productive testers being rewarded with in-game fiefdoms and positions of in-game authority to begin shaping the course of the game. There would of course be random enemies to fight (beasts and NPC-dominated tribes of barbarians) as well as wars begun by PCs and various lower-level quests.

In terms of game mechanics:

There are no classes; just various skills/attributes/abilities that can be increased to a theoretically infinite level, but it becomes exponentially harder to increase a skill to the next 'level' and skills/attributes/abilities are frangible; they decay if not used and, obviously, higher level skills degrade somewhat more rapidly. Don't have the exact speeds, but you actually have to work to maintain a powerful character.

Combat skills are easy to make open ended: attack speed, strength, dexterity, proficiency with various weapons and weapon types. Magic is harder to make open-ended other than things like manna count, manna regeneration speed, caster level, etc. I'd like to develop a truly customizable magic system, where you learn to control different elements, different ranges/shapes of area of effect etc, which you can put together in whatever combination you like to form your 'hot key' spells, so everyone can have unique magical abilities. But things like elemental forces and area of effect shape are sort of stuck being explicitly enumerated rather than open-ended.

I'd also like gear to be equally customizable; it would take skill (both the in-game kind and the player kind) to forge things like armor and weapons (at worst, crafting is something like a mini-game).

If achievable, it would be the game that never ends and would be able to continue evolving as new players join with no repeated instances. (And for fun, developers fill the role of in-game dieties and can create new challenges or relics should a particular region need more plot.)

I don't know if any of this makes sense, but it's what's bouncing around in my head.

[Dixieboy]

also to annoy all the fanboys and fangirls out there even more I'd make Link female.:smalltongue:

But... that's not clever, smart or funny.

That'd only serve to piss of a lotof people, which would ruin gaming forums for everyone else for months. :smallannoyed:

[Stormthorn]

Well, see my game would start with the main character (15-17 and male or female at players choice) waking up in enclosed space. A cargo hold. A cargo hold large enough for a small town and the crops it needs to survive. Cargo hold of a giant submarine of some kind. In a vast, perhaps infinate ocean. Town is kinda victorian steampunk meets gothic sci-fi.
In the is game the PC wakes up in this place iwht memory intact, but has little reason to recite it to other characters. As the game goes on, they forget who they were before.
Here is an excerpt form my notes regarding one enemy type.


Fairly early on the player is introduced to a common enemy in the game: Wall Shadows. They come in two forms. The lesser form looks like the shadow of a severed arm projected onto the wall. The hand crawls in a spiderlike fashion to drag the arm along. The second more dangerous type is a shadowy blob with four long thing arms coming out of it. This type moves much slower and is often not seen at first. The lesser type stalk the player through levels and cannot be harmed (as they are just shadows) as they do so. If the PC is injured and then strays too close to one they will grab her/him and grapple (doing minor damage). This would of course make combat with whatever first hurt the PC more difficult. One of the big ones will also spawn whenever the PC is grapples and start to slowly float along the walls towards them. If the PC doesn’t break the grapple in time it will reach them and deliver a one-hit-kill.

These shadow enemies will be introduced in several steps. Early on in The Vessel they (the PC) will find a girl huddled in a corner mumbling about hands and arms while rubbing her hand across her right eye. People will comment that she just broke down and started doing this a few hours ago (which was when the PC arrived). They think she is a drug addict of a specific drug the PC can later use. About two days later in the game the PC gets a ruby ring with a lens in the middle grafted over one of their eyes (PC chooses which one). They are then given some excuse/quest/whatever that causes them to go back by where the girl is. In a cut-scene the PC notices the girl and then slowly the lens reveals the shadow things all around her. One of the big ones is right behind her waving its arms rhythmically. She stops mumbling then and looks at the PC while letting her hand fall away. The constant rubbing has worn away the skin on both her hand and her face. She freaks out and comments that now that the PC knows they exist the monsters will try to kill him/her. Then the big one grabs her with three of its arms and pulls her in close while the fourth arm reaches under her chin. With a swift lifting motion it uses that hand to snap her neck, severing her brainstem from her spine. From that point on the PC has to deal with this enemy type.

[warty goblin]

OK, another game design, this one inspired by watching Xena: Warrior Princess*.

*Yes, I watch Xena. Try not to faint. In fact there was a period a year ago when I watched an episode every night. Shocking, huh?

So what I want is a game where I get to run around beating the snot out of bad people for reasons best described as 'minimal' or 'cheesy.' I also want to do this with a companion, who acts something like a human being. Alyx from Half-Life 2 is what we're going for here. Somebody who's competant, enjoyable to be around, can do things you can't (and vice versa), but still allows you to be the star of the show.

