Game Idea Thread!

Everyone is talking about (deferred) lighting systems, high-poly normal mapped animated models and other fancy effects, but I barely never see discussions about gameplay or game ideas. After all that is what playing games comes down to, you come for the eye candy but stay for the content.
Therefore let us think and talk about game ideas and share those!
In my opinion a(n indie) game does not have to have a unique key feature or put the main focus on a single mechanic - that's what currently almost all indie games/ platformers do that I can think of - because I think they get old really quickly, instead I think games should only do some things well, i.e. they should be fun.

I will start with a few of my ideas, please feel free to add your own:

1) A game that is centered around floors of a high building, maybe with a highscore focus.

2) An adventure/ platformer based on cardboard box figures, similar to the following picture (copyright is unknown to me, sorry):



3) A racing game similar to F-Zero for the SNES.

4) I've once posted the following story idea on the Sergeant Rampage thread, i.e. a story for a top down shooter:



5) A Metroid style non-linear exploration based game where you fly a spaceship (or something else) and continuously get better and better (and get more abilities) by beating boss enemies, maybe on an alien planet that features some kind of mystery.

A detective point and click story with Detective Tedious (has a tedious way of solving things...).



Or a platformer where you play a llamabot and need to blast as many enemies as you can to buy upgrades for yourself.

I have a bunch of small game ideas, and even few stories for scary games (which I've wrote myself). But I'll describe a small horror game idea:


And here is another example, of great idea I think:
Destroy the Porn

Super addictive, they managed to have some great story intrigue also :

RimeLands.

On mobile :
Just addictive (not so repetitive caus fun and you gain experience and equipment stuff)
TinyLegends :

Nice game there 3Run, Destroy the Porn. You get imba items very quick, but the levels are still getting gradually harder. Not easy to make such a mechanic.

Joozey@ yep, but it's quiet simple there, thats what I've liked most. BTW, thats a great channel on the youtube, a lot of free indie games can be found there for inspiration!

1.)
A game I'd call "Hackers". The idea is to deliver a multiplayer experience based on those scenes we've all seen in movies where people start hacking something and it's done via some crazy to stupid graphical representation to give the viewer something to look at. So there'd be like two teams one being the hackers trying to invade a system and one being the "defenders" who try to slow down / throw back the hackers. Each match would be around a "map" which one can imagine like an electric circuit with certain parts connected to each other. Each player then can choose an element to hack or support where you of course have to stick to a certain kind of sequence so the hackers have a starting point and work their way down the "lanes" of the circuit piece by piece and ultimately have to reach a final position in the circuit (usually at the other side of the circuit) in a certain time frame. Each part a player tries to hack leads to what I'd describe as a minigame which is about math or a puzzle game (or both). Not too complicated stuff but of course no 2+3 calculations or something like that. One probably could introduce several levels of difficulty so one doesn't get overwhelmed by too difficult tasks...

The game would be both about the thrill of solving those tasks as fast as possible while also keeping some tactics in mind in terms of which lane in the circuit you choose where certain parts you "conquer" give you special effects like slowing an enemy down, blocking a certain lane or have a player restart their "minigame". I imagine thrilling 3v3 matches where the "defenders" of course aren't real "counter hackers" but what they can achieve ideally just slows the hackers down so the time runs out before the hackers reach their goal...

2.)
Something like the Crusader games. Isometric perspective, controlling your character with a gamepad for real 360° movement control and then throwing both enemies and traps at the player. This might work for both a sci-fi scenario with its light barriers, cameras, codepads and so on as well as for a fantasy scenario where you raid temples or something like that filled with traps and enemies - the more advanced traps serving the same role as cameras would be explained via magic although the sci-fi scenario probably is the more convincing one. One could advance where the Crusader series left off with more advanced physic puzzles (or just smashing a pile of barrels hitting everyone standing next to it). Additional options like a cloaking device similar to the Predator for stealth missions where people see you when moving too fast / too close to them also would be possible...

3.)
A turn based RPG with a hex-grid based system and moderate tactics depth (and when I say moderate I mean "moderate" when comparing to "OMG is this complex" titles one hardly sees anymore nowadays). The twist of this concept is about being a parody on fantasy games / popculture. I won't go into any details here as this is what I'm actually planning as my next project I want to approach a bit more seriously so it doesn't result in "useless doodling" which most of my projects turn out to be...

4.)
A remake of Imperialism with certain extensions to the gameplay especially when thinking of the rather simplistic battles. The gameplay is just too addictive and I come back to playing this regularly...

5.)
Something like Megaman X. I so miss Megaman X games. Ok maybe X5-X7 weren't all THAT good but they still were fun to play (and especially X6 is damn hard) but I thought X8 was just a blast and had clever gameplay extensions especially with Axl as the 3rd playable characters and his different gameplay creating this nice "trinity" of different gameplay. Unfortunately Capcom shows little to no interest in this franchise anymore...

6.)
Ok this basically is the 3rd "remake project" but I'd really appreciate another Rollcage game although as rumors say there is some kind of "Rollcage-X" or something like that in the making. Still I loved the Rollcage games as they basically combined Mario Kart with a great racing component involving higher speeds (though nowhere near F-Zero speed), skill and crazy stuff like driving on tunnel walls...

7.)
Now for something more unique again. A space combat "simulator" where you steer something like a Starfury from Babylon 5. The clue here: Due to the fighter design you have real thruster control and don't just fly straight ahead like in Star Wars. It would pretty much be a space game with newtonian physics with slight "alternations" to make it more fun. You'd steer with a gamepad where one stick makes your fighter rotate the way you want and the other one controls the thrusters. So when you push left on the "thruster stick" your entire ship slightly moves to the left (from your cockpit perspective). This makes many interesting combat situations possible where it's all about the piloting skills - just like seen on Babylon 5. To increase the fun even more there would be a "maneuver database" where the player can programm certain maneuvers. Ingame the player has two ringmenus where he always can fire up a certain number of premade maneuvers. Imagine a roll to the top left which ends you facing backwards not only giving a nice evasive maneuver that makes you hard to hit but you also end up facing "backwards" and now can fire back. Due to the Newtonian approach you of course will continue flying in the direction you accelerated in the first place so you now can fire at targets behind you while still "flying forward". To spice things up there'd be some missions with fights around capital ships where one e.g. has to "strafe" around the enemy to avoid being shot. To give some better impressions maybe have a look at THIS or THIS. I think it would be great fun to create those maneuvers in an editor and then using them on the battlefield. With each pilot pretty much having his unique set of maneuvers he can throw in I think this would lead to exciting battles where it's not about who aims better but also who throws in the better tricks to fool the enemy / evade fire...

Nice idea for a thread! I love talking about game concepts and ideas!

In no particular order.....




Aww, that IS a cute picture! Reminds me of Tweenbots (previously discussed here). It's not really a game idea though, right? Real talk, a thread about discussing art style would also be interesting.





While I can't argue with those ideas, I also, well, can't discuss them really - you need to give a few more details than that, man!
There's one guy on screenshotsaturday doing a F-Zero/Wipeout-like game that procedurally generates it's tracks. Kind of makes content creation easier, or at least more interesting for us "programmer guys", I s'ppose.



Love Metroid, love non-linear exploration, love spaceships - idea is approved! Do you know the Captain Forever series? It does a similar thing with the creating and exploration.
In any event, I really like the idea. Metroid is great at conveying a certain "sense of place", of conveying an athmosphere, and sometimes also at telling stories without many words or any cutscenes. Perhaps we could learn from that - perhaps we can even do these procedurally, somehow? A well-placed dead-soldier-ragdoll can tell a story, I guess. Though I'm not sure how far beyond that we could go.




