Game Ideas



  • I have a few ideas for games that I'd like to see. Don't know how well they might work, but we can hope, right? Don't think I've shared these before. If I have, I'm sorry for boring you.

    Anti Pacman
    I did wonder once what would happen if you had a Pacman game where you were one of the ghosts and someone (Maciej, I think) found a link and it doesn't work. So how about: a sort of RTS game where you are the director of the ghosts; instead of being the ghost, you're the ghost AI, directing the ghosts to where you want them to go to catch Pac.

    Space Fortress Defence
    Conceptually similar to http://www.pixelships.com/adg/epf016.html in that you're a space fortress defender but without most of the stuff going on... top half of the screen would be the area you see the enemies in, perhaps swipe to swing around, tap to shoot, with the bottom part of the screen being where you regulate power flow and so on.

    A friend and I did start to make this and mock up what it might look like but for raisins we never got too much further :( But something like:

    0_1475408067649_upload-88b74d5a-ceb4-4ea3-a1d3-baf8b155386d

    Left panel is regulation of power between core systems, middle panel is energy focus, right panel is information which as you get more and more damaged would spew more and more nonsense (and maybe Red Dwarf references) I don't have any of the assets any more, beyond that one screen shot.

    We were experimenting with having enemies that were wireframe representations rather than actual meshes or anything, using the primitive solids and debating about things like objects that merged together (think icosahedra that got extra struts between them to make mechaicosahedra or something) which looked kinda cool - thematically the idea was that the distance was too great to get actual data beyond some kind of general representation.

    Fantasy Football
    The idea of Blood Bowl appeals to me: the emphasis on the fantasy part rather than the football part. But fuck me, Blood Bowl is sluggish to play - it's one thing to step through a dungeon carefully and do it in a turn based rule-heavy fashion but a game that is meant to be high intensity just doesn't work.

    I'd love to see some mash-up of Speedball II with fantasy creatures. Almost with a Football Manager vibe, except it would need something to compensate for the fact that you wouldn't be managing 'real' teams. Perhaps give it a lore for the league such that it feels legitimate and perhaps some kind of history so that it feels believable. I dunno.

    A Game of Stars and An Inspectre Calls
    Here and here... now with the new working hours I might have the time and energy to actually work on these. Hopefully the latter might at least be done in time for IF-Comp '17 😆

    Cute Fodder
    I miss Cannon Fodder. It was a fun tactical game. I was thinking about a game that uses the art style from these graphics to have a sickeningly cute version of Cannon Fodder. People are fighting back against the overwhelming cute in the world. Protest against the cutification of the world. Defy the rules of oversanitised taste and decency.

    Castle Keeper
    Some kind of game where it presents kind of like Dungeon Keeper, if Dungeon Keeper had multiple floors. You're building a castle with multiple floors, laying down rooms and walls. Castle building is cool, but without doing it on the brick by brick kind of level in Castle Story or Minecraft for that matter. It should be able to withstand people attacking every so often. Bonus mode: allow the player to storm their own castle in an FPS kind of setting.

    Padulous
    I don't know if this one has been done but if not, it fucking should have been.

    OK, so Populous is a thing. But most of the time in Populous is spent micro managing land. Hardly the most deitilicious activity there is. So, remove the land mechanic as a core mechanic, transfer the power usage to gestures, smack it on an iPad. Don't just 'play god'. PLAY GOD. Or if you really did need the land mechanic, as a bonus, pinch and spread gestures.

    Chopper Strike
    A remake of Desert Strike, but with a more bad-ass helicopter, maybe with Tron-like visuals, set inside a computer. Something where the power of the chopper actually comes through because it always felt a bit chuggy in DS at times. I didn't just want to fly an Apache, I wanted to fly Airwolf with that electronic-scream noise as I came out of nowhere to wreak my presence upon whatever.

    God Wars
    A game that plays vaguely like Worms but each of the characters on each team is essentially major figures from each of the religions, with whatever abilities they have from the respective holy texts. A literal 'my god's better than your god' deal.

    The Princeless Knight
    A JRPG style game, that hits every trope going. My original notes:

    Cast: (names somewhat provisional)
    Player - weedy hero, quietly fancies Brat Daughter
    King - doting old wrinkly that wants the best for his subjects especially his daughters
    Brat Daughter (of King) - whiny brat daughter princess, who fancies Prince Charmless. Is considered beautiful by the kingdom which is why everyone loves her. Implied at least not to be a virgin.
    Other Daughter (of King) - the smarter daughter, not as beautiful as Brat Daughter.
    Prince Charmless - bravest hero in the land, the best shot, the best swordsman, the strongest, the fastest but not the brightest. PC is in love with Brat Daughter. PC and Player are in fact twins, not that you'd know it from looking at them.
    Mage - absent father of both Player and PC, doesn't know about it until some conversation when Player faces down Mage to rescue Brat Daughter.