Gameplay would occur on a sort of overworld, wherein one could journey from village to village. You would get quests in villages, as well as repair and purchase equipment and replenish supplies. Quests would usually be fairly simple, and for the sake of replayability would come in three sorts:

1) 'Main' quests. Main quests would be scripted and fully voiced. These would advance the 'main' plot. The only thing that the main plot serves to do is to advance your character's powers via earning upgrade points. You can spend these in a simple upgrade system ala Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, allowing you to specialize your character. You would however have a basic proficiency in melee, stealth and archer to begin with. Main quests would also give the player significant financial rewards, as well as increase the difficulty of the 'side' quests.

2) 'Side' Quests. These would be proceduraly generated, and in all likelihood not fully voiced. Basically there would be 'hotspots' across the map, which could contain quest elements- key item, neccessary weapon, location of an informant, enemy hideout, etc. The game would also know how to generate some key plot points. An algorithm would choose a story seed (see below), then build the quest out of these elements-choosing locations as close to the quest's beginning as possible, and generate the neccessary scripts to power the plot.

Here's an example. The player enters a village and goes to the local inn. The innkeeper tells them that the village has suffered from attacks by a [FIRE SPIRIT], every night for the last week. This triggers an attack by the [FIRE SPIRIT]- regardless of the time of day. If it's night, no more explanation is needed. If it's daylight, then a comment about how things are escalating will suffice.

After driving the [FIRE SPIRIT] away, the innkeeper informs the player that an [OLD WISE WOMAN] who lives in the [NEARBY MOUNTAIN CAVE] might know how to defeat the spirit once and for all.

The player goes to the [NEARBY MOUNTAIN CAVE], and is told by the [OLD WISE WOMAN] that the fire spirit can only be defeated by the [SWORD OF PURE ICE], which can be found in the [LOST CAVERNS], located a few miles to the south.

After going to the [LOST CAVERNS] and defeating the guardians, the player gets the [SWORD OF PURE ICE], and then can kill the [FIRE SPIRIT]. Upon doing so they will be appropriately rewarded.

3: Incidental Quests: These aren't so much quests as randomly generated atmosphere, such as bandit attacks, wild animals and similar.

The main character would be controlled in an over the shoulder style, ala Gears of War or Mount and Blade, and combat would be realtime. To keep things simple, there would be the standard attack and block buttons, with holding down the attack button allowing a power attack. The character could either procede by stealth, or simply charging and hitting people, although a hybrid approach would probably be strongest. The character could use unarmed combat, or a variety of weapons such as swords, axes, maces, hammers, and bows. Each of these would have their own branch of the upgrade tree.

The player's companion would understand basic commands, such as 'wait here' or 'attack that target,' and be able to handle themselves well in combat. In the event that the companion should be taken down, they are simply disabled, and must be rescued by the player. One possibility would be to impliment a system like Left 4 Dead, wherein after being incapicated the enemies would continue to attack the companion, and the player would have to save said before their complete destruction.

[Duos]

I'd probably make a card game with RTS and RPG elements, ala Baten Kaitos only without the garbage. The deck system is geared so that you can optimize either for reliability or staying power (since you'd die/lose/whatever if you ran out of cards), and allows the trading, fusion, and creation of cards in a manner that doesn't break the game over one knee.

[DrakebloodIV]

I'd definitely do a first person free running game. But I think I'd make it so as the game progressed you'd get different bonus abilities. Things like being able to bounce or run up walls longer....

[Thrawn183]

RTS, namely a mix between Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander and Starcraft.

Pro's of starcraft:
- the races really felt different, I haven't seen an RTS that matched it in that respect other than Total Annihilation: Kingdoms.
- Unit differences: there was a mix of melee and ranged, but it made sense. Of course the guy with the flame thrower has to get closer than the guy with a machine gun.
- I could seriously go on about the differences between the races forever (like zerg healing slowly to full hp, terrans being able to repair vehicles to full and eventually heal infantry, and protoss being difficult to describe to anyone who hasn't played)
Con's of starcraft:
- Small unit numbers. I felt like too much of the focus was on trying to micromanage two to three squads of twelve guys.
- Resource gathering: you run out. Single player pushes you to save resources as much as possible while multiplayer encourages you to gather them and spend them as fast as possible.
- Unrealistic aircraft. Aircraft make strafing runs, they don't sit there and fire volley after volley like a helicopter.
- Terrain challenges: water is as difficult to cross as lava? Give me ships!