Aah, the horror genre.
A few weeks ago, I would have argued that you shouldn't limit yourself to old-school graphics like those we have in mind when saying 8-bit, but I think now that it should be possible to make that scary. Since I'm linking to other games all the time, why not here - do you know Imscared (the link goes to a Let's play of that - spoilers that way, if you're interested in playing it yourself, check out it's IndieDB page!).
That said, I'm not sure I can imagine the game you've described - since you're trying to bring back the old-school feeling, I guess you're targeting gamers with a history of those times, mostly? I dunno, right now I'm imagining a "scary" version of Pokemon or Zelda or something where I run away from a monster that cannot be defeated.





Cool idea! I like it. If it turns out that the asymmetrical gameplay you describe is too difficult (maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems that the Hackers-gameplay is more thought out, perhaps because it's more fun to imagine (and therefore the end result to play?)), it should be rather simple to turn it into a game where all players are hackers - either they both try to reach the same goal (and can slow each other down), or if you want to keep the defensive elements, the teams could try to intrude the other teams' systems. Allow several ways to win (several paths into it, perhaps?) to make sure it's not getting boring, and you have a winner!




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So here's an old idea of mine:



Back seven hundred years ago when I made those "Experimental games" series games, one of the concepts I wanted to do was a puzzle game in which you received distress calls or strange messages that you had to decode. There would be hints or messages left in there that somehow - different in every video - you'd have to decipher by replaying the video, slowing it down, playing it in reverse, only investigating the audio - the list goes on. It still sounds like a neat idea to me, but I doubt there's many out there who'd love to play this. Also, I am aware that this isn't well thought or planned out - you can tell I didn't spend too much time on this one back in the day!


Finally:

If you have never done this, you should really take a look at Wikipedia's "Mystery"-category. It provides an instant super-interesting starting point for videogames. Each of these entries could, probably, make for an interesting scenario to exploit in a game.
Perhaps combining this with "Investigation" gameplay that some games have (to a small extent the Ace Attorney series, a better example being LA Noire), you could create a very athmospheric, very interesting "X-Files"-kind of deal.


Thoughts on these "ideas" (more like, rough outlines of ideas) are much appreciated!

the adventure/platformer game with a cardbox figure is definitely a very good idea! there could be danger zones for the character like fire and water, and wind could also have a great effect in case of a platformer. ideal for a cartoonish game for children.

Hmm ... well I fail to see the good idea here. It certainly is a nice and stylish character but just that doesn't make it a good game (idea). Not that there exist no opportunities but calling a character concept a great game idea is not what I would have expected here...

Apart from that:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=owhNydizKB8

I wonder, why it has so many dislikes (about 162).. It doesn't seems to be so bad, indeed a nice platformer.

I especially think the trailer's music is great...

Thanks for the feedback and contributions, esp. to Error014!

I don't think anyone should or would simply do a game directly based on one idea presented here, instead I think this thread could be seen as an inspiration for own game ideas.
A simple character or a style as inspiration 2) in my first post here can be enough to lead you to a great game, I think when you see such a thing the whole game can unfold in your mind in seconds. As I've stated in my OP I don't think a game needs or even should have a unique mechanic, that's why I encourage other users to post inspiring images as well.

Well ok - I thought this topic was meant to be more around actual game ideas (which at least are a little bit fleshed out in terms of the general vision of the game) and not just one big collection for inspirations...

Considering the "unique mechanic": I think while it isn't necessary to have one it helps. I think everyone enjoys a new gameplay mechanic if it's fun. It's nowhere a must have in order to produce a good game but I think people enjoy playing something new and fresh plus it makes your game stand out. I guess especially the latter is important when aiming for the mobile market where you nowadays have these huge appstore with literally thousands of games and applications. As I see it even great games tend to disappear in the great flood of new games and so I think it's extremely useful if your game has a little bit more to offer than "Everything you've already seen elsewhere just with very well done execution."...

What shouldn't be done in my opinion is to focus too much on this one unique feature / mechanic. Under this perspective I tend do agree, that you don't need this in order to create a good game so an extreme focus on that one thing probably will turn out counterproductive...

Exactly, but this is what almost all indie games do that implement such a unique feature and it simply gets boring quite quickly.
Your argument about mobile games is valid but I don't care at all about those, sorry.

The problem with fleshed out game ideas is that I don't want to share them, I have 4+ projects to choose from for my next game and I'm not sure which of them I will realize. This is why I don't make them public here but instead post those which I will not work on myself.

Hahah, I definitely know what you mean! I was debating posting about some ideas in here, but I'd rather not.
And it's not just an irrational "What-if-someone-steals-them"-fear. But after you've spend some time working on an idea, fleshed out scenario, story, characters and gameplay*, it's a) not easy to put in few sentences anymore, necessarily (at least not if you want to talk about it in more detail), and b) it's scary to do.
... Or maybe it's just me. But these things can easily become crazily personal. I'd much rather offer the idea for harsh criticism after I spend some time, well, "preparing" it. I know it may not make sense - you guys aren't exactly the type I'd expect it to flame it to death - but still. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not sure I could NOT take criticism of the pure idea personally. A prototype? No problem. But before that - that's always difficult for me.



That being said, I do agree though that, at least for me, "just" the character concept isn't really a game idea. Don't get me wrong, I think there's value in sharing that - as you've said, it's inspiring in a way, and a good starting point for discussion. But it's not quite there yet to be called a game idea. I don't mind you sharing it, though.


(Btw, Toast, I really enjoyed your long post, and I hope you haven't taken me only replying to one idea in detail personally or as a sign of criticism - it really isn't. I rather just, well, didn't feel like I could add much. I only add this because I only realized now that given the huge amount I've posted, and only a short bit about your ideas, it may have given the impression that I was avoiding some of the ideas - that's not the case. Just wanted to clear that up )


* - Umm... I wonder what the order of those things says about my idea

I feel the same way, Error014.

Sure, it's by far no game idea but you may have one immediately when you see the picture. When I see the cute little cardboard box guy I think of a small adventure that tells a heartwarming story, maybe about his (girl-)friend, his family or about more general aspects. If you have the look and the story this IMO already dictates the gameplay to a certain extent, just pick a perspective and make a decision about the combat or if there should not be any at all and you could already start prototyping.


Some time ago I've worked on/ prototyped a highscore based shoot'em up where you would fly a modern jet fighter in an endless/ repeating level (additional levels would be over land, in a cave and so on) and would try to upgrade your ship in multiple categories, depending on your preferences. Each session would start with only a few enemies and you having a slow aircraft then spawning more and more enemies with different and more difficult types:

Well I didn't mean "fleshed out" in a sense of a complete design document...
I just though pretty much anyone would have one of those very rough ideas he might want to share. The "Hackers" game I described is such an example. While I think I gave a description that in general describes the gameplay pretty well it of course lacks things. Actually it lacks a lot as I didn't really say a word about what those "minigames" would look like. I think I once wrote down some ideas of which puzzles might fit and how deep I want to go down the road of the "math excercises" the players have to solve. I also didn't give any detailed description of what elements would be on those "circuit maps" and what special effects the players can unlock. I still think though that what I wrote can be described as sort ouf "fleshed out" as you get the idea of what you'd be playing...


No sweat - that was perfectly fine...
As I said I just had expected more "ideas" one really can call like that instead of what should be described as "inspirations". I still think pretty much everyone here has some ideas that won't fill up an entire design document but are rather simplistic while still giving a general impression of the desired gameplay...

