PDA

View Full Version : Game Ideas



blackout
2007-03-15, 07:34 PM
Ok, not really a thread about any one game. But, it's unlimited grounds for creativity. Post your own game ideas, and give details about your dream game!

That Lanky Bugger
2007-03-15, 08:24 PM
Random idea for a FPS:

The player is a humanoid robot on a passenger spaceliner which crashes on a frontier planet, which features a lot of the rough and tumble lawless types. There's no help coming to retrieve the ship, though the ship is reparable. The player then has to contend with repairing the ship and recovering parts scattered in the crash, fending off scavengers trying to steal the ship's parts in the desert and still attached to the ship (as well as protecting the passengers), and dealing with interpersonal conflict on the ship... as well as crew distrust due to a Space Odyssey 2001 type disaster involving your player's robot.

To keep things simple, the only method of communication with the NPCs would be nodding (literally just moving the view up and down), shaking your head (moving your vision side to side) and simple gestures.

Sort of sandbox, I guess. I dunno. Maybe I'm just weird, but I figured a primarily non-speaking role focused on character interaction would have some interesting implications. Toss in some interesting firefights with the bandits, and...

blackout
2007-03-15, 10:10 PM
I like the idea. :)

blackout
2007-03-15, 10:49 PM
Here's mine: A sci-fi FPS with alot of roleplaying and strategy involved.

It's the distant future, and humanity has spread across the stars, and met alot of different races. You play as a simple average joe...who happens to be a freelance soldier. You create a character, choosing one of seven races, selecting a 'specialty', or special skill you can use throughout the course of the game(ie. hacking, convincing people to do certain things, etc.), followed by a voice, which you can alter, and a few starting weapons. Think Oblivion mixed with Halo and Freelancer, with some Star Wars: Republic Commando thrown in. There is literally NOTHING but side-quests in this game, and alot of em. Some are simple 'deliver this thing to this guy' missions, others involve fighting groups of pirates for the bounty on their heads, and when you complete enough of a certain type of mission, you get access to 'special missions.' You can keep your own notes in a journal, so enjoy that. There are five types of missions: Bounty Hunting, assassinations, cargo-hauling/delivery, security/bodyguard work, and raids/assaults.

Bounty hunting is simple. 'Go kill these criminals for money. Bring them back alive for a bonus.'
Assassination jobs are very high-profile, dangerous, and usually rather difficult. You usually have to find and kill someone in charge of some kind of corporation, or military officer, or someone similar. Preferably, do so without anyone else seeing you, or from a ridiculously far distance.
Cargo-hauling usually indicates you have a ship. If not, you can hire another ship to carry you to your destination. Either way, find your client, and give him whatever it is you were carrying.
Security work means you stay someplace for a little while, maybe run a patrol. Either way, you are bound to run into trouble. Bodyguard work is similar, but you have to stand next to your client, and maybe block a bullet or plasma round for him.
Raids are swift attacks on certain targets. Pirates often run such operations on trader convoys, and may hire you to help. Assaults involve big slug-fests. Lots of shooting.

Anyways, the game is meant to be a sandbox. You are an average joe who happened to be in the military The Galactic Mercenary Review Board has given the license you need to start your career. You have three weapons of your choice, a few hundred credits, and some ammo for any guns you chose when you started the game. You take jobs, get better weapons, and, here's the clincher, hire other soldiers to help you. You can outfit your new men and women and give them new guns, armor and so on. If you get enough money, you can buy a ship, or pay for transport off the rock you are currently on. If you get enough money, you can buy an entire fleet, and start an army, even buy tanks, powered armor, battlesuits, fighters, carriers, and so on. The galaxy is your playground.

:)

elliott20
2007-03-16, 01:14 PM
wow, the sandbox concept must be a shared consciousness idea or something...

I had an idea that involve a multiplayer platformer. but I'm too lazy to type it up right now.

TheOtherMC
2007-03-16, 02:20 PM
Random idea for a FPS:

The player is a humanoid robot on a passenger spaceliner which crashes on a frontier planet, which features a lot of the rough and tumble lawless types. There's no help coming to retrieve the ship, though the ship is reparable. The player then has to contend with repairing the ship and recovering parts scattered in the crash, fending off scavengers trying to steal the ship's parts in the desert and still attached to the ship (as well as protecting the passengers), and dealing with interpersonal conflict on the ship... as well as crew distrust due to a Space Odyssey 2001 type disaster involving your player's robot.

To keep things simple, the only method of communication with the NPCs would be nodding (literally just moving the view up and down), shaking your head (moving your vision side to side) and simple gestures.

Sort of sandbox, I guess. I dunno. Maybe I'm just weird, but I figured a primarily non-speaking role focused on character interaction would have some interesting implications. Toss in some interesting firefights with the bandits, and...

Pikmin 3?

Sorry :smallbiggrin:

blackout
2007-03-16, 03:07 PM
wow, the sandbox concept must be a shared consciousness idea or something...

It is. :) Please, join the hive.

That Lanky Bugger
2007-03-16, 03:32 PM
Pikmin 3?

Sorry :smallbiggrin:

I was actually thinking more Halo meets Flight of the Phoenix type stuff, but sure. :smallsmile:

elliott20
2007-03-16, 03:42 PM
well, my idea is actually kind of taking the concept of MMOs and expanding upon it, but in different ways.

To summarize, here's how it works.

It would be a 2D platformer, kind of in the fashion of Super Mario / Mega-man /ghosts and ghouls style gameplay. In short, the PCs would have their avatar adventure in the 2D environment and if they feel compelled to, PvP each other over the 2D board.

However, just like other MMOs, you can actually develop your character in various different ways through the purchasing skills, power-ups, and the likes.

The center piece of this whole thing though, is not the acquisition of power for your character. (after all, it is a platformer, so player skills will factor more into it) The center piece is on acquisition of personalized items and space.

While you'll have your standard RPG-esque leveling up system, the growth in power is not as exponential as most RPG games, where you go from doing 1-8 damage to dealing over 1000 points each hit. In short, even a completely new character, in the hands of the right player, can become extremely deadly if built right and played right.

However what will make sticking to a character worth while is your Character Points. Every time you achieve a victory over an opponent, complete a quest, level-up, what have you, you gain things known as character points. Using character points, you can either increase your attributes, buy powers, (with diminishing levels of return) or you can purchase customized items, customize outfits, looks, and even customizable SPACE. That is, players with enough CPs and have garnered a special membership in some form will be allowed to actually purchase areas to build his own castle/town/what have you.

