Your best game design/idea - GameCreators Forum

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Fallout

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Location: Basingstoke, England

Posted: 25th Feb 2010 21:32

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What is your favourite personal game design idea? What project have you always wanted to make, and are either making now, or not making because you don't think it's attainable (or other reasons)? I'm curious to see if people have a dream game they'd love to make, which they keep planning to make at some point in the future.

For me, I've always had two main ideas I keep coming back to. One is an RPG with a really great combat system and engaging story, and the other is a space battleship simulator. I'm now finally making both, in parallel. I'm really excited about the battleship simulator. I think the game play will be very exciting and unique. And I'm keeping up the same enthusiasm for the RPG, as it ticks all the boxes the space game doesn't.

I think I've finally reached a point where I can make these games, and stick with them, without dropping them for new projects. Time will tell.

So what are your dream game development projects, and what is stopping you?

Radical hamsters skipping furiously into the blue ether, questioning their very existence while breathing out the bitter fog of smoked haddock.

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Darth Kiwi

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Location: On the brink of insanity.

Posted: 25th Feb 2010 22:30

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I wanted to make a first person adventure-horror game (sort of like Thief but without the combat) inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. I actually started making it (and it's probably the most complex level editor I ever made) but ran out of momentum and time.

I'd also like to make a game that comments on what games are, but the problem is that I keep planning it out then realise I'm just using tired old ideas which shouldn't really be in that sort of game. I mean, why have combat in a game? Fair enough, if you're just aiming for it to be fun then it fills time and offers a challenge but if you're making a game which comments on that then you have to step back and reconsider everything.

Secretary of Unknowable Knowledge for the Rock/Dink administration '08

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Fallout

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Location: Basingstoke, England

Posted: 26th Feb 2010 00:33

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What do you mean exactly by "comments on what games are"?

Radical hamsters skipping furiously into the blue ether, questioning their very existence while breathing out the bitter fog of smoked haddock.

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Tom J

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Location: Essex, England

Posted: 26th Feb 2010 19:13

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My favourite game idea was one that was under the working title "Extreme Post Mortem".

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=124843&b=19

Where the idea went wrong I think was more that I was trying too hard to make the game like a conventional action driven FPS, when it should have been story driven. Also it would have required a ton on media.

Maybe I will return to it one day, who knows.

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jeffhuys

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Posted: 26th Feb 2010 23:28

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My fav is Post-Apocalyptic (spelling?).
Simply, Fallout-3 like.
Awesome setting.

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David R

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Location: 3.14

Posted: 26th Feb 2010 23:57

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Quote: "What do you mean exactly by "comments on what games are"?"

I'm guessing DK is hinting toward self-references and satire of existing games - like "You have to burn the rope" and that kind of thing (or the game where you pointlessly obtain achievements).

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

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lazerus

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 00:36 Edited at: 27th Feb 2010 00:37

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Tom, that would be a very very twisted game to play.

Ughh my idea was stole by prototype and dead space. I swear i nearly had a heart attack when i seen the mutants on that, its like someone had stole my concept art -_="

Edit it was called lazerus project, and the creatures, mutalists.

http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/

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TheComet

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Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.

Posted: 27th Feb 2010 00:57

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I've always wanted to make a super smash remake, and here I am!

TheComet

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Sid Sinister

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 03:20

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Oh yeah, let me go grab my game idea notes I've only been collecting over the past 5+ years and spill all my ideas on a public forum!

Potentially fun topic, and I don't mean to flame, I only say it in humor. But I won't be sharing

Next semester I'll be developing on the 360, so I'll probably be trying to get a few of those ideas off the ground.

PS: If you have to use another game to describe your game, I recommend you go back a few steps and make your own premise quite clear. I wrote something in the game design board a few weeks ago that details this quite nicely.

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Isaac Newton
Current Project: http://strewnfield.wordpress.com/ (Last updated 06/11/09)

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Kravenwolf

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 06:54 Edited at: 27th Feb 2010 06:56

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Quote: "I'm curious to see if people have a dream game they'd love to make, which they keep planning to make at some point in the future."