Some of you may remember the old PC game Giants: Citizen Kabuto:



In this third person shooter you'd play as one of three characters whereas each one of them had a different playstyle and different gameplay (one guy had weapons and a jetpack, then there was a women with spells and other powers and one giant monster). As far as I remember each level was at least one island that was completely free to explore and move on but of course you always had to fulfill one or more goals.
I think a game like this could be a nice project to work on, maybe even with a co-op campaign, if you can manage to come up with a nice story and/ or good characters.

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants:_Citizen_Kabuto

Great idea. It was fun. Reminds me on MDK. You know that one ? Its pretty similiar. Both games rocked ! It would be nice to mix such type of game with some bloody action like LOADED (aka Blood Factory).

btw, ugly terrain ^^ ...background looks like super mario is jumping around there.

Well the multiplayer part was the most fun so one should start from there. As it introduced buildings and a base I'd shift the focus more towards a Battlezone <-> Giants fusion...

What also might work is a merge with one of my favorites: Sacrifice. The art styles of both games also slightly match I guess...


It was one of the first games to feature DOT3 Bump-Mapping which was badass back in the days...

I'm thinking on a sidescroller where you move a character with keys and you can draw some lines with the mouse. You can jump on those lines and they dissapear after a while, when you leave them or so. The goal of the game is to reach the exit gate in many small sceneries. The lines can be of different materials to change their behavior. Imagine an ice line witch you can draw as a slope down with a final slope up that makes you jump far after accelerating from the top. Or a rubber line that makes you bounce faster than the incoming speed. You can also use those lines for avoiding, trapping or killing the scenery enemies. The drawing ability is limited by length and you can increase it picking up items by the way. There might be a highscore table for each level based on the length of drawed lines.

@txesmi:
This would be freakin awesome with a graphics tablet

@txesmi: Do you know this Kirby game where you draw lines to move on, very similar to what you've described in your post?

I didn't know it. I wouldn't have bet that was an original idea

I love this little android gamee that uses a line drawing system too

Reminds me a little bit of Trine (2) where you also have some limited abilities to draw platforms or "crates" when playing as Wizard...

A first person game where you wake up in a rather random position in the woods (which includes mountains) of British Columbia in Canada and your goal is to survive. You do so by hunting small animals, running from bears and other big predators, by fishing and the like. You can sleep in self-made wooden tents, in abandoned cabins or in the open, you can use old rowboats to travel the rivers but no other human is to be found.
Although the player is not really told about this there is a story to discover which explains why all people are gone (or only in BC), maybe he can even achieve an ultimate goal and finish the game if he so desires.

Just posted this in the Feaocder (?) thread and will paste it here for the sake of completion:
Game idea:
You play a ghost/ demon and have to run from human beings with flashlights (you can see their cones) and you can only kill them from behind/ if they don't see you, this should be suspenseful enough if done right. To reduce the amount of work that goes into level design you could build a 2/3 floors high mansion where the ghost/ demon lives in and wave after wave more people (that want to see/ hunt/ kill the demon) enter the building from different doors and windows.
Alternatively this could be extended to open air levels (woods) or tunnels and dungeons, obviously with or without wave-based gameplay.

Superku@ you got pretty nice idea for multiplayer game This could be something like "The Hidden" source mod (almost invisible player and lots of marines, with rifles and gadgets). I'm thinking about making something small and similar with Acknex in the near future, it's pretty intense for a multiplayer game I guess! Thank you for an idea.

You are welcome, and good luck with the project, looking forward to play a demo soon!

Guys, how do you relate to low-res games in terms of low resolution, low polygons and low textures?

@Superku: Sounds like the game "Stranded" but with realistic graphics in British Columbia... why BC? Whatever, sounds interesting. But it could be a bit frustrating if the player has "to stumble upon" the story, you should throw in early breadcrumbs which guides the attention. LOST was all about the plane crash in the pilot but in the very last seconds you can hear the monster and see some damage it does to the environment - what a mindf***!

Normally that's perfectly fine for me if the game allows to don't use low but full HD resolutions. I don't mind playing something that looks like Quake 2 or Turok or similar (in fact I've wanted to use such a look some time ago), however, I really hate the Minecraft look with its ugly textures or for whatever reasons.
Why do you ask?

Hm did not know "Stranded" but it looks rather antiquated. I see your point, maybe one could add some ascending smoke in the distance to attract the player and to introduce him into the story, if he so wishes to pursue it. BC because it's my yearly place of vacation and I think it's suited for this type of game. It hosts several dangers in form of animals and nature, has a lot of beautiful places, thousands of mountains that limit the view distance and is barely populated.

HeelX@ I'm actually developing a horror game (since a long time already, but cause of HDD crash, I had to start working from scratch), which will have postprocessing pixilezation shader. And I really love the feeling of this kind of games, they are awesome!

That is the point, the game won't have these, all content lacks of a certain amount of detail that cannot be achieved back in the days of N64/PS2/Gamecube technically-wise compared to nowadays games. I'm quiet struggling these nights with a theory.

I know. There are pixelated games (and I mean with pixelated unfiltered textures like on the PS One or Nintendo DS), though, that get the feeling right. Minecraft is as ugly as hell, no doubt.

I am quite fascinated by the idea to make a PAL-game (resolution wise, but highly advanced antialiasing) with N64 or at least Gamecube/PS2 general tech limits in terms of texture and polygonal limits to settle on a certain degree of asset-details, while applying modern additional effects and shading like parallaxed perpixel lightning or super fancy bokeh DOF, SSAO and that stuff. It is hard to describe this kind of technology mix but I think that this solves the general asset creation problem in terms of time and money, while allowing a top notch visual presentation. In fact, I believe that these constraints will also lead to better gameplay for some reasons, which goes beyond the scope of this discussion.

I've assumed that, and personally I would hate that, too. A forced low/ pixelated resolution can be okay or at least for a while, but as a player I would demand to have the option to switch to my desktop resolution when I'm sick of the pixelated look.
As I've stated before I tried to go a similar approach but was not sure what kind of effects I want to implement into the game from a perspective of consistency, esp. such stuff as modern looking water shaders or similar or post-processing effects.

At that time, I had a very low spec PC for GTA San Andreas. Finally, I chose to play in 640x480 with 4x Antialiasing than to play in 1024x768 without Antialiasing, because it looked and performed better. So, I saw only a third of the pixels and it wasn't pixelated for me.

But I see your point.

What if the game is rendered as if it were displayed on a PAL-sized CRT display? So, the game is rendered in 768x576 with 4x Antialiasing or more and with appropriate shaders it looks like you play on TV, but rendered in your desktop resolution with all necessary triplet-patterns, geometric foreshortening and overglow?

Hm I think I need to see that in action before I can render a verdict on it.
Btw. I have been playing on the Project64 emulator some month ago and the visuals (+ resolution most of the time lower than PAL) didn't bother me in the slightest (the bad rendering of Playstation titles normally does bother me, though, they somehow look pretty different).

Random throw-in: "Stranded" is not the original game... you should take a look at "Schiffbruch"

Since this thread is about game related ideas, I would like to reserve a title: Moment of Fate™

A game about seizure inducing scenes?

not intentionally at least :\

Hummel, that title you shared - I suspect you already have an idea to go with it in your mind?


I always liked thinking of names for games, though I also have the habit of hating whatever I come up with shortly after.
Err, I hope that's not too unusual.