Players who purchase his own towns will have the option of customizing his space to best accomodate those he will allow into his domain. (by default that will be everybody) And based on what he puts up in his own domain, he might potentially be able to garner more CPs from just having a large number of players dwell in his space.

If possible, the game world would also include a somewhat realistic economic model where prices and such will adjust to the abundance of a certain good.

TheOtherMC
2007-03-16, 03:44 PM
well, my idea is actually kind of taking the concept of MMOs and expanding upon it, but in different ways.

To summarize, here's how it works.

It would be a 2D platformer, kind of in the fashion of Super Mario / Mega-man /ghosts and ghouls style gameplay. In short, the PCs would have their avatar adventure in the 2D environment and if they feel compelled to, PvP each other over the 2D board.

However, just like other MMOs, you can actually develop your character in various different ways through the purchasing skills, power-ups, and the likes.

The center piece of this whole thing though, is not the acquisition of power for your character. (after all, it is a platformer, so player skills will factor more into it) The center piece is on acquisition of personalized items and space.

While you'll have your standard RPG-esque leveling up system, the growth in power is not as exponential as most RPG games, where you go from doing 1-8 damage to dealing over 1000 points each hit. In short, even a completely new character, in the hands of the right player, can become extremely deadly if built right and played right.

However what will make sticking to a character worth while is your Character Points. Every time you achieve a victory over an opponent, complete a quest, level-up, what have you, you gain things known as character points. Using character points, you can either increase your attributes, buy powers, (with diminishing levels of return) or you can purchase customized items, customize outfits, looks, and even customizable SPACE. That is, players with enough CPs and have garnered a special membership in some form will be allowed to actually purchase areas to build his own castle/town/what have you.

Players who purchase his own towns will have the option of customizing his space to best accomodate those he will allow into his domain. (by default that will be everybody) And based on what he puts up in his own domain, he might potentially be able to garner more CPs from just having a large number of players dwell in his space.

If possible, the game world would also include a somewhat realistic economic model where prices and such will adjust to the abundance of a certain good.

So its like a highly customizable Maple Story? Sweet

Totally Guy
2007-03-16, 06:31 PM
I would like to make a game of the construction industry.

You have the big office full of estimators and you assign different amounts of resources to job tendering. You first bid on a sliding scale on various projects, it might be a school, you think about the quality/cost of the job and bid on it and maybe you win it.

If you win it you can control the site, it starts off with four classes of guys on site, Engineers (patrol the site to keep up competence and safety), designers, (their presence keeps the enginners competent), quantity surveyors (you send them to site to measure what things are worth and they pay the labour) and foremen/managers that act as the boss or maybe avatar withing the game.

Then you have to get the QSs to hire trades (and you'd select on the basis of reputaton/price/rates) in order for them to be effective. Perimeter fencer, site security, cabin hire, general labour and then the actual trades that build it.

The other trades would not be directly controllable, they need to be prompted by the 4 classes that are your own men.

There would be elements of design and build sims style to it but the main design needs to be decided at the bid stage, then after the foundations go down the design becomes dependent on that and the freedom to change the original design is more restricted.

Heath inspectors come on tours, you put your own guys in diggers and push things over, the client visits to see how the building they want is progressing. Willit come in on time? On budget? At whose cost? Will it stay up once it's finished? You could be doing building number 3 when you get a call from building number 1 saying the wall fell off, fix it!

And the further you get the more exciting things become available. Olympic stadiums, architectural statements, dubai style hotels.

I think it would be a good game that's very educational.

Ronsian
2007-03-16, 08:38 PM
I always wanted to play a GOOD RPG/Strategy. You start out as a hero, then get some more men for your party. Typical RPG, but later on you can own houses and later on villages. That, or a good Tycoon in which you can fight people. Think, while building railroads you could send armies or the mafia at the enemy!

blackout
2007-03-16, 08:55 PM
I always wanted to play a GOOD RPG/Strategy. You start out as a hero, then get some more men for your party. Typical RPG, but later on you can own houses and later on villages. That, or a good Tycoon in which you can fight people. Think, while building railroads you could send armies or the mafia at the enemy!

Hehe. That's sort of what I had in mind for my game. The RPG/Strategy thing.

Dant
2007-03-16, 09:55 PM
I've had a few, some more fleshed out than others. I'll throw out two of them.
First one. How many games can you think of where the hero is aided by an AI? How many where instead you play the AI supporting the hero? That's right, none. Or at least none I know of. I'm thinking of some sort of hacking type game here, this is one I haven't really fleshed out. I'm seeing opening doors, controlling robots, ect.

Second one is fairly generic sci-fi shooter. You play a space marine type, not quite 40k style though. The twist? You are a space marine. As in, you fight in space type environments. Specifically on ships and space stations with a focus on zero-g combat. Fill the game with combat maneuvers that you can pull and heavy squad based combat. Better yet? Make things more interesting by making most weapons chemical propellant based. I think we can all imagine the effect of firing automatic weapons in a no gravity situation. Also, institute a close combat system, possibilities of hull breaches and explosive decompression. Maybe even toss in a few feet first Starship Trooper style planetary assaults. Would obviously require a crazy physics engine and would be the most awesomest fps ever!

blackout
2007-03-16, 10:19 PM
Sweet! *wants to play Dant's game*

Erloas
2007-03-16, 10:42 PM
I would like to see a sort of RPG but ran from the other side. More like being a very destructive DM in an RPG. It would be a sort of cross between Tecmo's Deception (the whole series, thats the name that always sticks in my head though) an RPG and a city/world building sim.

Think Stonecutters sort of power behind the world sort of cult. cue Simpsons song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cCfZrkCFI)

You could be a good, evil or neutral sort of cult, so you could attract strong followers of any type, and if you were really good and sneaky you could get high level characters from both sides working for you. You could set up dungeons (generic use of the term, someplace for adventurers to go) to try to lure your enemies to their death, and by doing so take the money and items they have amassed. Since you would be a sort of unknown semi-omnipentent controlling force you don't do anything yourself though, you hire other people to do your jobs for you. This would be where most of your resources end up going. If you don't pay your members well enough they might start stealing from you. You start off small, controlling a local city and some surrounding area and as you build up your wealth and power you expand your network to other areas. If you are too obvious or too extreme you might get high level adventurers after you where it might take everything you have to defeat them.

