If YOU could design a game, what would it be like?

[the_green_dragon]

I was thinking about the games I love and if I had a chance to make a game, what I would do. I actually had two ideas but I would love to see what everyone else has in mind as their game.

If you could;
Who would you choose to develop it, or go Indie.
Where and When would it be set?
Who would be the Hero?
What kind of game would it be?
And what cool or new innovation would it feature to make it stand out?

I would make 2. One would be a space theme GTA/Red Dead Redemption third person shooter. (you could visit other planets instead of towns.

My ultimate game would given to Bioware to develop. It would be a recent post apocolyptic, not nulcear apocolyptic but set in a world where resources have run out and people are pretty much survival of the fittest.
It would be an RPG so you would customize a hero
It would be an RPG in the style of Dragon Age: Origins
My cool Innovation would be that you could go through the whole game without engaging in combat if you choose not to.

The way I would do it is that you have 3 Main attrubutes, Aggression/Soilder type (Good with guns and melee), Communications/Lawyer type (Good with talking and getting out of trouble) and Merchant/Shopkeeper (Good with trading and money - can hire guards to protect him) and any mixture of the 3. That would be checks against everything you do, so if you engage in a fight your chance to hit would be checked against your aggression skill. If you were trying to talk your way out of troulbe it would be checked vs your Communications skills and different char types get different options in dialogue or weapons choices, ect.

I think it would be epic.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'd make a realistic tactical first person shooter police simulation game...but set in a sci-fi or comic book setting.

Like, you can't always have Batman or Jedi solve every problem, the Space Police or whatever would still need SWAT teams to deal with crazy people with rayguns robbing spandex clothing stores, or whatever.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Actually anyone can design a game. The only skill you need is literacy and a design document template. OPf course not too many people have the gumption to create an entire game.

As for me, If I really wanted a game to be made I'd do it myself. I'd need to get someone to model and someone to do sound and voicework as well as fill in some other areas but I could figure out or hack together most of the stuff myself.

At the moment I have a few ideas I'm kicking around, one of which will be a project for a class. One that is simply defined in terms of pure mechanics having to do with time travel, one that is based on pure setting set in a post-apocalyptic steam-punk world and one based around just copying Pikmin style game play in order to have done it myself and see if I can.

 

[Veylon]

Call it Wizard Tower. You play as a wizard, you gather followers and power, and eventually conquer/save the world. There would be two main modes.

A building mode where you pick what you want built and your minions get to work. This would be your tower fortress with all you stuff inside. You would need to organize the place so that your monsters would get fed, you're slaves wouldn't escape, and invaders couldn't conquer it. It would be 3D, so that the player could both mine underground and build layer upon layer of walls, corridors, and rooms.

A questing mode where you and however many apprentices, monsters, and mercenaries can be spared from defense go out to seek dungeon treasure, raid an enemy, help an ally, or simply explore. There would be a teleport spell early on that would enable the player to return instantly, at the cost of abandoning their quest and risking the reward fall to a rival.

Then there're the invasions. There would be attacks by unfriendly kingdoms, attacks by rival wizards, and simple monster rampages. These could happen at any time, even when the player is out questing. The makeup of the attackers would depend on who, precisely, the player had angered, with the tendency towards alliances if previous attacks had failed. If worst came to worst, the player could pack his best artifacts in a bag and flee for his life, setting up shop somewhere else.

The idea is that having good relations with kingdoms gives you access to new apprentices from those kingdoms as well as raw materials. Additionally, the materials could be extorted through threats or taken in raids. They would want you to do things like attack their enemies and protect their towns. There would also be trading or alliances with other wizards.

The story of the game would be driven by increasingly fierce monster wandering in from off the edge of the world. This would necessitate migrating inwards towards the center to avoid the worst of them, which would intensify the conflict for power and land as both became increasingly scarce. This would be a gradually escalating disaster that the player would either have to solve or evade somehow.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

I would design one of the games I've designed

Ok...that's not fair, I'll play.

It would almost certainly be indie, because I love me some creative freedom and I doubt any publishers would like me wanting things my way enough to warrant not firing me.

I like my own settings; usually mixes of interesting culture with a hell-load of world building and lore. Hell, even things like "It's WWII" I'd rather do with some creative liberties to the setting.