There is actually a lot stuff going on in my mind regarding this title. Currently I'm still working on bringing the concept scene I've posted some time ago in the "what are you working on"-thread from 2d to 3d. Much more work than I expected.
Took me already a month to create just the fundamentals of the 3d-tile technology.

what I don't really know currently is what era to choose for a historical strategy game. there are so many good games available from medieval and ancient times, covering nearly all the most interesting and well-known times (I think users like to play in an era they like and know a bit). I like when turn based building and management is combined with turn-based or real-time battles/sieges.

another difficult aspect is the scale of the game: deal with management of a town/castle, or a few of them, with limited army size, what is easier to present as a battle, or deal with empire building where huge armies are fighting, but in this case a downscaling factor of 100 could be disappointing (600 units represent 60000 real soldiers). currently I cannot handle effectively more than 1000-1200 units in real-time (most of them should be infantry for easier/faster control), and turn based battles are getting unpopular.

what I thought of, and not covered well, are the very early empires (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Hittite empire) and city states (Sumerian, Phoenician, Greek), and the early medieval times (Germanic kingdoms, Byzantine, the Caliphate). the less discovered eras have the advantage of freedom in several game aspects, without converting it into a fantasy game.

so, any idea welcome

Maybe you could implement Spartans in your game as there's a sequel to 300 coming out soon and this could create additional interest in your RTS.

once I thought about it, but I think I'll be ready later, and I see little strategy in the defence of the Thermopulae close, it would be rather a multiplayer slasher game

yes , but if you look at age of empires from 1 up to 3 they pretty much tried to cover most of those eras and empires , the most exciting for me was 3 with all those canons and old rifles with little smoke puffs rising up everywhere they shot and the battle cries and victory cries , so well done but it fell a little short for me when you look at some of the maps you feel like the maps are scaled down way to much and then theres the common trs problem the tank charge or in this case the cannon charge , difficult to find balance between unit strentghs but i must say i am a dear fan of rts and i find the modern era just as exciting , the only thing is it is truly difficult to keep the gameplay away from a click speed competition and a tank rush , some may wonder wheres the strategy really ? id like to see more strategy

I do not want to make something like Age of Empires, I plan a different system. I played a lot AoE2 and AoMythology, but fighting against skirmishing units one by one was annoying for me. in other games it was solved in a better way, by using only groups of fighting units. basically it is a very difficult genre, it would be very complicated to make a smart AI adopting to the ever changing environment and plan unit creation and movements effectively in real time, especially on one huge map. I build my map system to be able to manage real time changes, but I know alone it would be a too hard task to implement a great game play, so I will somehow combine it with turn based elements, by separating building, development and diplomacy from battles, like in Total War games, and by using more map levels.
the selection of the era will depend heavily on my interest I think and on how I can represent the actual military technology. the easiest is infantry, I mainly deal with it, and have a lot of optimization ideas, but presenting nice tight formations behaving intelligently is not too easy. cavalry is a bit more difficult, but I also have a prototype system of it, by simulating movements using acceleration/deceleration and limiting turn radius by the pathfinder. slow siege equipment are also not a big problem. but fast vehicles (like chariots and tanks) are what I want to avoid if possible. imo they would be very performance costy thus would decrease max. unit quantity a lot, and would require an effective unit type priority system to move away low priority units from they ideal path that is sometimes covered by other own units. so what are the most undesirable from the point of view of development are large fast units and huge crowd armies. and I will need later to deal with ships too (what is simply omitted from some games).

sounds intresting , sivan tell me you also played aoe3 (they also did ships), the reason why i talk about ao3 is that through the aoe series this was the closest to a good rts they ever got , its alive with so much more atmosphere where normaly a rts lacks in atmosphere ,hope i spelled the word correct ...
and the era was so well done ,even pc opponents taunt you and they dont give up easily , i hate rts like warcraft itts a bunch of crap . coh was cool but not what it should be .. yes a difficult genre and it would be nice to see some diffrent ideas done on it .. enjoy it and good luck

yeah luck is the thing very needed
I played only a few times AoE3, its graphics and gameplay was okay, I just did not know what to do with the home city, because I prefer to play freely like in earlier episodes. maybe I'll try it again, but I have really no time for playing...

well , i observe more than play , i like watching the key elements of what made certain games stand out and try to think how it would be implemented in in code and also i like to find what made me feel it sucked so as to see what rather not to do , the best thing about rts is i would say mostly it is possible for indie developers to create great rts games because most of the focus is on gameplay and not all on eye candy

yes, nowadays I have been doing the same when playing, watching what happens and how own and enemy units react, it can be a great source of ideas, beside reading articles written by rts game developers, and comparing them to my solutions, what to modify and what to keep. (of course it decreases the gaming experience)
it can be 2-3 years for a little programmer team (2-3 (wo)men) to develop a great rts game ai, so what I know is that I can do this hobby for a long time and beside game play programming I can learn the visual stuff too as a recreation. the main problem of the open source rts game 0.a.d. is that they did a lot of work on the graphics, but let the pathfinding and ai in a very unefficient basic level, thus after years it is still not really playable... I hope I can find a better development way.

i meant ambience not atmospere haha ..
yip there is a certain amount of balance that is key to funtionalty and something that stands out to me is balance of what is good and bad about a game , if you have something in your game that you think is really good ,someone will think it sucks and vice versa so as there are things in games that i think is to be avoided some people may think the opposit so there must be a sort of balance in features or gameplay so that people by their nature of being different would find something they like about that game , i guess thats part of having a diverse customer range

Hi I like to say something as to the OP idea of the thread. I know we are talking about game ideas and unique mechanisms. When this forum was flooded with flash newbies we would get every week the " Lets all team up and make a clone of -X popular- game." I posted once making fun of this group with a silly idea that I will restate here but Also include a area that I think is under served in gaming.

So in vain of the Scary Movie franchise I like to suggest the comedic parody games. There is always that popular game line that "you" may just not like. At the time the newbies were posting that game for me was the GTA set. So I suggest a parody making fun of the whole idea of GTA set in medieval time, call Grand Theft Horse GTH. But I was really thinking now that a cool game would be a combo parody were it is making fun of a different popular game in each level.

Ok long post for my 2-cents.

a balanced game play is a heavy thing I know, it requires a long testing period, and a lot of testers (who can mod/tweak the game simply by e.g. editing text files), and a good source of collecting further ideas. it is difficult for an indie developer to collect a large tester team, but this feature has another advantage, in connection with what you mentioned: the taste of each player cannot be satisfied, but if a game is easily moddable, it can increase popularity, as a modding community can emerge and grow, thus your game can be developed more easily taking into account their work.

---

grand theft horse crazy idea, I mean good! with some fight features like in mount&blade. and with buying selling stolen things. and finally make a group of raiders.

@Wjbender: I checked Age of Empires 3, and the funny thing in its pathfinder is that large units has only a 1x1 tile sized collision size, similarly e.g. to infantry. I was really surprised in such a quality game.

A game where you control KarBOOM-style cute cars (maybe with a Super Mario Galaxy graphics style), drive at high speed and can grind on rails and edges like in Skateboarding games. There can be ramps and halfpipes (thus tricks) as well, maybe even small wings/ boosters like in San Francisco Rush 2049 so you can rotate the car in the air.

The speed could be incredibly fast like in Extreme-G or F-Zero GX and have either 3dimensional twisted maps as in the latter game or be limited to two dimensions (except grinding) as in F-Zero for SNES.

The game could go for a Trackmania style gameplay where you cannot collide with your enemies and drive multiple laps but go from A and B again and again to get the best time (a surprisingly fun way to play), where the latter version is much easier to implement.

, don't you miss moments like these? (0:15 -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YpAkbI_W4)

Games likes Twisted Metal are nice I think. Should not be too much work if do a few unique cars (like 6 to choose from).