To move into another area you could have memebers start running missions to that area to build influence and politic your way in, you might simple start a war and take them over with brute force. You might send the evil part of your group to attack an area and cause problems then, unknown to anyone else, send your good followers to defeat your own evil followers and portray yourself as a hero and savior of the land. You might use dark magic to posion the land and animals to an area to cause them hardship and famine then use your own supplies to make money off them or wait until they are too weak to resist and take them with little effort or offer them goods are a reduced rate to become friends so they work with you out of choice and are loyal to you for your help (so long as they never figure out it was a setup in the first place). If you aren't careful though and get found out you are likely to draw the wraith of other areas that are noble and fight the good fight for those not strong enough to stand up for themselves. Work as bandits in makeshift camps in the world and roam without a place of home and control the wilderness, leaving civilized areas in tact to keep producing goods and people for you to rob pillage and corrupt.
The more powerful you get the more powerful people take notice of you and try to gain what fortunes they can from your downfall.






And for something completely different... I want to see a game that doesn't involve humans or anything even humanoid. That includes things like robots and cars and things humans generally make. I would like to see an alien that is truely alien and do things their own unique way that doesn't parallel some aspects of human history.

Beleriphon
2007-03-17, 01:22 AM
I had a pretty neat idea for a game. Its the FPS/RPG element, it would use a real map of a real city and run in real time (ie. 24 hours in game is 24 hours real time). The game is modern, or near future. It would open with a first person perspective of your younger sister yelling at you and storming from the house. You turn, and flip on the TV to hear about impending doom and gloom in the form of war. A new broadcast goes on a for a minute or two setting up the basics of the plot, then a flash. You hears some sounds, static, dripping, some other noises, everything is black. It gets brighter, and you can make out shapes. Finally you get the openning the eyes effect and the character stands. Again all first person. From there you look around, the windows in your home are blown out, and there are no people outside in the neighbourhood. Presumably the doom and gloom have come, ,and you survived.

In effect you get a post apocalyptic game, right after the apocalypse, with no idea what to do. It would use a skill system that lets you build different skills as you use them, but you would effectively start out with the skill set of the average couch potato. Your over arching goal is to find your sister, beyond that its a matter of getting around town in whatever method you can, and interacting with the other survivors.

I would want to include vehicles, since a stolen car and cruising around a real sized city, would kick ass. You could get some pretty crazy Mad Max effects. In terms of weaponry you would get the usual assortment of guns, and all kinds of wacky melee weapons. You could raid the local SCA for some armour, or smash down a stop sign to make a crude shield.

The important thing with this concept is that you use a real city, and you can enter all of the buildings. All of them. No permanently locked doors, or areas that you can see but never access. If you had an ambush scenario you could set the ambush however you want, whether its hiding in the ruins of a building, or sniping somebody from afar.

Basically a big first person post apocalyptic sandbox style game.

ufo
2007-03-17, 06:43 AM
I will post following in a spoiler, 'cause it's long :smallsmile:. It was an idea I posted a year or two ago at the Relic Forums. I copy/pasted it directly from there, it's a Warhammer 40,000 FPS.

Basicly, this is an idea for a Warhammer 40,000 (god praise it) first-person shooter. It could turn out very long, and mind you that i wrote this is WordPad, and it has taken abit of time to allocate specific information and so on. Could take a day or too, i don't know yet because i only just started writing this...

(EXTRA: I will hide these extra things around, to indicate a small feature that will probaly be a bit hard to implement, and therefore is only "if-you-have-spare-time" idea)

(EXTRA: You could possibly choose an army scheme for the army you are with, but of course not an army name as this would destroy many voice dialouges)

So, basicly, you start out as an imperial recruit, you land at a training range (possibly in a Valkyrie ship). You disembark and meet a commisar, get the usual propaganda speech and then you get on with the training. As it is obligatory for an army FPS, you get the moving excersices first, and then get to the shooting range, of course close combat too (lasgun bayonet!). The shooting range will only cover shooting with lasgun and throwing grenades, as the Imperial Guard need to field a big army quickly, not an effective one. To give it a little special twist, the training grounds could be attacked before you get to the grenade throwing. Now, you got to rush for the valkyrie, without meeting an enemy, because they come from the other side. When you reach the valkyrie and it takes off, you comepleted this level.

Next level you start by landing with the valkyrie in an Imperial Guard outpost. From here you are to make it to the main field command, only about ½-1km to either north, south, east or west. The outpost commander give you some grenades (you still have the lasgun from the training) in that he believes you already have undergone grenade training, before the attack that is. You set off with the squad that were in the valkyrie also, and another one at the outpost. On the way to the field command base-thingy, you get ambushed/attacked by an enemy (orks,heretics,tau,eldar, you name it), just to let the player get used to killing enemies, and a chance to get to know how grenades work. You and the squads arrive at the field command, and you get the grenade training that you needed (for the players convinience).

Here begins the whole idea of the game! From here, the game will be pretty open ended. My idea was that when your army is in one territory of the planet that is the setting, the battle is there 'till one part wins. Of course it dosn't need to be one big battle. At random the computer would choose if the general for the army would choose to rush the enemy (very hopeful tactic) or set up a field command. The field command tactic will be the most entertaining, of course http://forums.relicnews.com/images/smilies/smile.gif. The idea is that you arrive at were the base has been set up. Now, this was the map in Dawn of War i first used for this idea, i want you to do this too, Lost Hope. A city surrounded by forest. At first you arrive at the place for your base (in my thoughts, starting place number 1 in Lost Hope). Other airplanes will arrive with the buildings needed.

Before i continue i wish to explain the rank system:
You start as a private (after the training). In the private rank you will be in a squad with 10-20 squadmembers and a sergeant, you will need to obey the sergeant or get executed for treachery! When you have gained enough honor or kills or whatever, you will be given the chance to advance in ranks. If you choose not to accept, for realism purposes, you roleplay that you were just never asked. If you decline, you will, at any point be able to advance (since you already allocated the honor or kills or whatever). However, when you reach the points needed for an advance and choose to not advance, you will not be able to get more points before next rank, so you can't stock up on points and go directly from private to general!