I've always wanted to start on a zombie survival MMORPG. But, I'm working on a few smaller projects first (dream big, start small). Sure, there are a lot of zombie games out there already (and I love 'em all), but I still haven't seen one where you play in a large, isolated city, with hundreds of other "survivors" (gamers), in a constant 24 hour struggle to stay alive.

The zombies would be AI, and the objective for the players would simply be to stay alive. They would need to gather food, supplies, weapons, and they would be able to trade and share supplies with other players (or kill other players and steal their equipment). What's the point of playing if all you're doing is trying to stay alive? Well maybe after a player survives so many nights or weeks in one city, he'll gain access to a new city or region with new weapons, players, enemies, etc.

Players could fly solo, or work together with other players and fortify an old building or cabin to use as a "safe house", so the game avatars would have a shelter until the gamers come back online. Sadly, this is nothing more than long-term dream for me right now, because it obviously, isn't something that can be done overnight. Someday...

Kravenwolf

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TechLord

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 07:15 Edited at: 27th Feb 2010 07:18

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Here is another one of my crazy game ideas for a Inner-Space MMO. A hybrid between The Fantastic Voyage & Star Trek with elements from several other Sci-Fi Television Shows and Movies, codename: C O S M. Design Motivations: 1) Replace typical outerspace environment with something unfamiliar using similar analogies. Something vast in space in which cool propulsion and warp drive systems are logical; 2) Participate as both a humanoid character 3rd Person and Ship 1st Person Cockpit ; 3) Promote co-operative game play; 4) Focus on Role Playing and Exploration; 5) A little Asteroids-inspired Shooter I wrote with Blitz3D called c e l l u l a r.

Concept: You (The Player) belong to a advance species of nano sentient beings. You begin your journey as a low ranking crew member (intern) onboard The Vessel, whos mission is too explore the Nanocosms of strange and new Alien Lifeforms ( referred to as a Xenocosm) and promote life performing various tasks: repair damage, combat infection, transport nutients, map genomes, etc. The Vessel can support upto 256 crew members and is a self-contained Archology. One of the aspect I enjoyed about Star Trek was the scale of the Enterprise and the many adventures that took place onboard or involved The Enterprise. The Enterprise had character to it and I desire to capture the same with The Vessel providing plenty of quests and community events on surface, shipboard and InnerSpace.

c e l l u l a r

The premise of exploring the Xencosm, presents a simple and powerful opportunity to create strange universes that break the traditional behaviors associated with the space shooter mmo genre. Since we really don’t know what alien anatomy looks like at a nanoscopic level, nothing is out of reach. Like any good Sci-Fi Epic I want conflict, and the Xenocosm itself and other Nano Sentients with alternate agendas are Nemesis to your crew’s mission. One idea I have a for the `bad guy` is a Rogue organization of nano sentients hellbent on the destruction of Xenocosms to make way for the Omnicosm. At the moment I have a foggy idea on what the Omnicosm is exactly, and it has religious overtones. I’m going flush this idea out more. I would expect Alien organisms to have defense mechnisms to defend against invaders and perhaps The Vessel uses some form of `cloaking` tech to avoid detection. What happens if the Cloak is broke?

Combat and Non-Combat Role. There are Jobs that need to performed to maintain The Vessel. Serving these roles earn rank, skills, items, etc. With Non-Combat Roles I see plenty of opportunity to Role Play. Devising a reward system for player interaction and role play is the goal here. Combat Roles: Fighter & Pilot. All members are by default trained in basic hand weapons and basic combat craft piloting. Players can select different Fighter and Pilot roles (D/T/H model). By participating in combat, you train combat skills and earn weapon upgrades. Members who have attained the rank and privlege can serve as Bridge Officer with highest rank being Bridge Commander. Bridge Officers participate in specialize missions (Raids) , cooperative navigation and battles on the Bridge of the Home Vessel, and can issue commands that affect the entire Vessel and crew members. Exceptional Officers are promoted to Commander and awarded their own Vessel and Crew.

Another strong desire is to create both an active and passive co-operative experience when you are on The Vessel, Shuttles, and other areas occupied with other players. I want to convey scale of The Vessel. When looking out of the windows of The Vessel you should be able see hull (if in view), even other players. If things are happening outside the hull, you should be able to see, hear, and feel them cooperatively.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Arrowhead Project - Game Design Document

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Name: How IT Came to Earth

Genre: FPS/3rd Person Action

Controls: WSAD Mouse/Mouselook

Description: `Shadow of the Colossus with Guns!`. You play as one member of the Elite 4 person team: Earth Defense Force (EDF). The EDF seeks out Giant Monsters who are attacking/destroying Major Cities across the Globe.