    Mage kidnaps Brat Daughter as a 'virgin sacrifice' to the dark gods or somesuch. In reality, Other Daughter has done a deal with the Mage to kidnap Brat Daughter and torch PC when he inevitably shows up to rescue her, because she's fed up of her sister being such a whiny brat and thinks the kingdom doesn't need another stuffed shirt swaggering peacock. (Yes, that line.)

    King sends a note to Prince Charmless to go on a rescue, but the note never gets there - Player gets it first.

    Player can do one of two things at this point

    1. Go and find Prince Charmless and get him to go on the mission for 'his love', though Player will go on the quest too, just PC will do it first.

    2. Go on the quest directly.

    In either case, Player will be rescuing Brat Daughter. If PC goes on the quest first, there is a chance that PC could die on the way, which will cause Brat Daughter to hate Player even after he rescues her. Failing that, Player will ultimately rescue Brat Daughter, only for Brat Daughter to spurn him and fall into the arms of PC. If Player doesn't go to find PC but just goes on the quest, PC still turns up, but only after Player has rescued Brat Daughter, and will claim all the glory (and Brat won't believe Player did it all)

    As Player encounters dangers untold, Other Daughter begins to admire Player's heroism, that in spite of not being the hero of the realm, he's the one braving everything to go to Brat Daughter's rescue, and feels that even though he thinks he loves Brat, he will love her too. Which he won't. But that's something else.

    There's probably more lurking in my notes but that's probably enough rambling for now...



  • New idea: Alpha Unit Fodder

    If you never played Cannon Fodder - the first one - go play it. It's fairly critical to understanding. Do not, under any circumstances, play Cannon Fodder 3.

    So, anyway. A modern remake of Cannon Fodder, but with a story. You are a military unit, imprisoned for crimes you did not commit. Your mission is to break out, reassmble your alpha unit, and then go on various missions storming bases, dealing with people who are in trouble, and no-one else can help.

    Mechanically, it would be pretty similar to CF1, with slightly less of the camera sensitivity, and when you have vehicles, no stupid-ass runs of driving skidoos through improbable hedge rows and then exploding if you happen to misclick even slightly. This is meant to be over the top ridiculousness, 1980s action hero-in-a-can style gaming, not the sly commentary on war that the original was.


  • area_pol

    @Arantor said in Game Ideas:

    Anti Pacman

    Or a reverse-stealth game where you defend against assassins infiltrating your base. But probably has been done and was boring.
    I would like a game where you program your guard robots. The opponent could use some machine-learning to try find weak spots of your patrol procedure.

    Space Fortress Defence
    Left panel is regulation of power between core systems, middle panel is energy focus

    FTL seems to fully realize the resource management aspect of sci-fi combat.

    God Wars
    characters on each team is essentially major figures from each of the religions

    Smite

    Cannon Fodder

    So I watched a video and that is a top-down shooting game with a minor twist that you have a small group instead of a single unit? Is there something I did not see?

    Given your interest in that aesthetic, maybe you should see this.



  • @Adynathos FTL is more micro-managerial than the level Space Fortress Defence pitches at.

    Smite is really not what I'm looking for. God Wars, in concept really is Worms with a deity theme, rather than a MOBA.

    Cannon Fodder is a top down shooter of sorts, there are stealth and planning angles to it, where you can have one or more small groups (you can merge groups, split groups, take rocket launchers and grenades if you happen to have them and use them to take out buildings)

    RWR is a tactical shooter, and that's not a million miles away from what I'm thinking of, but I'm definitely thinking more 'over the top 80s vibe' than 'tactical shooter' implies.


  • area_pol

    @Arantor said in Game Ideas:

    stealth and planning angles to it, where you can have one or more small groups (you can merge groups, split groups, take rocket launchers and grenades if you happen to have them and use them to take out buildings

    Maybe XCOM?

    over the top

    Not tactical at all, but the top-down shooter I remember the most.

    Worms with a deity theme

    But do you have in mind anything that wasn't done in the infinite number of worms games produced so far?



  • @Adynathos XCOM is also too deep... I'm not exactly looking for recommendations here, I'm just outlining ideas I had for games that are variations on existing ideas and where they're different and why they're different. Cannon Fodder isn't fundamentally broken, and is fun enough but I wanted to give it an 80s action film vibe (unlike its current anti-war commentary) and make vehicle handling more fun. XCOM is deep strategy, Cannon Fodder isn't.

    As for Worms, I was using Worms as a 'gameplay is kinda like this', the key deal with God Wars is a visceral and literal 'my god is better than your god' feeling, in a cartoon violence way rather than a more realistic aesthetic.

    One day I'll actually make some of these... and that'll hopefully explain better than my attempts at explaining, some of these were just pulled from notes made years ago.