If you choose to advance, you will go from private to sergeant. When you are a sergeant you get the command of your squad, and you choose where they should attack. Being a sergeant takes much more responsibility and is not as free-roam allowing as private. Going from sergeant to next rank will take alot of time, but when you finally can advance, you can choose between being a: Sniper (--> Master Sniper), a Kasrkin (-->Kasrkin Sergeant) or Executer (--> Commisar). The sniper and kasrkin and their advancements should be pretty obvious, however the executer and commisar will need a bit of explaining. As an executer, you are better armed than a private, but less than a kasrkin. Executers are groups of well-trained soldiers, serving as a squad directly under a commisar, working as his bodyguards in battle and helping him execute traitors. These squads are also used when 5+ traitors are going to be executed when not in battle. Commisars work as.. commisars. They shoot people that desert. They have their own bodyguard (executers) and have a good amount of priority.

Master Sniper, Kasrkin Sergeant and Commisar will, when they have allocated tons of points all be able to advance into a general.

Now, to take off where we left, the buildings in the field command mode needed arrive. The opening stages of every field command scenario resolves around taking the area around the base, and establishing an outpost or two, maybe make an artillery base and you name it. The more enemies in the area the better forces are on your side in the battle. As a private, executor, kasrkin, commisar or sniper/master sniper you can freely roam the area in which the scenario takes place, however! If you move too far away from the base without a scout permission/duty or with other soldiers, it will be counted as treachery and your allies will hunt you down. You will be able to talk to people around in the base (or outside for that matter) i.e. your sergeant, asking for an assignment. When in the field command mode, and not attacking the enemy, you can always get attacked, encounter enemy scouts etc. When enough forces have been allocated (the general determines this, if it's not you that is the general, let's hope the computer has a good determination) you will attack. The advantage of field command at this point is that there is a chance that even if you loose the battle, the enemies losses will be so great that they either won't pursue you for long, or that they will die when attacking the base.

On the the weapon system!

Let's say your squad just got ambushed by a few orks, and you survived (phew!). You go around the battlefield, and pick up a choppa/dakka (ork axe/swo..knife). You will be able to have 2 weapons. Now, the first few times you use one of these weapons, which are pretty big for a normal human, you will probaly fall over. This will happen the first 3-5 times. However as your character starts to get used to it, it will just take a bit of time lifting it from the ground, and when you get better and better the cooldown will stop. EVERY weapon will have it's own status bar (0%-100%). This means no "i'm 30% at assault rifles!". But probaly a "i'm 30% in lasgun!". The advantages of advancing in skill in different weapons will be things like shorter cooldown, less breath when using it (thus increasing accuracy). Using chaos weapons is treachery, but using less intimidating weapons (like Tau weapons) is acceptable.

Now that we got that settled, scenario choosing!

When not in a scenario, and if you are a general, you can request reinforcements for your army. Even though you are not a general, you will choose which scenario to play (via a planet map interface), however, being a general you will determine wether to rush or field command mode. Of course enemies sometimes attack too! This will prove fun if the enemy chooses to rush, as you will start out in i.e. a bunker or trench or behind sandbags and will crush waves of enemies.

Joining Chaos!

Maybe, to add a bit of variety you could add the option to join chaos. This would be for advanced players, namely because you will need to flee from an allied base without getting shot (could prove hard) and the life of a heretic is hard. This would involve getting contacted in a dream by the chaos gods, while fighting chaos forces. About the dreaming stuff: You will need to sleep and rationize sometimes. Anyways, you will have the chance to refuse or join chaos. You will need to flee and find a chaos contact. Joining chaos while make a drastic change to your game, and you will not be able to change back, so an autosave should come right before you get the chance to join chaos, in an alternate save folder. Anyways, when you joined chaos you will be completely unable to choose where to attack, however fighting methods will prove a bit funnier (introducing dual-wielding close combat weapons). You will also be able to choose which chaos god to worship, or just be an "undivided". The advantages of following a god is that you can pray to them and have a slight chance of getting your weapon enchanced. The disadvantages are that you will probaly get into alot of fights with followers of other gods.

The game would eventually end when you conquered the whole planet either as believer or traitor. Mind that most of the races have interest in the planet, so there's gonna be alot of resistance!

The role of commisars!

If you flee from a battle, the commisar would immediatly target you and fire. If he is being attacked or is busy with a vital target, he would contact a sniper nearby. If the sniper is busy/getting attacked, he would forward the message to the nearest sergeant. If his squad is busy/getting attacked, you might as well make it away!

When (if) you flee from battle, there's a 80% chance that you will not get hunted down next time a commisar sees you, although he could have forwarded the message to about, the whole base, noone will have memorized you during the battle and wont remember you afterwards, because the sheer number of imperial guard soldiers.

Please bear in mind that a year ago or so, at the time of writing this, my interweb writing experience was in the stupids, and I was not very good at english.

blackout
2007-03-17, 12:19 PM
Erloas: Not bad. Not the best idea, but not bad.
Beleriphon: Niiiiice! :) *wants to play*
ufo: Ooooh. Shiny. Nice. :)

Mattaeu
2007-03-17, 12:30 PM
I've only ever kicked around one idea since playing Total War:

I think it would be interesting to be the grunt, being commanded at the enemy, but if you die, you simply take over a surviving(for the moment) troop member.

You survive: maybe a promotion/better training/different unit.

More battles, more death or promotion. Eventually works up to being the head guy over your own unit. But you are still under the lead 'king' or whatever. Then strategy:

Do you want to plot his demise or honestly seek the next highest position?

I'm thinking of support from troops would play a big part in what you can accomplish in either direction; assassination or acclaim has a large part on how much pull you have with the general populous. Did you volunteer to aid a failing unit when they were being flanked? Did you change that outcome? Did you send troops to their death to feint an enemy position? (Is that a bad or good decision?) etc.

I know I would like to play this game.

Thing is, with things like they are now, I doubt it would be the simple awesome single player experience but rather a MMO with terrible execution as No One wants to work in coordination.

Corlindale
2007-03-17, 01:29 PM
I have an idea for a game that I've been developing a bit in my mind for a while.