EDF Soldiers are equipped with a variety of modern and high tech weaponry, utilities, and vehicles. Each Monster has one or more weaknesses the players must discover to defeat it. Some weakness require team effort. Take the Monsters down before they destroy City.

Super 3D Game Engine (S3GE) - The Ultimate All-in-1 3D Game Engine in development with Dark GDK.

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Jeku

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 07:50

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Quote: " Earth Defense Force (EDF). The EDF seeks out Giant Monsters who are attacking/destroying Major Cities across the Globe."

There already is a game for the 360 called EDF (Earth Defense Force) where you seek out giant insects who are attacking cities.

Senior Web Developer - Nokia

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TechLord

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 08:33 Edited at: 27th Feb 2010 08:33

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Quote: "There already is a game for the 360 called EDF (Earth Defense Force) where you seek out giant insects who are attacking cities."

D_MN IT! Going to buy it now!

Super 3D Game Engine (S3GE) - The Ultimate All-in-1 3D Game Engine in development with Dark GDK.

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Fallout

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 13:18

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Quote: "Oh yeah, let me go grab my game idea notes I've only been collecting over the past 5+ years and spill all my ideas on a public forum!

Potentially fun topic, and I don't mean to flame, I only say it in humor. But I won't be sharing"

I see what you're saying, but game design ideas are a dime a dozen. As well all know, game dev is so difficult, it's highly unlikely someone will rip off your idea from a brief explanation on a forum. If they did, it'd most likely be completely different to how you'd implement it too. And either way, when you've made it an released it, someone can rip it off more easily and do it better!

Just my thoughts on the subject. I used to be concerned about explaining ideas/designs on a forum, but realistically, I think the chance of that idea being stolen are extremely remote.

Quote: "I've always wanted to start on a zombie survival MMORPG"

Awesome idea. I've wanted to do that too for some time (or similar), and have designed it out on paper several times. Mine would've been a single player first person RPG game, with an emphasis on trying to avoid combat.

There'd be a goal to cross a massive map to get to a safe zone. This may take 5-10 hours of play. It'd involve raiding buildings for supplies, a complete self healing system, eating/drinking, trying to get past zombie using distraction/stealth etc. You'd use vehicles too, and probably have to find small amount of fuel and repair equipment to make them road worthy for a short period of time. I also liked the idea of you having to sleep due to fatigue. You'd have to find somewhere safe, barricade doors, set up noise traps to wake you, and plan an escape route.

I love zombie apocalypse stuff! Unfortunately I consider any first person game nonviable, because people will always compare their graphical appearance to AAA games, so I don't think they could ever be very successful.

Radical hamsters skipping furiously into the blue ether, questioning their very existence while breathing out the bitter fog of smoked haddock.

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Jeku

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 19:10

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Quote: "I see what you're saying, but game design ideas are a dime a dozen"

And also most people here are creative enough to want to devote all their time to their OWN ideas. Why would we want to make someone else's game?

Senior Web Developer - Nokia

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Inspire

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Posted: 27th Feb 2010 20:07

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I've always wanted to make a futuristic FPS with the same feel of Call of Duty, with all the big battles and whatnot. I already have everything all laid out on paper, storywise and level design wise. If only I was in charge of Infinity Ward.

I've also been seriously considering an Earth-based tower defense game. Top-down view, but have everything in 3D. You build space stations and whatnot. That would be enjoyable.

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Quik

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Posted: 1st Mar 2010 06:05

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Quote: ""I've always wanted to start on a zombie survival MMORPG""

me too, but with out RPG, i have always wanted to make an zombie survival MMO, where u run around in a huge world, trying your best to survive, grouping up with friends, aquiring guns, although, not epic omg haxxor guns, i mean, guns that exist, and they shouldnt give u attributes, they shall be like normal guns, you find safehouses, u talk to people, and slaughter zombies. there would also be a main quest, and also a lot of side quests, providing ammo, first aid kits, guns, backpacks, and other interesting things. you should also be able to drive cars, choppers and other veichles, if theyre whole that is.

only problem with this would be: there is nothing to keep the interest up, such as levels, skills, awesome equipment and such.

tho it would be awesome

[Q]uik, Quiker than most

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Neuro Fuzzy

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Posted: 1st Mar 2010 06:49

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Quote: "My favourite game idea was one that was under the working title "Extreme Post Mortem"."