The hero would need to be one the player sympathises with. Whether this be because they made the hero themselves and got to choose how the story worked, or as a pre-built character, I'd want them to have at least some sway over how they grow. This can just be minor RPG elements, but something that can make the player feel they've had some control over the game. Story-wise, I'm a fan of backstories where the hero has a legitimate call to whatever it is they need to prove by being the hero, or moments where the player feels these moments first-hand to push them forward.

I like RPGs, and RPG hybrids as my personal favourites. There's just so much you can do with them compared to a standard FPS, standard Action Game etc.

Innovation would vary. I don't think you can just apply a single innovation as a branch idea for any game.

<spoiler=Non-hypothetical>I've got several half-finished designs myself, and I think 2 finished ones, not including prototypes I've been stuck designing and making solo (arg!). But I'm working on a game myself at the moment, with several people interested in joining the project. I've gotten good feedback of my ideas in the past from people in the industry, so I'm fairly confident in my skills, but I insist on getting a working demo made before I'll let people decide they want to join in. It wouldn't be fair otherwise, on the off-chance I need to scrap it.

 

[leady129]

My game would be stupidly cinematic. If I had a few million up my sleave I would take the action of God of War, the dialogue RPG elements of Dragon Age or Mass Effect (I repeat, dialogue elements, none of that point spending business. Not that I have anything against it, just, not in my dream game.)and maybe mix it in with the dialogue system from Alpha Protocol.

The camera would be dynamic and would always sit in a practical cinematic position.

And I would make up a new sword fighting system so that it makes you learn the different techniques and swings so that you know which moves effectively counter one another. It wouldn't be about surviving large swarms, it would be about being able to out maneuver your enemy. And I would mo-cap it to the enth degree so that sword fighting looks incredible and somewhat realistic. The camera could be used effectively here to inform the player of the intricacies of the enemies attack rather than worry about spacial elements like how big the current area is.

Well used QTE's are definitely in.

... ... ... ... I'm going to stick to film making for now though.

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

Fusing my own transformers universe i made up when i was 9 with mass effect.
It's about say, commander shepard finding a strange metallic portal, which start malfunctioning, & he runs back inside the Normandy, but the Normandy is sucked in & teleported to cybertron. There it is found by an old warrior, who puts the entire crew in stasis, and rebuilds their bodies using cybernetics. perplexed how humans work, he decides to leave the new Normandy and the crew in a stasis for a while and using
humans as a base for his new combat & repair drones. he names this first one: M.I.K.H.A.E.L
after a few years, the crew awakens, and finds mikhael sitting on a chair. he introduces himself, and tells them that his creator was a prototype transformer. He tells them that they have been in stasis for millions of yeasr, & that the 'primes' the first trasnformers, were all killed,but destryed the reapers for shepard in the process. the decepticons and EEEVIL mr. megatron have used a time rift to revive the reapers, and make it only a few hourse before shepard arrived painfully in cybertron. He tells them that using time travelling devices, he travelled as a mercanary around the universe, proving that autobots & decepticons exist, to prevent paradoxes.
he tells him that megatron is a prime, and only a prime can kill a prime. however, mr. unicron, who was also cloned megatron into galvatron.
now he says, that a descendant of the primes is a dock worker, named optimus.
he alos says that he can awaken the protoype prime, who was named after the allspark, primus.
after finding both of them, they assemble a huge army, & travel the galaxy killing stuff and being AWESOME.

the game would be a tactical 3rd person shooter, with a unique system of 3d sights & scpes, zooming in very close to the shoulder to have a first person-ish veiw. the combat system will be fast and cinematic, with the player using movement & attack combanations, and maing an epic cinematic camera, made to show how awsome the attacks are,and that the player can see all.
it is all toggle by a single button eg:

draw sword= normal 3rd person combat.

draw sword+ toggle combat stance= cinematic combat.

pardon me for crappy spelling & grammer mistakes, ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LAUNGUAGE!


also, bioware & high moon studios would do nicely.

 

[PixelKing]

An actually realistic zombie game. You start off in your apartment when the infection hits and you have to search for survivors to make a group to start a survival camp. There is no guns unless you find dead military or go to a gun store, the players aim is unbalanced because they have never used a gun. You can use anything as a weapon and you need a sleep/eat/drink cycle as well.