The premise is simple enough - you, as the main character, wake up on a metal bench deep inside a nasty laboratory complex, with the compulsory attack of amnesia, of course, creating the potential to rediscover the backstory throughout the game.
Now, here is the real kicker - you wake up blind, and in fact will spend the entire game being blind. Your normal screen will basically be a HUD and then total darkness. You are not completely lost when blind - there is a button used for "feeling" whatever is in front of you - any solid objects/items/enemies will get a translucent outline, growing in detail the longer you hold the button. In addition, the game will of course feature a very good array of sound effects, allowing you to get an idea of the location of enemies by the noise they make.

However, there is actually a way of seeing in the game, and this will be a very, very crucial feature. Early in the story, you discover that the operation that left you blind also granted you some psychic powers - you are able to "sense" whether any sentient beings are nearby, and by activating your power, you are able to take over their senses; see what they see.

Thus, this will in effect come to be a SPS - Second Person Shooter. You will only be able to see your character through the eyes of the enemies. This leaves the player with quite a dilemma - while the enemies are of course out to kill him, if he destroys them all he will literally be left "in the dark".
Animals can also be used for eyes, but seeing things through the eyes of an insect can be somewhat confusing, and other humans are generally preferable.

The controls will probably take a bit getting used to - while they'll be your standard WASD setup, the perspective will be quite different, which means that turning left and right will probably be less than intuitive when you'll often be viewing your character from the front, through the eyes of an enemy shooting at him.

The actual gameplay will otherwise be a bit like Deus Ex or System Shock II(it will probably be aiming for the mood of the latter), where one can choose whether to adopt a covert approach or go in guns blazin', but with the added twist of having to use the enemies as eyes. I imagine there'll be a skill system too.

The psychic power of borrowed vision will grow in potential throughout the game - eventually you'll be able to do such things as view from several different enemies at once, or "see" through the eyes of electronical devices like security cameras.

I don't know if the idea is interesting or just silly, but I kind of like it:smallsmile:

EDIT: Forgot to add: The game will also feature a multiplayer arena mode, where players can elect to play either as Sightless or Seers. The Sightless are considerably more powerful than the Seers, but are also blind and have to rely on the eyes of their Seer opponents. Or perhaps Seers and Sightless can team up and use eachother's eyes, fighting against another mixed team of Seers and Sightless.

blackout
2007-03-17, 01:49 PM
I like that blind-game idea. I REALLY like it. :) Truly original.

J_Muller
2007-03-17, 02:32 PM
I would like to see a sort of RPG but ran from the other side. More like being a very destructive DM in an RPG. It would be a sort of cross between Tecmo's Deception (the whole series, thats the name that always sticks in my head though) an RPG and a city/world building sim.

Think Stonecutters sort of power behind the world sort of cult. cue Simpsons song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cCfZrkCFI)

You could be a good, evil or neutral sort of cult, so you could attract strong followers of any type, and if you were really good and sneaky you could get high level characters from both sides working for you. You could set up dungeons (generic use of the term, someplace for adventurers to go) to try to lure your enemies to their death, and by doing so take the money and items they have amassed. Since you would be a sort of unknown semi-omnipentent controlling force you don't do anything yourself though, you hire other people to do your jobs for you. This would be where most of your resources end up going. If you don't pay your members well enough they might start stealing from you. You start off small, controlling a local city and some surrounding area and as you build up your wealth and power you expand your network to other areas. If you are too obvious or too extreme you might get high level adventurers after you where it might take everything you have to defeat them.

To move into another area you could have memebers start running missions to that area to build influence and politic your way in, you might simple start a war and take them over with brute force. You might send the evil part of your group to attack an area and cause problems then, unknown to anyone else, send your good followers to defeat your own evil followers and portray yourself as a hero and savior of the land. You might use dark magic to posion the land and animals to an area to cause them hardship and famine then use your own supplies to make money off them or wait until they are too weak to resist and take them with little effort or offer them goods are a reduced rate to become friends so they work with you out of choice and are loyal to you for your help (so long as they never figure out it was a setup in the first place). If you aren't careful though and get found out you are likely to draw the wraith of other areas that are noble and fight the good fight for those not strong enough to stand up for themselves. Work as bandits in makeshift camps in the world and roam without a place of home and control the wilderness, leaving civilized areas in tact to keep producing goods and people for you to rob pillage and corrupt.
The more powerful you get the more powerful people take notice of you and try to gain what fortunes they can from your downfall.


So, D&D meets Evil Genius? I like it.

This is an idea I've been kicking around for about two years or so. I won't lie and say that I had the idea before I played Sid Mieir's Pirates! because that's probably where most of the inspiration for this came from.


So, about a thousand years or so ago there was a nuclear war. A bunch of people died, and those that didn't were trapped underground by the radiation. Society regressed thousands of years, etc. Now the radiation is gone from most of the surface, and about a hundred years ago humanity emerged from their underground shelters. They're back at approximately 50s technology level, but life is pretty hard because the surface is, for the most part, a barren desert. Overcrowded, polluted cities have sprung up around oasises, but that's about it as far as urban centers go. In between the oasises, there's pretty much nothing of use.

You are the leader of a nomadic tribe. You and your tribe travel from city to city trying to survive in this harsh post-apocalyptic world. Here's the thing, though: The game is entirely vehicle-based.

The centerpeice of your tribe is a massive vehicle I've tentatively named a Sand King. The default is that you control this vehicle, though you may choose to control others if you want. It's big, slow, and is where your supplies are stored. You also have a bunch of smaller dune-buggy style vehicles. Each of these vehicles takes up fuel, and you can only have as many vehicles as you have people in your tribe to crew them. People take up rations.

Now, the land between the cities is pretty much in a constant state of war between convoys of vehicles and gangs of bandits who raid travelers for supplies and food. So, almost all your vehicles are armed. Your Sand King has spaces to fit turrets onto, with different models (you can buy new models) having different numbers of turrets, along with their other properties. Most of your vehicles will be of the combat variety, equipped with an assortment of weapons. You can upgrade your vehicles at towns and cities, selecting from an assortment of upgrades such as more armor or a better engine or weapon.

You travel from city to city fighting bandits, and you can also choose to take on missions such as escorting a convoy of merchants or perhaps exploring new territory. Occaisonally, you may stumble upon a bandit camp, or the remains of a pre-apocalyptic city. Finding a city gives you the opportunity to explore it and possibly gain a special upgrade, such as radar for your Sand King, or a special turret. These carry over if you get a new Sand King.