Pro's of Total Annihilation
- The idea is to control the battlefield, not to micro manage every single battle.
- Resources: I like that resources are gathered per second, so it's not about how many you have but how fast you can spend them.
- Aircraft: watching a bomber turn in the middle of a bombing run and seeing the bombs go in a giant arc all over the place just makes me happy.
- Sea Units: While not perfect, I don't think I've seen an RTS do this any better.
- Construction: construction units can aid each other and even factories so you can really make something build quickly if you want to.
- Patrols: construction units on patrol will automatically heal damaged units, reclaim wreckage, all of that.
- Reclaiming wreckage and stuff on the map. The burned out hulks of your tanks can actually prevent you from launching an effective attack. It's also great to fuel your economy with the remains of your enemy's assault force.
- Supreme Commander automated things a bit more with the ability to have drop ships automatically shuttle units from point A to point B. Means I don't have to spend a huge amount of time trying to something that is relatively simple.

Con's of TA/SC
- The 2 factions are really quite similar. It gets boring pretty quickly.
- Could have used a more interesting single player campaign.
- SC encouraged zooming out so much that you couldn't see the battles very close up.

[VanIsleKnight]

To be perfectly honest? Assuming I had the time and resources of Valve or Blizzard, I would work with either WoTC or the folks from Pathfinders and convert either of their systems into a turn-based game, as true to the original source as I could possibly get it. Dungeons and Dragons Online was a nice idea, but I think they would have done much better with a well developed tactical RPG game.

- Voice acting for the storyline, orchestrated score, CG scenes (depending on resources/space available, maybe even live action), and an enhanced sprite style. If there was a really good 3D style presented to me though, I'd opt for that.

- Challenge maps would most definitely be in outside of the storyline.

- Varying win conditions, such as winning in so many rounds, protecting something or someone, defeat all enemies, "stealth" missions, survival, etc.

- I would release it for the 360 and PC, maybe the Wii but doubtful. I don't think it could handle it.

- I would make it multiplayer with online capabilities.

- I would add in a strong DM level editor to make their own maps, and possibly allow them to modify any item, object, spell, or monster. It really depends on how difficult this would be.



I'd then either make a lot of money or see the game fail horribly. :) It always sort of irked me that they took something -perfect- for a tactics game and made it into an MMO instead. *grumble*

[Athaniar]

OK, another game design, this one inspired by watching Xena: Warrior Princess*.

*Yes, I watch Xena. Try not to faint. In fact there was a period a year ago when I watched an episode every night. Shocking, huh?

It's a great show, isn't it? Speaking of which, I heard about an old Xena fighting game for the N64, and I thought, "why not make a new Xena fighting game, perhaps to the Wii?"

Because we really need more franchise-based fighting games.

[warty goblin]

It's a great show, isn't it? Speaking of which, I heard about an old Xena fighting game for the N64, and I thought, "why not make a new Xena fighting game, perhaps to the Wii?"

Because we really need more franchise-based fighting games.

Yeah it is a great show, despite the open mockings I receive from the entire family for watching it. I think they're just jealous that none of their favorite shows have homoerotic fishing...

To be honest the template I posted was pretty much my dream Xena game with the serial numbers filled off. Assuming the liscence was available, I'd add in a scoring system in combat. Killing people would be easier, but you'd get more points for knocking them out- with the exception of warlords etc who are irrideemable and thus can be killed without penalty. You could switch between lethal and non lethal combat at the touch of a bottom, and be able to use it with weapons, unarmed combat or the chakram.

There'd also need to be a way to beat people with fish, but I'm unsure how to best impliment that.

[Jibar]

Hmmm...
If I designed a video game?

Take Crackdown.
Add more.

Bigger city, more guns, more vehicles, more gadgets, more enemies, more melee attacks.
Then I'd throw in City of Heroes/Champion's Online style customisation with a similar variety of superpowers available to the Agent to level up as well.


Yeah. That would be perfect to me.

[Otogi]

I'd make a third-person parody of the space marine stereotype where the world has reached galactic peace with the slobbering, magic aliens from outer space they've been fighting for a thousand years. Now space marines have been rendered obsolete.

You spend the game doing things like delivering mail/babies, acting as a substitute teacher and working at a landfill in the most action-packed way possible. Since the Terran Astro-Reaction Defense (T.A.R.D., but I'm still working on the name) took all your gear and weapons, you have to make guns and armor from random junk like newspaper, pipes, trees, bad movies, bratty kids, etc. Of course, you're still a giant, muscle-bound space marine, so you can also punch, kick and throw the enemies.

While doing a combination of puzzles and platforming, you fight psychic mutants, demons, voodoo zombies and rouge marines (the same as you, only worse for reasons unexplained) as you uncover a secret (and by that I mean obvious) conspiracy headed by the King of All Aliens.