  • area_pol

    @Arantor said in Game Ideas:

    I'm not exactly looking for recommendations here, I'm just outlining ideas I had for games that are variations on existing ideas and where they're different and why they're different

    And I am not posting those examples to say that your ideas are already done, but looking at existing implementations of similar ideas is a cheap alternative to "let's implement this idea and see how it works" :)

    By the way, what technology (engine etc) do you use for your games?



  • @Adynathos I kinda got that, just that my ideas are 'almost x' and 'nearly y'.

    When I get round to actually going back to game dev, I'll go figure out what I want to play around with in terms of engines. Last time I did any game dev (as a hobbyist), I was doing the Unity thing but that was a couple of years ago. I'm not averse to learning another language/environment.

    And half the fun is prototyping :)



  • @Arantor I'm constantly thinking of making a similar game to the Sensible Software guys'. Not Cannon Fodder per se, but something with tiny people. Something like Wizkid probably wouldn't get much interest now.



  • @coldandtired said in Game Ideas:

    @Arantor I'm constantly thinking of making a similar game to the Sensible Software guys'. Not Cannon Fodder per se, but something with tiny people. Something like Wizkid probably wouldn't get much interest now.

    Pretty much all of the Sensible Software stuff up to but not including Z was pretty awesome. I'd also like to see another Mega-Lo-Mania, but I think you're right about Wizkid. Then again, I'd love to see another game that prompts reviewers to actually ask 'what made you want to make such a bat's arse game?'



  • @Arantor I'd forgotten about Mega-lo-mania! Many fun hours. 'We've been nuked!'

    To be honest, I spend a lot of time wondering what Amiga/Spectrum games I loved haven't had a modern version and if I could do something in the same style.



  • A game where 5 players control 1 deer in a forest. Player 1 controls the neck and players 2-5 control the legs. No local multiplayer.



  • Not so much a game, but the start of a boss fight:

    The game's villain faces off against the player in a room. The villain throws off its cloak to reveal that it is a metal robot. The player charges towards the villain, but the villain collapses before the player gets there. The villain's face appears on several walls. The villain was not just in control of that body - the villain is a computer controlling the entire facility.



  • @ben_lubar that's pretty cool, though reminds me of System Shock 2 when you finally learn Polito is dead and that SHODAN is very much alive.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @Arantor I, uhm, recently bought System Shock 2 but haven't played yet. 😒



  • @Zecc so even 17 year old games need spoilers now?


  • 🚽 Regular

    @Arantor Nah, I was just pulling your leg. I don't really mind spoilers. (despite what the choice of emoji above suggested)



  • @Arantor said in Game Ideas:

    @Zecc so even 17 year old games need spoilers now?

    Unless they're actually 28 years old.



  • @coldandtired 😕 System Shock 2 came out in 1999, unless I'm missing something very serious?



  • @Arantor Sorry, it's a 🦊 reference.

    If you've got a few hours and some braincells you don't want anymore it's from the Scott Adams meltdown thread.


  • Banned

    Strategy game like Europa Universalis, placed in ancient times. Since there wasn't internet back then, communication over great distances was hard - a message could be delivered in days or weeks after the event, and the response was taking just as long. It would pose an interesting challenge to a player when he's waging a war in some remote location, and each order takes ten days to deliver - but also the knowledge of enemy armies moving is similarly delayed, along with battle reports. It would also naturally constrain the size of empires - it would by simply unfeasible to maintain direct control over too big area. Of course, there would be technology and infrastructure upgrades that would let the information travel faster.


  • 🚽 Regular

    I remember reading this game's description once, but I can't recall its name so I'm unable to find it again.

    It was the story of three siblings.

    The sister was an NPC, only there for story purposes. She was cursed, monsters would come up at night to get her. You played like each of her two brothers alternately.

    One brother was awake during the day, setting up traps and doing general maintenance of their settlement. I may be mis-remembering, but I think the game was played in bird eye's view.

    The other brother would stay up at night fighting the monsters. The game played like a FPS then.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Arantor said in Game Ideas:

    Castle Keeper

    I'm pretty sure someone's done a series of games like this already. It wasn't as fun as the original Dungeon Keeper…


  • FoxDev

    @Zecc said in Game Ideas:

    I remember reading this game's description once, but I can't recall its name so I'm unable to find it again.

    It was the story of three siblings.

    The sister was an NPC, only there for story purposes. She was cursed, monsters would come up at night to get her. You played like each of her two brothers alternately.

    One brother was awake during the day, setting up traps and doing general maintenance of their settlement. I may be mis-remembering, but I think the game was played in bird eye's view.

    The other brother would stay up at night fighting the monsters. The game played like a FPS then.

    i don't know what game that could be but i want to play the crap out of it! :-D


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