So, what do you guys think?

Erloas
2007-03-17, 02:44 PM
Hmm... I hadn't heard of Evil Genius before. I'm downloading the demo now.

Your game sounds similar to Fallout and Mad Max. I'm all for post-apocalyptic mayham. The futue as seen from the 50s has always been more interesting then the future of other times. Maybe we'll get something like this when Bethesda actually gets around to telling us anything about Fallout 3.

TheOtherMC
2007-03-17, 06:15 PM
So, D&D meets Evil Genius? I like it.

This is an idea I've been kicking around for about two years or so. I won't lie and say that I had the idea before I played Sid Mieir's Pirates! because that's probably where most of the inspiration for this came from.


So, about a thousand years or so ago there was a nuclear war. A bunch of people died, and those that didn't were trapped underground by the radiation. Society regressed thousands of years, etc. Now the radiation is gone from most of the surface, and about a hundred years ago humanity emerged from their underground shelters. They're back at approximately 50s technology level, but life is pretty hard because the surface is, for the most part, a barren desert. Overcrowded, polluted cities have sprung up around oasises, but that's about it as far as urban centers go. In between the oasises, there's pretty much nothing of use.

You are the leader of a nomadic tribe. You and your tribe travel from city to city trying to survive in this harsh post-apocalyptic world. Here's the thing, though: The game is entirely vehicle-based.

The centerpeice of your tribe is a massive vehicle I've tentatively named a Sand King. The default is that you control this vehicle, though you may choose to control others if you want. It's big, slow, and is where your supplies are stored. You also have a bunch of smaller dune-buggy style vehicles. Each of these vehicles takes up fuel, and you can only have as many vehicles as you have people in your tribe to crew them. People take up rations.

Now, the land between the cities is pretty much in a constant state of war between convoys of vehicles and gangs of bandits who raid travelers for supplies and food. So, almost all your vehicles are armed. Your Sand King has spaces to fit turrets onto, with different models (you can buy new models) having different numbers of turrets, along with their other properties. Most of your vehicles will be of the combat variety, equipped with an assortment of weapons. You can upgrade your vehicles at towns and cities, selecting from an assortment of upgrades such as more armor or a better engine or weapon.

You travel from city to city fighting bandits, and you can also choose to take on missions such as escorting a convoy of merchants or perhaps exploring new territory. Occaisonally, you may stumble upon a bandit camp, or the remains of a pre-apocalyptic city. Finding a city gives you the opportunity to explore it and possibly gain a special upgrade, such as radar for your Sand King, or a special turret. These carry over if you get a new Sand King.


So, what do you guys think?

Yeah, swear to god that was like Mad Max 4 or something...

Not that Im saying its a bad idea! I love it!

EDIT: With this post I am now an Orc, I am now a man! HOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Arang
2007-03-17, 06:39 PM
Okay, zombie game. You start out doing a few practice missions for some sort of organization, basically learning the basics of zombie destruction and how to consider every factor before making your move. Then you get some weapons of some sort, and you get a square mile or fifty of zombie goodness to play around with. Basically, you have a completlely shut down zone that nobody dares go into, but you have to, because you're a zombie hunter ... or somesuch. The plot isn't really the main selling point.

In any case, there's a full-scale city, recently zombiefied. Every building is destructible, and it's up to you to round up what survivors you can, organise them, get youreself some guns, ammo, food, shelter. The dead never sleep, but you'll have to. Every part of the city is there, complete with train lines, suburbs, the city centre with the huge office buildings, the power plant, the waste processing plant, the parking complexes, the underground, the docks, the streets and the back alleys and the restaurants, the nightclubs and the banks. Where is the best place to make your stand?

As you go along, you'll learn how to use your weapons more efficiently, but you'll be able to pick up the gattling gun from day 1, if you're lucky enough to find one. What if you need stopping power? What if you need to take out a zombie at long range? What if you have to run, can you carry a lot in that case? There are lots of guns in the real world, and there are in this game, too. Shotguns, rifles, crossbows, bows, pistols, revolvers, machine guns, assault rifles, SMGs, they're all here, and you might need all of them.

But what if you run out of ammo? What if you don't have time to reload? Melee weapons might be very important indeed. Take a gander at the local hardware store and see what you find. Screwdriver, wrench, chain saw, clawhammer, fire axe, sledgehammer, crowbar. What will you use?

In any case, there's a city full of free stuff, and you'd better take advantage of it. Build a gigantic maze in the middle of the city out of wrecked cars, make your own flamethrowers out of garden hoses and lighters, have fun with liquid nitrogen, do all that fun stuff they never let you do in high school chemistry, master the art of smashing the living dead under trucks you drop from cranes, cut the elevator cables and block the stairs for your very own unreachable sniper tower, do whatever you want, but kill zombies and survive.

Vehicles would be important for getting around. You'd have everything from the rollerblades up to the APC. Can you get the sedan to run, and is the highway too chocked with cars to make any headway? Maybe you should take the bike instead. You could run over zombies in your SUV, or climb up on top of a van and be virtually untouchable.

Now, survivors. Maybe you can fix up the schoolbuses and shuttle them out by the hundreds? Maybe you can round up enough people with guns to set up some serious bait-kill situations, mowing down hundreds of zombies? Maybe they'll panic and try to kill you? Every man and woman is a person of their own, and in a world where everything has gone mad, everyone does something different. Some people will make groups of their own, some will loot, some will freak out and go mad, whimpering and crying. Some might try and be heroes, only to be torn apart by the living dead.

Old idea, then Dead Rising came along and ruined everything for me. This is bigger and (hopefully) better, though.

blackout
2007-03-17, 07:55 PM
J-muller: FREAKIN' AWESOME! Fallout meets Civ and Homeworld(sort of.)!*wants to play*

Arang: Meh. Not bad. But not the best.

Some great ideas are coming in! Keep em coming!

J_Muller
2007-03-17, 08:51 PM
J-muller: FREAKIN' AWESOME! Fallout meets Civ and Homeworld(sort of.)!*wants to play*


Thanks. I've got more in-depth stuff on my computer that I've put together over a period of a few years. Mostly this and an idea I've had for a simple-yet-complex tactical RTS...