Maybe something like virtual cop or house of the dead gamestyle with some original weapons. A bit more work I quess, with all the mapping and scripting. Although an random gameplay mode could be added (randomized enemies, items, the different routes to take) to give it some replaybility and that it doesn't get old to fast for the gamemaker (than you have atleast one happy customer :P).

Or maybe some horror/puzzle game like The 7th Guest.

, this sounds cool, reminds me a bit of this http://phoenix.ee/gallery/photos/Unreal%20Tournament/955436898-1.jpg. That was a map with 3 skycrapers where you could jump from one to another with low gravity. Very fun to play.

Guns vs Nuns.

A catholic nun from the 13th century is teleported into the trenches of World War I during a deadly assault. Upon seeing the horrors of modern war, the nun decides to bring the gift of forgiveness and kindness to the soldiers at the front. To achieve her goal, she has to use her special ability of slowing the time down within a small area; Platforming over the bullets frozen in time, she has to reach every soldier and pray with them to stop the killing on the western front and ultimately end one of the bloodiest wars in human history.
The soundtrack would be mainly hardcore japanese techno, though within the time freeze bubbles you would hear remixes of Mozarts Für Elise.

I'm not good at these
But you guys are, and it's a shame to see this thread die.

Besides the fact that both Beethoven as well as Mozart are now spinning in their graves, this sounds pretty fun actually :DD

just a thought, after mentioning WWI: probably it would be the most frustrating strategy game to make a WWI western front game. I would not want to see a battle statistics panel with such a horribly high amount of soldiers killed/lost, beside the result of moving the front with a few meters...

I was watching a friend's son play "Call of Modern Battelfront #23" ( Yeah I don't play many games but you know what I'm saying). The players where insanely stupid with there lives. I thought all this "Most realistic war game" marketing was a lie at that point. They had no formations or plans of action or real communication and team work. And it was because dying 20 time in 5 minutes was the heart of the game.

Soldiers are brave and place there lives at risk but they are not insanely stupid with their lives because they know they don't re-spawn after death.

To the point - I would like to see a super modern war game that did this.
-When you started up the first time you had to choose one of 2 sides and are stuck for life.
-When your player is killed you can not re-spawn for at least 24 clock hours( and maybe you have to buy the life from a market like xbox live).
-The players are assigned to units inside bigger units and plan with intel, maps, troop reports,ect ... on a massive out of combat part of the game.
-Players can become backlines soldiers that are overseeing the battle and coordinating the effort. (Hello command - Generals - Leaders)

Any ways just some ideas. It would not be fun for the "charge and die" players we have now. It's a higher level of game. More thinking and planning and your life is way more valuable to you, and how you use it has a much greater effect and overall would be more rewarding. It changes the goal of these games form the short gain of "kill this", to a long term effort to "win the war".

Do I here millions of ADHD kids crying that "this game sucks" ??

How about a game were the player can make short telaports (blinks) like Night-crawler from the Xman. Remember the movie where Night Crawler attacked the White House? I saw it then and thought - what a awesome thing to do in a game.

What about a game where you lead a clan of cave men like a team 3d-person rpg? And you attack and defend your clan. You have to run hunting parties. And you advance your clan by stealing innovations from other clans and taking there "smart people" to be in your clan.

Here is the thing: It's a game.
Realism isn't fun, heck, war is mostly about waiting around and the rest is crapping your pants and trying to stay alive. There are niche games that cater for that genre, the ARMA series for example, but it is what it is: A niche game.
People want fast paced, fun games. They don't want to be punished for having fun, and a virtual life isn't as precious as a real life.

At the end of the day: Games are just games, and most things concerning realism are absolute boring.

I fully understand Sid and I did go way to far to the other end of the field. But I'd just like to see more strategy ideas being played in a massive player game. I guess I just really dislike the super fast pace.

I know I'm over posting but each post is an separate Idea.

So because we talked about fast paced modern combat type of play -->
Would it be a cool idea to do one where it was bullets verses magic. With the Same in city battle field but one group is like mages come through a dimensional hole or such.
You would have the guns and tech toys and all the current combat stuff, but the other side would use spells and elementals and summoned beast , ect ,ect.
Someone said this was like a "shadowrun" thing but I really have no idea what that is.

Edit - did a quick google on the ShadowRun 2007 windows game. Didn't learn much.

So I always wanted to do a combat magic game after the ego-shooter rise. And people pointed out Hexan (I am not a gamer so again i have no idea why this should be a red flag) as why not to do it. The base point they made was magic an ego-cam do not work.

I see the game play of the new combat games and think if you can give people all the gun and run, with the same feel for scroll and cast. It to me would be cool.

It's an idea and not one that I think works well in this indie game market. But Hey it gives you something to talk about.

Ok last one and I will stop--

I loved the Zelda 64 game with the magic pipe. But I didn't like Link and the whole goody good way of games. I wanted a game with a darker character. So I thought up Fink and evil elf assassin that takes murder for hire jobs. I want to take Zelda and make it a stealth and kill game. He could sneak - back-stab - hide in shadows - uses magic - assume the shapes of near by object (mario and the statutes) -ect.
This idea I think can be done many ways to fit the indie game world.

-> Shut up Mal
-> um ok.....

Why should one shut up in such thread like this?
Man, let your ideas come out, as soon as they appear in your mind!

Edit: I wish I had so many ideas in my head..

Greets

Thanks 3run...
It's been like 12 years here so when I couldn't actual make anything I just start writing ideas I though were cool. Then like every paranoid newbie I hide them like a porn mag when you were a kid.
"Oh no if I share an idea, then one of these guys will steal it and make 'my' millions off it." LOL.
It's a great community for all the help and friendship, but a lot of one man bands thinking the next guys is uncreative and worse a thief. Well that's not fair, it reflects my thinking more than anyone elses real actions that I have ever seen on this forum.
I like to think of beginners and there "ideas". People think there are million dollar idea, but there aren't. I can think up an idea that I think will be awesome but if I can't turn it into a product that sells it's just a million dollar fantasy.
So I say hell let me share -> If it gets made maybe I make something from it or get to work on it or can just smile to see someone take my brain fart and turn it into something real.

I like the caveman idea. I've already thought about some kind of prehistoric action-startegy-civilization-god game, controlling little tribes, developing/using simple technologies and weapons, buildijng small settlements... moreover, later it could be adjusted to other eras easily, like in case of many rts games...

the magic shooter is also a fine thing, but probably requires advanced artistic and effect writing skills...

what I plan currently is to make some little open source games, to replace my demos representing how to use levels created in MapBuilder, with some more advanced stuff. they would be basically 3rd person shooters, or sword and bow fighters, or spell casters with some... but maybe I'll be lazy and work only my rts game

So I thought about my dark Zelda idea and kinda wanted to play with it.
Then I did a very foolish thing - To get the idea machine working in my head I thought I'd watch the latest game trailers on my (Streaming tv service) account. So there I see the Assassins Creed (3-4?) and Thief trailers. Now this might be strange to say but I don't play games or fallow game news - Hell I had no Idea what Assassins Creed was like and Thief (the dark project) was just some old game I'd remembered people buzzing about long ago...

- How do I turn this feeling of pointlessness around? Please anyone?

[Trying to shorten this up cause I talk to much]

Since I don't understand games I think I'm having a really hard time understand how to make my Ideas into good games for the indie world. Please someone help me understand what games are about and also what I should be trying to do if eye-popping graphics and super reactive environment and player mechanics are not even possible?

I'm just confused not whining.
Mel

Simply: Don't. Don't try, don't want to create such games.
Assassin's Creed titles are sh*tty games in my opinion, they are so boring and incredibly repetitive. The same goes for many other AAA titles, they are simply no fun to me anymore, approx. since CoD: MW1 (which was a pretty good game though) most blockbuster games just try to streamline a cinematic experience. This hurts the gameplay a lot, and I basically find this to be not debatable. For example I really like the shooting and general gameplay of Max Payne 3, but I hated the game and could not complete it because you were interrupted every 10 to 100 seconds at max, cutscenes all the time or the game simply took control of your character.

I don't want to say that indie games are the holy grail (because they are not), I dislike most of them too, but oftentimes they take a better approach in terms of fun gameplay and they can do that because they don't have to appeal to a mass audience.

What I can suggest is that you try to create or think of fun mechanics first (Assassin's Creeds mechanics are mostly not fun, when you are climbing around you simply hold a direction or press a single button, no challenge, no fun, same for Uncharted, Tomb Raider and the like). Then or even before that think of your setting, your world where the game should take place in, and with of of that in mind think of a perspective for your game (top-down GTA 2 style, angled bird's eye view like in handheld Zelda games, side-scrolling in 2D or 2.5D, ...). A 3rd person or first person perspective is not recommended, except when you go for a highly stylized design (checkout AaAaAA, the A7 game Gravity or its semi-sequel/ remake in Unity "for the Awesome").

My personal discovery during the last year: You can create nice visuals by simply using plain colored textures (or greyscale and tint it dynamically) and then use those as a base texture for some material and shader effects. This saves a lot of time and work.
Or take the similar graphical approach of Super Mario Galaxy 1 or 2 (google images), just don't ever use normal mapping (looks horrible in 99% of indie games) and don't use the default lighting material.

Thanks Superku, you've given me some direction. I alway take-away something positive and/or helpful from you. I will keep looking to understand what it is I want people to feel when they play a game I made and what it is that I want to say to them with the game.

Always Grateful
Mal

You are welcome!
Keep in mind though that I'm no expert and can only give advice via my own experience and opinion.

I disagree with this statement (and I'm not a huge Assassin's Creed-fan myself). Don't get me wrong, it may very well be true for you, but I can't let it stand like this, written as if it were objective truth.

Alright, so here's the thing, the "you just press a single button!"-argument is always a tricky one, because at the core, this argument works by oversimplifing the game to make it sound dumb. You can do it with any game, too ("Mario is so easy, all you do is hit jump when there's a pit"). I'd argue that the challenge in Assassin's Creed is played out on a higher level - the challenge is to plan out attacking routes or your escape. So your focus is not so much on where your character is right now, but a few steps ahead, figuring out where to run to escape (or whatever). This is fun and a legitimate gameplay choice - only forcing you to press one button is, on this level, a design choice to focus the gameplay to what it was most likely intended to be. Forcing you to press a button for all these things would make it impossible or at least much harder for you to focus on the higher playing level of figuring out your plan. Consider Mario: The focus is always on the challenge you're on RIGHT NOW, then you go to the next challenge in the level. But from a gameplay-standpoint, all that are just disconnected platform challenges. Fun and interesting, sure, but held together only by its narrative (they're all in the same level). AC, I suppose, wants you to see two, three challenges ahead and asks you to make the most of that.

Additionally, there's merit in great visual design. Tomb Raider is great fun because of the atmosphere it creates. It really feels that the places you visit are real and interesting, though of course - like any other videogame level - that won't stand any close inspection. Despite this, the locales are visually interesting (and they, too, provide puzzles - Tomb Raider is, after all, famous for it's puzzle encompassing the entire level).
This doesn't mean that I agree that Tomb Raider/Assasin's Creed mechanics are uninteresting - I had fun with both of those titles. I just think their focus is somewhere else, and that is fine.

Superku is, in contrast, much closer to Mario: A focus on movement and navigation as a process (as opposed to as a means as in Assassins Creed). This is also fine and fun, but its just different to the other games, not better.


Of course, you're well in your rights to say that you prefer that type of game. But, again, others may disagree.

That's why I said "in my opinion", and I disagree with your post except the part that the climbing in Assassin's Creed is part of a bigger goal/ gameplay mechanic. For a better example of what I dislike about it see Uncharted or Remember Me (did not play this one though, only saw a Wtf is... video from Totalbiscuit). There you only point where you want to go and press a single button, 99% of the time having no other choice. There is no fun in that mechanic, you cannot say that his has been your chosen escape route or whatever. The only thing that those passages have is that it's oftentimes nice to look at.
Imagine you are now creating your own game and you want to or think you have to include those jumping/ climbing passages, too. This will not benefit your game at all in most cases, not only because your visuals will most likely not match those of current AAA titles, but because it's not an interesting mechanic your players will care about or remember about your game (it is so overused for the last couple of years).
The jumping in a (2D/ 3D) Mario game is IMO not comparable to such a climbing mechanic, it's your timing, your direction, the duration you hold the button for additional air time, corrections during the jump and so on, where the direction, timing and speed of your jump depend on previous and future actions (like a moving enemy), too. It's a completely different thing to let's say the semi-automatic jumping on a wall in Uncharted.

Regarding the newest Tomb Raider game, I find it (at least the first part and the first hours, don't know more) mind numbingly stupid (again, me, not everyone), the whole development and those pseudo cool action sequences where the game simply takes control over your character (same as in Uncharted to some extent, CoD since MW 2, Battlefield, Far Cry 3's story missions and esp. Max Payne 3).

I did not mention Superku anywhere, esp. not that it's better/ does have better jumping mechanics, because it is not.

Error014 thanks for the reply. I like what you have to say about a game design that involves per-thought and not just reaction or blind "in the moment play". In The post I was asking to understand how I could make a game with my skills. The question of how interesting or good the design of a AAA title is, was not the focus. The visuals of Tomb Raider may very well be a great part of it, but it serves me no good as I can't make a game with these visual at it's heart. But what I take away from that is that my environment is a big piece of the game I make - almost it's own character. And so I should take care to create something, with the skill I have, with this in mind.
I didn't point out the Games I did to spark a discussion over there pros and cons. I did it so all of you could 'hopeful' tell me the things I need to understand to make a good game with what I have, because it simply cannot do and be what these game are.
Superku helped a lot with how he has told me not to try and recreate the work of a big AAA team. And also not to try and create a cinematic recreation ( Which is what I really like), that knowing I can not make this kind of game I have to learn the ideas to make the great game that I can. HIs biggest help has been the positive way he has defined a good game as being more than these cinematic events. It give me hope.
Please Error - If you can add to the advice, please do. Everyone here has an idea of what a game is 'that can be made by one person, with this engine and even if you lack real programming and game design education.'
Is Superku(g) a better game - I think in the end this is measured by the player when they decide which one they enjoy most and why.

Hi Malice, in my view Games are about Entertainment, interactive entertainment at that too, whether its a solo experience or social (in a broad sense).

From this platform (entertainment) comes familiarity (getting to know the rules and scope of the game) and subsequently skill (mastering the elements)and then active engagement (if you find you like the game after all that).

That is its fundamental foundation.

Game types are then expressions of variety on themes and each one carries with it 'rules of engagement' either to give full reign to a players freedom of expression or to limit a players freedom of expression in order to concentrate on a skill.

Always entertainment is the core foundation.

So applying this to modern Digital games expressions with the parameters of your known skill set and your area of interest should give you a good clue as to what you want to do (i.e. motivation)

This would ensure that the game type you take on is what will hold your interest in the long run and give you incentive to start and finish a game concept.

Using your history would be invaluable in making such a determination, for example, the most common games I played as a child was Board games and hero role play games with other children and the mode I really enjoyed was one where I could control the rules of the game to ensure an outcome that favoured my sense of accomplishment.

Translating that to digital games, I prefer adventurous strategic games in first/third person modes.

And from that my choice is then RPG with TBS elements which is expressed by digital game board development currently.

I am relearning GS as I havnt done anything with it for over 4 years and so after perusing AUM I found the Snakes and Ladders example and am currently developing my version in a copy cat fashion as well as another version to increase the learning curve and make the game 'my own'.

So I would suggest that AUM Plug and Play may give you some ideas as they come with working examples from which you can determine if they are within your skill set and interest range to pursue as a start for your choice of development.

But in short, make what you like playing the most.

Wow -Nems- thanks for adding to the big picture for me. There is a lot there to think about and fully understand. You really did give me a stronger framework to understand games from and also more why I have a hard time with the whole thing. And homework - Awesome gonna hit those Plug and Plays.

The idea of "interactive entertainment" is a stubble for me - I'm used to thinking in terms of how I want something (Story) to make a person feel or come to understand a thing. Of creating scenes that speak a message in an undertone. You help make the flaw clear - Game players don't so much want to have feelings invoke or have something communicated with the whole of the game. "Interactive" hits it home - A game is creating a place and rules for players to "Do" things. It's the missing thing that a stroy(movie,book,comic,ect) person like me didn't get. Interactiveness is the fun - not winning or riding and invisible backseat chair in an adventure. Give them a place with rules, a person to be: with rules, skills, the ability to grow and the freedom to explore all of that - this is a game and the fun of it, Right?

I must seem mad to you all - "Play what you like and draw from your history" - Well I guess I just never 'really' played anything. Or rather I played in a very odd way - I took things apart and tried to rebuild them. Be it a walkman or a comicbook or now a video game.

Anyway I'll just keep talking. So thank you for your help Nems and Please IF this conversation is polluting this thread, would you jump to it's own thread.

The movie/book "Christine - by Stephen King" Got me thinking about a game where you play an evil spirit that can only inhabit machines. The player most kill people to feed on souls and is being hunted by a demon hunter. The hunter tries to trap the player in one machine and destroy him. The players powers are based on a soul-level like magic points including the ability to hope machines. Get enough power and free yourself from the curse that trapped you in machines.

Ok it's a goofy idea but it was fun to play with in my mind for a little bit.

I have a similar idea but its a lost soul who can possess any bilogical being and use it in the hunt for its own body but if the body it chose dies then it must start again...but from where it was killed.
All mana lost and therefore power so it must feed off others emotional outpourings to gain streanght again.

The ghost in the machine was a game similar to your concept and it worked well, just never made the big time at the time it was released.

Yeah Nems I'm starting to see there really isn't anything new under the sun. I've been pulling from books and recaps of books people tell me about and your version of the game sounds like something that could have be spawned if you got to think about "Tail of the Body Thief -by Anne Rice". That's what came to my mind when I read your post so I looked over the Wikipedia for the book and decided there was very little in common beside the idea of jumping into a body.

I think you both should/ could check out the game "Space Station Silicon Valley" from 1998 for N64, it's not about demons and the like but you control various animals and things by slipping into their brains and CPUs.

Yep old ideas Thanks for the point out.
How about mixing ideas-
- Old popular PC game -Leasure Suit Larry
- Body jumping and host control
- Micro settings
- Player evolution

So the player is a alien virus and is infecting a person. The virus controls the host to get 'it' to mate and spread the virus. Each person infected, infects others in a AI-sim. When the virus(player) enters a new host we switch to a micro setting and the virus must make its way to the host brain fighting off the hosts-body immune system. The virus(player) spawns a hybrid virus in the body. The virus(player) must enter some of the AI infected to absorb there hybrids and evolve it's self. The CDC is hunting the virus(player) to kill the pure alien source of the virus as all the other infected have human DNA-RNA hybrids they can treat. The virus evolves from making people sick to mutating them in to monsters, untill it has absorbed enough hybrids to mutate a human into it's alien source form.

You get 3d play(gta,watch dogs,ect), micro play(2d or 3d), player evolution(virus is a primer and player can choose it's final form through the choices of hybrids it absorbs), and go old trying to get laid(digital pick-up lines..need I say more?) all in one game.

I... I don't even have words for this except that I find it inspiring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROi6zbK7yhI

what the hell is it? crazy stuff, but really special!

---

what I'm currently working is a historic strategy war-game concept. as I see turn based games are coming back again, I really love them too, and a bit easier to implement than a pure rts, so I would make something turn based combined somehow with real-time or pseudo-real-time parts/options (mainly in the battle system), where heroes would have significant role.
I know it is hard to make a unique game in this category too, but I have a good collection what I check through to get inspiration and ideas, to remember what I loved and hated... any suggestion to check an existing game would help me, thanks

Gothic 4 ?, not TB but still good game...

my 2nd game plan is something similar (and maybe it will have 1st priority if test pre-works go fast enough):
a 3rd person game with a few selectable characters (knight, wizard, elf...the usual boring stuff I can get freely), using WJBender's navmesh pathfinder for enemies what I have tested in these days and seems to work fine. probably I have to integrate the navmesh plugin to my editor and add a player editor too (I mean a simple AI behaviour editor). only some avoidance should be added to AI movements, which can make development a bit longer. not a big scale game, just a few levels, and open source. sounds like fun?

I like this concept: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/legendsofeisenwald/482/interview.html

recently I've played with Rome2 Total War, and unfortunately they took a lot of great things from a 2D startegy game called Knights of Honour (it was a total war like game with real-time startegic map with real-time battle maps, set in medieval Europe) that I wanted to remake in 3D (somewhen in far future), made by a little Bulgarian studio which was bought and then closed by a bigger company. what is very same: large scale of the startegic map, new large sized towns, political map, relations map, happiness map, some ideas of town development, the "hero" system with selectable new experiences etc. basically I really enjoy these great features but I wanted to steal them
what I don't understand is how a total war game could have so much bugs, like shading errors of terrain chunks which sometimes become black, and in some official videos I saw bad transition between shadow splits...

The last couple of days I have been playing Brutal Doom (Doom 2) and it's the most satisfying, meaty combat and weapon handling I've ever seen in a game. If you are not offended by huge amounts of gore give it a try!

What this game does is it motivates me to try and create a shooter myself, a mixture between the first Turok, Doom 2, Metroid Prime and Superku (which means running on walls or the like). I have tried this multiple times before but I could not get the weapon handling right, however I think I can do it if I invest some time in it.

The biggest problem obviously is the content creation. I'd go for an old-school look with some modern (particle) effects and low-polygon enemies, similar to the following screenshot of Brutal Doom:



The question is, do you think a shooter is doable on your own (in a 1-2 people team), especially as a hobby developer? Why wouldn't you create one yourself?

doom + huge amounts of gore? sounds appealing...

Thought about that aswell (some multiplayer shooter in that style)... but I gave up since I hadn't (and still haven't) got enough experience, esp. with multiplayer programming

the only occasion I thought of making a shooter/slasher was when I planned to put the Recast/Detour navmesh pathfinder to my editor, based on the Peragro plugin, what I postponed (but not gave up) after playing a bit with its source because of my new RTS game ideas. but I rather wanted a 3rd person game. basically I don't like this genre to play, but I found it interesting is to develop a good team working AI.

the main reasons what hold me back to really start it:
- the missing mid/high quality graphics assets, and a good effect package.
- a shooter imo is really fun if multiplayer, and I don't know how to make a multiplayer shooter that has a fast response.
- in other engines it would be much easier as they have many helper stuff ready to use in professional quality I never can reach. not only visuals, but networking, physics, animation and AI packages.
- no story idea.

what you plan can be reachable by a tiny dev team, if you determine the target well, and keep limitations. the very free movement system (with special wall climbing) would really make it difficult to create a good enemy AI. even a jump up/down system can make AI things hard. and if only focusing on multiplayer it is difficult to collect a large enough player community. but if the story defines that the player character is a special hero, and enemy is more stupid race, then it can work

I would go for a pure singleplayer experience because otherwise it's almost the same as developing two different games (and for said reasons concerning multiplayer listed in your post).

(Seemingly) intelligent AI surely will be difficult but I find that interesting as well. Additionally I think not all enemy types have to be clever, one may add stupid cannon fodder to highlight more clever enemies.
I have a story in mind which is simple yet functional, the thing that is lacking though is my level design skill and the patience to create more than a few rooms... and no matter how good the gameplay feels, this is what makes or breaks such a game.

Btw. I've once (about a year ago) tried to make this game (idea) into a 3rd person game, yet I found that to be even more difficult (in terms of good shooting mechanics, player movement and the like).

there are other factors wich make or break a fps i think , the caracter being one of them , the other thing would be that the game needs to slowly progress from "someone trying to survive" towards "a hardened kickass force to be reckoned with" this is apart of what makes the story line i guess .

look at most of these games they mostly started with you being very vulnrable and under equip't for the task at hand and then as you progress through frightening battles and challenges you are rewarded with little perks of better weapons and such untill later you become what the "enemy" fear , the tables turn slowly through progression towards the end of the game , and when your done playing yoy must feel as though you made it through hell and overcame everything , trying to get the player to actually feel some kind of emotion is key .

then theres other things like ambiance take for example the old unreal games with its mysterious exploring music and all of that silence and little sounds adding to the feeling of the game , unreal was a very different kind of experience for me because of this , it wasnt just shoot them up but it had moments where the player felt like being drawn deep into the games world ..

some of the most fun aspects is the physics of bullets or projectiles , getting used to how the weapons behave and being able to feel where the next shot is going to impact makes things so much more fun , i think medal of honour or it was call of duty , one of them had great weapon ballistics (not realistic but fun) a good example were the last wolfenstein i played .

ai does not have to be too smart they have to atleast make you feel you are engaged in a battle atleast and having them positioned at the correct strategical positions along with just enough of them in numbers plus that one surprise enemy waiting for you could help ai seem more fun .

i think when you develope such a game you start with pen and paper , lay down the history of how the player came to be in the wrong place at the wrong time , and create the world and its history and story and caracters all before actually stepping on to concept art , code when you think you have everything planned out ..

Absolutely! The whole progress of going from zero to hero, not only in terms of story but especially in terms of gameplay is what I cherish most about those games. The Metroid series, 2D and 3D, (which as a result is one of my favorite game series of all time) does this extremely well, you start really weak and can even die to snail like animals and the like but over the course of your adventure you gain not only more powerful weapons and hitpoints but especially game(play) changing abilities. Even when you can fly and kill almost anything you touch at the end of a game the developers still manage to make it challenging.

I don't see fps being more problematic to develop than other genres that are generally a domain of triple A studios, it all depends on the scope. Most so-called "indie-teams developing an fps" have the problem that they target the same gameplay and similiar scope as the Call of Duty or Battlefield series. Most fps games you see in the unity forums, UDK forums or similiar forums look like they are trying to clone the multiplayer portion of these games, and that is simply the wrong approach, because even when these teams manage to reach a very high level of quality, the result will still be unsatisfying when compared directly to its source of inspiration, and as pure multiplayer titles rely on a strong community, they fail, as the audience they are trying to reach is already completely bound by the big games that the devs were trying to clone.
That being said, superku, your approach is basically the right approach. The main reason why we see few singleplayer-only, old-school fps coming from indie studios and being successful ist that most teams that have potential to pull something good off waste their time and resources with the clone type games I've mentioned, while they could produce much more unique games if they only tried.
I for my part would be rather interested in seeing what you'd come up with, considering the splendid work you're doing with your jump'n'run project.

EDIT: I'd also like to see more indie studios rolling their own tech for an fps game, the only decent one I know is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-imkXWYTtc
The setting and general idea is rather lame imho, especially because it's basically the OTHER kind of game that every indie studio doing an fps tries to do, but the technical execution is rather awesome. One man doing the programming afaik. I think when working from scratch one could do some pretty interesting stuff with an fps.

i agree , trying to create the same thing would not pan out for you , it is like music in a way , dont you just hate it when someone tries to cover an old song you love . the thing is we are different as individuals and that is what produces something different .

i have playd a couple of crappy old graphic games in my time and the thing that pushes some of these games above some of the best looking big productions is the gameplay , you know most newer games today have a really short amount of overall gameplay time wich makes even the fact of its beauty dissapear fast when i want to smash my head against something for paying so much for basicly a waste of time , there are low quality games that wil stand the test of time against most new AAA productions .

i think if someone ,yes even a single person, really wants to make something great and fresh it would be tottaly possible , a great idea coupled with some people that could drive that idea home normally ends up a winner in my book .

I'm not a MOBA player and I find it pretty ridiculous how many games in that genre are already out and/ or are still yet to come, however I think one could still create some casual but fun experiences in that area.

What I imagine is for example a top-down tank based 5v5 or 7v7 MOBA, without item(s builds) but some abilities, or battle ship based (modern/ antique) with small islands as obstacles.

there are several such a tank games out there, but usually with a 3rd person view (I tried only one what is frequently played by the son of my brother, where you fight in teams, and you can select new armours, weapons, or features resulting in new abilities like higher speed, as your points are increasing). I only know one futuristic battle ship game, but an ancient Greek-Persian or Roman-Carthaginian would be cool (the latter would have more development possibilities).

@Superku, the Battletanks and Battleships maps form warcraft3 sounds alot like what you mean, but than without the items. It is kind of fun to play, but there so many players who hate on beginners. Making it more casual would probably solve that, but I think you would lose alot of potential customers too (the more competive players). Probably a clear split between a casual and competive gametypes would be the awnser.

Did anybody think about a game that actually allows to cheat? So that you collect cheats by collecting coins / being the fastest / killing bad people and enter them afterwards. Sure, it is nothing else but "rewards" but it could be a nice gameplay feature.

hehe, sounds funny, but probably that would require a lot of lives to allow recovering from death many times during an arena fight to not to be very frustrating.

Not really a game idea but I like this kind of puzzle games:

I just started playing 'Mind: Path to Thalamus'.

In the beginning it was quite interesting, but after playing some minutes the environments and leveldesign just blew me away...
The Ideas (leveldesign aswell as gameplay) are interesting and it looks imo. much better that most AAA titles, even without any advanced rendering techniques:


From what I've seen the puzzles are really cool so far and the music is great, aswell.
Probably worth giving a try

It looks very cool , reminds me of risen .

there's nothing wrong with puzzles/mystery games imho , they are
very interesting and can keep me entangled in the mystery mood , love them.

Wow. simply Stunning. Looks like a great game.

Yeah, maybe I'll make some kind of breakdown of the things they used to achieve this kind of graphics.

made with unreal engine... still requires of course pro artwork.

The artwork is actually not that complex or complicated. With some epirience it's not too hard to make assets like the ones in this game.

The harder thing is the inspiration for the environments in my opinion. They've really had great ideas and it's clear to see that they knew what they were doing.

true , and I mean myst not risen