 

[Littlee300]

snip

I like this idea
How about a multiplayer where each team had 2 players. One would control the armies and most of the kingdom and the other would control the dungeon and what gets sent in the enemy dungeon. The dungeon master makers defenses in the dungeons where slaves are kept while the enemy dungeon master send them. Both dungeon masters can send forces. The people who control the rest of the tower control the wizard the make the armies.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

An actually realistic zombie game. You start off in yur apartment when the infection hits and you have to search for survivors to make a group to start a survival camp. There is no guns unless you find dead military or go to a gun store, the players aim is unbalanced because they have never used a gun. You can use anything as a weapon and you need a sleep/eat/drink cycle as well.

You sir, stole my idea >.<

Hmm, second off I'd get around to creating the game I've been working on since middle school. It's called Starlight Rebellion and focuses around your character in a realistic war scenario where a single gunshot is capable of killing you if it hits you in the right area. Requires lots of tactics and you have to chose when to obey your superiors and risk dieing and when to disobey your superiors and risk being punished by them. (which can also lead to dieing in some cases)

Overall with my current skills in Game Designing, I've only been able to put together the basic plot and mechanics. I'd need a triple-A company to fund this project if it was to ever live up to my vision of it...

What makes it stand out from other games though? The plot. Basically games tend to focus on either a high aspect of being the "hero/villain" or low aspect of being the "average joe." This game takes on both of these at once, allowing you to decide over the course of the game if you let your ambitions take hold or you stick with your current plans in life.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If I had enough people and enough money to implement it all I would make a RPG sandbox meta-game mix, preferably it would be free to play and easy to add content which everyone could enjoy.

- a big default story/world to explore
- a manipulatable environment to some extent, maybe close to minecraft but with extra options
- and every new quests/mission could be a new game (strategy, fighter, shooter, platformer, flying, flash games,....) - you can see why it would take alot of people
- maybe even get music/movies into it
- and a seamless multiplayer, every player has it's own world but you could pull up the multiverse map of all others around you and teleport into their world or any activity they are doing

- once the system is built there will only be upgrades and add-ons, and other developers can advertise their stuff by making their demos as part of the game quest system, and modders can make their mods publicly advertised in the same way

 

[Vault101]

More an Idea for part of a game

You know games with laughbly bad AI? liek Oblivion how they wander around say the same phrases over and over again

anyway You start out in a world like this where it just seems like a game with bad AI and uncanny charachters

you play through a bit and things get weider, like somones eyes flashing red for a second, somone repeating a conversaton again and your charachter recognises this

then finally a shadowy figure apears and points out hwo weird things are, he then tells you your actually dead and this world is jsut created by you, then the sky goes black and you have to out run some kind of dark horror (which isa deamon or somthing trying to drag you to hell) you have to make it to the portal back to the real world

anyway the shadowy figure is some kind of necromancer ho brought you back to life and then the real game begins

 

[RuralGamer]

A decent Matrix Game.

The avatar really gives it away... seriously though, that is actually a good suggestion.


OT: A good Star Wars game; in my opinion, every one since 2005 has been on the mediocre to crap scale.
My suggestions would be:
Using modern technology, a Tie Fighter/X-Wing Alliance-type space shooter (of which, there has been a drought for some time)
KOTOR 3 would be nice (I'm not entirely convinced TOR won't be a flop yet); Bioware would have to make it too.
Star Wars: Battlefront 3
Republic Commando 2
A proper space RTS using big fleets and battlefields. (Empire at war was just too plain and small-scale for me)

I could go on, but I think I've made my point; from my perspective, Star Wars games (in fact LucasArts in general) have started stagnating rather than innovating/improving.

 

[Sharalon]

I don't want to give away too much of this awesome idea, but I can say this: a zombie-ish game at an abortion clinic...

I think I would like to publish it myself through a company called called "Offensive".

 

[Rylot]

I've been watching way too much Firefly lately so:

Setting- Space with a major war going on
Plot- Some how the main character winds up with a space shuttle and lot of cash, you then run around collecting a crew and getting a new ship. You then have the option to pick a faction to fight for- merchant marine style. Or you could branch out on your own and raid other ships, or salvage, or mine and trade, stuff like that. It would start with the player making a customized character. Combat would be third person and also ship to ship in space.

 

[Billska]

Eve Online with players being able to pilot the ships themselves.

 

[Palademon]

I am hesitant to put my ideas, since mine are so specific and could be easily dismissed as silly when not always trying to be, or copied.

 

[Biosophilogical]

Hmmm ... time for the break-down.

Spoiler: Combat:

Think KH2/DMC4 (real-time combat, party members that you control only through picking combat styles, and most importantly, it isn't just a button masher, because you can spam 'attack' and get through on the mid-level difficulties, but for anything more challenging or complex, you'd need a to use combo-commands and good timing). Though maybe provide more versatility with combat behaviours for your party members.

Spoiler: Story:

Standard RPG plot; an unrealised character (you, duh) is drawn into a war between humanity and the 'ultimate evil'. Along the way you meet companions, master new powers and become a fully realised *mandatory 'super' group[footnote]Like a secret order, chosen one or prophecised hero. You know, the usual suspects of protagonists[/footnote]*.

Spoiler: Player powers:

I absolutely love the avatar series (the last airbender). And I'm not sure on the actual mythology of the series, but to me that avatar always seemed like more than jsut a super-bender. It was more like each new avatar was just the next chronological link in the chain of a spiritual energy (an energy that lacks consciousness, more like a balancing force and each new avatar is simply one aspect of the greater whole[footnote]I have no 'real' support for this idea, but it actually makes a lot of sense, if you'd like, I'll explain further[/footnote]. But anyway, I'm getting off-track. My idea is this ...

You are a 'normal person' who is the next link in this 'spiritual chain'. So your powers start off fairly basic with the 'natural elements', Avatar style. Except you are the only 'true bender', everyone else who has super-powers are either the channelers of other primal forces (in the same way as you are the channeler of 'nature/balance', and these people would be incredibly rare and most of them would be evil[footnote]Because most spiritual forces wouldn't feel the need to intervene in the human world except those who need to maintain balance against chaos (you) or those that want to cause the chaos[/footnote]), or they are witches, in that they use rituals to channel some of the power of the spirits, which is different to you in that you embody the spiritual energy, they just 'borrow' a fraction of power from a separate entity.

So as you progress, your mastery of the natural elements grows, as does your understanding of your true nature, until, near the end, you fully realise your power; your power over the natural elements is just a by-product of your power of balance, and your understanding of your own abilities allows you to create perfect balance, rather than just shift the balances of nature to produce 'bending'.

Spoiler: Companions:

Along the way you meet a few other channelers and an incredibly powerful witch. One of the channelers harnesses a primarily evil force, but the force lacks a consciousness of its own, and therefore the channelor can make up his own mind to be good, hence why he joins you. So this guy basically fills the role of recent-movie-Batman (dark, mysterious, cruel to his enemies, but ultimately fighting the good fight). The witch is amazingly powerful (for a witch) and she becomes your controller/buffer, harnessing multiple energies to boost you and your allies, cripple your foes, throw around illusions and use far less powerful versions of every power for tactical purposes (so a Jack (Jill?) of all trades who specialises in control). The other Channelers you meet are a healer (Life), and one for each of the four elements (Earth, Fire, Air, Water). You only get to travel with four of them, and all of them are equally effective if used properly, so it comes down to personal preference and Dragon Age-esque relationship choices.

Also, the four elemental Channelers also serve an end-game plot role in making you question "How can I bend the elements if they are embodying the spirits of each element?". Obviously this only comes end-game when the good guys actually realise where their powers come from (primal spiritual energies).

And because it needs to be done;

Spoiler: End results (plot, powers, etc)

:
You 'realise' your true power (I don't care if it is in a cutscene or not, probably better that it is), and sensing the threat, the greatest channeler tries to kill you right then and there (the other channeler being the vessel of destruction/imbalance). So you get your new powers, and the essene of destruction and disorder begins to permeate your surroundings (think of it as waves of death preceding the arrival of the 'big bad'), corrupting the already hostile enemies, whom, using your new powers, you promptly destroy (this section acts as the introduction to your 'ultimate powers'). There'll be a few normal enemies that haven't been corrupted yet, just so you can see how obscenely over-powered your new powers are, but after you've almost mopped up the chaos 'He' arrives.

And you enter the final battle, using every power you have at your disposal (this 'last battle' is meant to be copletely epic, as in, actually challenging!), you defeat him, and through a cutscene there are a few 'mythological developments', summed up basically as "Balance and imbalance are two aspects of the natural world, and both will exist so logn as the world does". So in the end you kill the Chaos channeler and strike a blow against Chaos, effectively weakening its bond to the natural world, meaning that, for a time at least, balance will out-weigh imbalance in the world, and the damage you dealt to your enemy has made it to weak to become channeled by another person ... for now.

That's right, one of those endings, where all you've done is tip the balance. You haven't won out-right, more like 'The Calm' in FFX, except less depressing.

Wow. That ended up being a lot longer than I planned 0.o