GryffonDurime
2007-03-17, 10:50 PM
Well, I have been kicking around game ideas for years, but there are two in particular that have long-held my interest:

In the first, a sidescrolling MMO, the battle system would be set up to resemble one of the simpler fighting games on the market like Super Smash Bros, allowing players to set up their own array of attacks from an extensive list. Each player, however, would have to belong to one of five Philosophies: Wood, Water, Earth, Fire, and Metal. Depending on their Philosophy, the player's Spiritua, a reflection of their mental and physical prowess at any given moment, would fluctuate accordingly, forcing players to develop...a kind of rhythm. For example, water would wax and wane according to the speed and ferocity of your attacks: the faster and more agressive you are, the higher your Spiritua will cap but it will also fall just as quickly while a Fire Philosopher is more random, with his Spiritua fluctuating rapidly.

The second is a simplistic but freeform RTS where players command a race of sentient liquid as a kind of Godmind. As your lil' droplets battle other droplets damage done is absorbed as moisture: the more moisture any given droplet holds, the larger and more powerful it gets. At the same time, you've got the freedom to phase shift on the fly to turn your army into immobile but nearly impenetrable ice fortifications or to move more rapidly at the expense of power in gaseous form. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the main idea.

blackout
2007-03-17, 11:17 PM
Gryffon: Interesting. Veeeeeery interesting.

open_source.exe
2007-03-17, 11:29 PM
One idea I have had is a kind of a FPS/RPG hybrid where the player is an exterminator, of sorts. They would kill undead simply for the cash, with no problems with watching people get devoured if their check bounced. They could find a unique way of fighting said undead/demons, with either guns, swords, or magic.

The ranged weaponry would be controlled by the mouse, as in a traditional FPS. The melee combat, however would have the player moving the mouse to guide they actual path of the sword, with the left mouse button initiating an attack, and the right mouse blocking the attack. Magic would be cast by movements with the mouse, the order of movements determining the spell cast. Add in lots of blood, and I would love to play the game.

One more thing, in multiplayer, there would be undead NPC's that try to kill you, in addition to other players. Also, I would love to implement zombie killing strategies from the zombie survival guide.
Not quite as original as the other ideas, but still kind of fun.

Beleriphon
2007-03-18, 04:06 AM
Beleriphon: Niiiiice! :) *wants to play*


Its an idea I've had kicking around for some time. The big draw for me with some of this nature is the scenario and the set up, not so much the gameplay itself. While the gameplay should certainly allow for all kinds of wacky fun the important part is that you actually have no idea what the hell is going on to start with. You basically get thrown into the aftermath of the apocalypse with nothing to work with and no appreciable skills.

Jibar
2007-03-18, 04:32 AM
For me, take Oblivion's customisbility, throw in some cyber punk, make it an MMORPG, keeping Oblivion's structure, make it free, then make it about a thousand times bigger.
Oh, everybodies doing it. Throw in some post-apocolyptic as well.
Bam, dream game. For a more original idea I'll check in later.

Saithis Bladewing
2007-03-18, 07:26 AM
I'd post my game ideas, but I've developed them very thoroughly and I fully plan to make them...so, nyah. I refuse! :P

Good ideas so far though.

Ronsian
2007-03-18, 09:36 AM
I also wanted to try a different RTS/FPS game. This is in World War two. You are a typical soldier, and you pick what you want to specialize in. First few missions are FPS ones. As you progress up the ladder, it switches to more RTS style. You become a corporal, and have control of about 12 men. You have a commander up top giving orders to dozens of squads, including yours. You, working with other squads have to accomplish missions. You can pick who is in your squad, etc. Later on you hit big time, and are close to top of the food chain. You get to pick what weapons your soldiers use, tactics, who your generals are, and all that sort of thing. Then it goes to a sort of Company of Heroes combat style, but with being able to change everything about your army and more troops. Or, it could be set in Medieval Times. Then, it's not so much FPS as RPG. You still progess up ladder, but later on it turns into Rome Total War but with more control.

Ethnic
2007-03-18, 09:59 AM
MMOFPS.

The area: Prince of persia style
Gameplay: Gunz online (with guns) and dark messiah singleplayer gameplay with old weapons n ****.
Unreal Engine 3 :P
Missions are a bit like at City of Heroes but then u need to aim.
Alot of details like at wow.
Graphics just like at age of conan :P

blackout
2007-03-18, 10:05 AM
Ronsian: Interesting idea. :)

And Ethnic, your supposed to put an idea that YOU made up, by yourself. Don't just rip features from different games and put em together. Add some of your own stuff in! :)

Dant
2007-03-18, 11:10 AM
I have an idea for a game that I've been developing a bit in my mind for a while.

The premise is simple enough - you, as the main character, wake up on a metal bench deep inside a nasty laboratory complex, with the compulsory attack of amnesia, of course, creating the potential to rediscover the backstory throughout the game.
Now, here is the real kicker - you wake up blind, and in fact will spend the entire game being blind. Your normal screen will basically be a HUD and then total darkness. You are not completely lost when blind - there is a button used for "feeling" whatever is in front of you - any solid objects/items/enemies will get a translucent outline, growing in detail the longer you hold the button. In addition, the game will of course feature a very good array of sound effects, allowing you to get an idea of the location of enemies by the noise they make.

However, there is actually a way of seeing in the game, and this will be a very, very crucial feature. Early in the story, you discover that the operation that left you blind also granted you some psychic powers - you are able to "sense" whether any sentient beings are nearby, and by activating your power, you are able to take over their senses; see what they see.

Thus, this will in effect come to be a SPS - Second Person Shooter. You will only be able to see your character through the eyes of the enemies. This leaves the player with quite a dilemma - while the enemies are of course out to kill him, if he destroys them all he will literally be left "in the dark".
Animals can also be used for eyes, but seeing things through the eyes of an insect can be somewhat confusing, and other humans are generally preferable.

The controls will probably take a bit getting used to - while they'll be your standard WASD setup, the perspective will be quite different, which means that turning left and right will probably be less than intuitive when you'll often be viewing your character from the front, through the eyes of an enemy shooting at him.

The actual gameplay will otherwise be a bit like Deus Ex or System Shock II(it will probably be aiming for the mood of the latter), where one can choose whether to adopt a covert approach or go in guns blazin', but with the added twist of having to use the enemies as eyes. I imagine there'll be a skill system too.

The psychic power of borrowed vision will grow in potential throughout the game - eventually you'll be able to do such things as view from several different enemies at once, or "see" through the eyes of electronical devices like security cameras.