Ah, I read that a while ago in geek culture. It sounds like an AWESOME idea. seriously. with a decent game engine and a good plot + ending, it could be a seriously amazing game.

My game idea is basically a free roam, apocalyptic, zombie-infested world. Basically, the player would roam around, and gather other survivors. Maybe even a group of 300-500. The player would have a large world to explore, with different areas with different severities of infection (possible with upgrades or something in the center). I could imagine transport by car, bus, or airplane, in a low quality world (think flight simulator), and procedural buildings (so as to be detailed, but also cover multiple cities). I would imagine that overall gameplay would go something like this:

1. player starts out alone.
2. player starts wandering, killing zombies and collecting upgrades/supplies
3. player starts finding survivors, and begins to build temporary field bases, still remaining nomadic.
4. player reaches larger party size (30-40 people), and begins to raid large zombie strongholds.
5. player may settle down, with 1 strongly fortified base
6. zombie invasions ramp up. with a larger party size (80-100), people may become infected more frequently
7. ...at some point, player faces gigantic zombie onslaught. May flee alone, fight and survive, or try to save others. Any ways, player either dies, or almost loses everyone.

Tie that up with a loose storyline, maybe different levels of zombies, cool upgrades, and cool barricades, and you have yourself an awesome game.

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Darth Kiwi

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Posted: 1st Mar 2010 16:59 Edited at: 1st Mar 2010 16:59

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Quote: "What do you mean exactly by "comments on what games are"?"

Partly I was going to mock existing conventions but there was going to be a lot of games within games that illuminate what games actually are. I was planning to have a game within the game where you perform certain things that people do in real life, for example there might have been a jousting minigame on an old arcade machine in the game-world, with a pop-up explaining that some "games" (ie. real-world physical games) such as tournaments in the medieval period were used mainly for training purposes. Then there might be other arcade-machines that have other games such as religious rituals which are not exactly games but which allow human beings to understand or come to terms with their own existence.

There was also going to be a lot of stuff about the relationship between player and designer, how the designer is in a way the player's god, the idea that the player only really exists when they are being challenged (there's no fun in enjoying a win, only in the act of working towards the win), the fact that the player is essentially controlled by the designer's choices even if they don't want to be, etc. etc. There would have been a whole load of slightly surreal metagame stuff in there. One of the main problems was that it was quite difficult to unify all this in one design document so it never really got off the ground.

Secretary of Unknowable Knowledge for the Rock/Dink administration '08

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TechLord

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Posted: 2nd Mar 2010 14:19 Edited at: 2nd Mar 2010 14:20

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Sorry, but, I doubt a Zombie MMO would have much live in it.

Super 3D Game Engine (S3GE) - The Ultimate All-in-1 3D Game Engine in development with Dark GDK.

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Oolite

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Posted: 2nd Mar 2010 15:24

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If anyone caught my post on the 3d chat or have caught my blog they'll know about my dream project. I am now in the position to put 3 years of work into the development of this project. Probably due to the fact the completion of this project is imperative to me passing my course. The story has made a massive progression in my writing skill and as a story on the whole. I don't want to give anything away for now but i'm going to be updating the blog as much as possible (after a few edits to the horrible colour scheme.)
The thing is, I never played the first Condemned, but I had the idea before the second one about the whole forensic science section of the game. I was gutted when I finally played the second one and saw that my idea had been stolen (in my perspective anyway...). But i've had to adapt my game mechanics to make them original. It's hard keeping up with AAA titles as I can't push out a game quick enough to keep up. Most of my time right now has been trying to future proof the game mechanics so that they aren't used in another title before I can get the game out. I'm desperately trying to use original idea's and I can't guarantee that they will still be original in 3 years time.
I've put myself into a world of hell with this project, but as the thread suggests, it is my dream project. Wish me luck.