I don't know if the idea is interesting or just silly, but I kind of like it:smallsmile:

EDIT: Forgot to add: The game will also feature a multiplayer arena mode, where players can elect to play either as Sightless or Seers. The Sightless are considerably more powerful than the Seers, but are also blind and have to rely on the eyes of their Seer opponents. Or perhaps Seers and Sightless can team up and use eachother's eyes, fighting against another mixed team of Seers and Sightless.

I like it. I think something similar has been done in some old space bar adventure/puzzle solving game though. Only the blind character had very good hearing, so he could "see" anything that actively made noise and only as it made noise. Was only a section of the game though.

elliott20
2007-03-19, 07:56 AM
So its like a highly customizable Maple Story? Sweet
Sort of. But not exactly how I would characterize it.

Maple Story, while it does have a colorful palette and pretty graphics, it has an awfully repetitive gameplay. A lot of the action happens on the same plane with your enemies so combat ends up being two people sitting there exchanging blows in the hope that their build will allow them to do enough damage to take each other down. While you have a lot of different powers and a lot of different moves, you're still doing so on the same platform. It really just doesn't use the environment all that much. So in the end, a lot of the gameplay is really not all that different from playing a 3D MMO.

the idea I had in mind would be more action intensive and less build oriented. Gameplay would have a greater similarity to say, a multiplayer Sonic/mario brothers as opposed to Maple Story.

So, when you engage your enemies, you're not doing it just on a single plane, you could be doing it all the way across the screen and all around the board.

Your build would still be important, but it's really not as paramount as other MMOs because you don't get all of your abilities to use, just a small number of them. It's sort of like Guildwars, so you have to mix and match to get the best combination for the task at hand and you have to work together with other people to be the most affective.

More about the customized space. Players at a certain point will be able to purchase their own screen (with the entrance being droppable ONCE) where they can create a space/organization of their own.

There are three levels of designation: visitor rights, shopping owning rights, town establishment rights.

The first one designates who is allowed visit. the second one designate which player other than the space owner is allowed to own a shop (a smaller customized space within the larger). The third designation shows which players are allowed to create their own custom space within your custom space. (This is how you can create really large towns, but having towns nested within towns.)

Of course, once you drop an entrance, you can't change it. So where you drop your town entrance is very important.

When designing your own custom space, depending upon how much custom space you own and how proficient you are with various ruling class skills, you can do a number of things:

1. place NPC
As the ruler of a single custom space, you'll get the rights to place a number of NPCs within one screen and they could serve any number of function. either they're a shopkeeper, an enemy, or even just a good ol' fashion "Welcome to my place" dialogue person. The power of the NPC you place is entirely dependant upon your own level. So no n00b is going to be putting down dragons in their own space.

2. place shops
by placing shopkeepers NPCs down, you can create small shops that will sell certain goods in them. The goods you sell is dependant upon 2 things: your level and the materials available to your custom space. Some items require that you have certain materials supplied to the shop. If you leave no supply line behind, you force the players to gather the materials themselves to get a certain item built. (basically making your shopkeeper a sidequest spawner) Or you can simply go find a material spawner, and place it on the shop keeper, giving the shop keeper a stream of items they can use to create their wares at a premium price.

3. place items
You can also place items on the NPCs for other purposes. i.e. placing an item that you've found from other places onto one of your NPCs makes that NPC drop that item when that NPC is destroyed. Or you can place that in an NPC custom script and make that NPC a quest NPC.

I think that covers most of it for now

Artanis
2007-03-19, 03:43 PM
First, another X-Com. I miss X-Com :smallfrown:


More seriously, a sort of RTS/FPS co-op. One player on each side is the "commander", playing a game that's somewhat like Warcraft III. You know the drill: building a base, training soldiers, hiring heroes, etc. However, each of those heroes is controlled by another player who is experiencing the world FPS-style. The commander gives the heroes objectives, and the heroes are informed of the objective and go do it. When they run into enemy forces, it becomes like fighting an FPS deathmatch in the midst of a WC3-style skirmish.

elliott20
2007-03-19, 03:51 PM
First, another X-Com. I miss X-Com :smallfrown:


More seriously, a sort of RTS/FPS co-op. One player on each side is the "commander", playing a game that's somewhat like Warcraft III. You know the drill: building a base, training soldiers, hiring heroes, etc. However, each of those heroes is controlled by another player who is experiencing the world FPS-style. The commander gives the heroes objectives, and the heroes are informed of the objective and go do it. When they run into enemy forces, it becomes like fighting an FPS deathmatch in the midst of a WC3-style skirmish.
such a game exists. It's called "Savage".

Artanis
2007-03-19, 03:52 PM
such a game exists. It's called "Savage".
I meant one that actually sold some copies :smallwink:

Also, IIRC, that game had the FPS-style players being assigned to mundane stuff like helping to build things. In this idea, the commander would just build workers or something to do the building, and the hero players would spend all their time fighting, traveling to/from a fight, or preparing to go to a fight.

elliott20
2007-03-19, 03:58 PM
I meant one that actually sold some copies :smallwink:

ooh, that was kind of harsh.



Also, IIRC, that game had the FPS-style players being assigned to mundane stuff like helping to build things. In this idea, the commander would just build workers or something to do the building, and the hero players would spend all their time fighting, traveling to/from a fight, or preparing to go to a fight.
Yeah, in that game, the commander could only build a maximum of 5 workers. Everybody else could choose to be everything from light infantry to heavy legionaires. It wasn't too bad actually.

blackout
2007-03-19, 04:57 PM
Artanis: Good plan. A little complicated though. Would it be sci-fi, or fantasy? Action-based, or more centered on using the environment as your weapon and setting traps.

Artanis
2007-03-19, 06:53 PM
Artanis: Good plan. A little complicated though. Would it be sci-fi, or fantasy? Action-based, or more centered on using the environment as your weapon and setting traps.
Sci-Fi or Fantasy would both work. It's more of a general concept than a specific game idea.

For the FPS players, it'd depend on the hero. Most would have pretty straightforward action-based gameplay, but some heroes could have abilities that interact with the environment (namely the "generic" troops on either side) to have the best effect. For the RTS player, it'd be just an RTS with some units having a mind of their own. And bad grammar :smallwink: