What's Your Original Game Concept

[honestdiscussioner]

So your favorite developer is willing to develop your idea for a game. Not a sequel, or anything like that, but an original game concept. They don't need a full plot, just the general concept. What do you tell them you want to do?

My concept would be a third person action adventure, but with a different sort of combat than say Ninja Gaiden Sigma. First off instead of the classic health\mana bar you'd have three bars: health, mana(or whatever you'd use to cast abilities), and a separate stamina bar. The stamina bar is now the most important, for it controls the other two bars. Let's say you are fighting a guy and he lands a hit . . . normally that would take a bit off the health bar. This sort of breaks the experience for me, since it is a bit unrealistic to get sliced through with a katana or a lightsaber and still keep fighting. Instead, you automatically dodge the attack, and it takes from your stamina bar. Any sort of action takes away from your stamina bar, and the lower it gets the slower all three of your bars recharge. The lower your stamina bar gets, the slower your movements are as well. When it gets low enough, you may begin to let smaller attacks through like punches and kicks, and when it is really low, you could get take more dangerous hits, and those you can only take one or two of. I think this adds a lot of realism and strategy to the game.

As for abilities, on PS3 you could hit the R2 button to slow down time while you use all 12 buttons to put in a code for a particular ability. Maybe you have a spell that creates a fireball, press R2 followed by X ◘ Up L1 and out comes a fireball.

So that's some of the basics. Now tell me yours.

 

[Altorin]

take Temple of Elemental Evil's engine (Isometric very good 3rd edition D&D translation)

Make it multiplayer

Make the game ENTIRELY modular. Basically, create a random world, with random dungeons and random quests. Random story seeds that lead into other random story seeds randomly. Basically make everything random. No real overarching story, but rather "Large Story Seeds" which lead into other Large Story Seeds.

I want a good multiplayer D&D game that is different every single time you play it. Make the seeds very simple so you can put thousands in, and get random ones in dozens of games.

 

[Flutterguy]

I had an idea me and some friends talked about while camping (drunk and stoned) basically the game would start at a barfight and cops show up, then you would skip straight from there to a prison bus. The bus scene would have dialogue where you make decisions effecting a reputation with gangs, then it would basically be a sandbox style game where you could do jobs for gangs (reputation is a factor here ofcourse), work for the warden, attempt to breakout, whatever you think of really, hell get a boyfriend in there if you want.

 

[The Wonder of the net]

physics based shooter game

 

[honestdiscussioner]

physics based shooter game

Don't they have those already?

 

[honestdiscussioner]

I had an idea me and some friends talked about while camping (drunk and stoned) basically the game would start at a barfight and cops show up, then you would skip straight from there to a prison bus. The bus scene would have dialogue where you make decisions effecting a reputation with gangs, then it would basically be a sandbox style game where you could do jobs for gangs (reputation is a factor here ofcourse), work for the warden, attempt to breakout, whatever you think of really, hell get a boyfriend in there if you want.

So Grand Theft Prison Break then?

 

[The Wonder of the net]

not my thought like you can only kill people by using like portals hallways and throwing stuff

 

[Flutterguy]

No, it would be a 1st person game focused more on immersion then driving down a street running over hookers. Not to the point of sit in the cell and wait around 15 hours a day tho.

EDIT: response to honestdiscussioner, clicked wrong box when I posted.

 

[Blaster395]

Objective based FPS set in the 2050s.
Design your own guns, with as many combinations as borderlands (But better guns require more points to use in a match)
1 hour matches played over massive maps with 250 on each side.

25 players on each side act as squad leaders
5 players act as front line commanders
1 player acts as General

After a match players receive points towards playing one of these 3 roles. The people with the most points are selected each match for these roles and then have their points reset to 0.

Each match determines a result on a "World Map" where two sides fight for control of a 5x5 map area (Which can be scaled up as the number of players increases). When 1 side wins a new campaign starts.

 

[Chicago Ted]

Clockwork: The Skymasters.

Closest thing coming out that would be similiar to it would be Bioshock Infinite, which rather surprised a friend and mine when we saw the trailer originally released and saw how striking it was to the idea of New Chicago. New Chicago was essentially a mob ruled floating city in the sky based on the American 20's to early 50's.

Beyond that setting though, the game would be an RPG that takes place across a world populated by a few major cities and surrounding towns. There's less of an overarching plot so far for it, but more of a detailed and interesting setting that can be the basis for plots to spring from.

 

[William MacKay]

an open-world RPG set in the future. you choose between one of two characters, and customise their appearance, but their personality is unique. you can choose your primary specialisation (magic, ranged weapons and melee weapons). your character can, however, cast either fire or water-based magic blasts, based on which character you chose. there's two types of combat: normal combat, and squad-based combat. you cant decide what your squad-mates do, but they can provide you with other options (like covering fire while you move to an important combat zone).
the mage storyline is most linked to the plot: in one of the countries, magi are prosecuted and forced to create powerful magic-bombs for the war. the other country takes magi asylum seekers and keeps them safe, but also allows them to fight. in the neutral country, your actions change the opinions (for example, if you run around blowing stuff up with magic, they will side with the magi-haters).
finally, your special move (like a Limit Break from Final Fantasy) is created by you to a certain extent. you choose a weapon, where you attack with it, what maneuvers you use etc. for example, you could have a character pull out a revolver, kneecap the enemy then grab their chin, flip over them and slam their head into the ground. you basically charge up the meter in-combat, then press a button to activate a button press-code. as you level up, you unlock more slots.
the conclusion of the storyline is when you defeat the enemy country(s).
theres also a small party system, where you can befriend certain people and they travel with you (some you can even have such a massive rivalry with, they join your group simply to outdo you in battle (think of Legolas and Gimli in the Two Towers movie)) but after that you can't change their opinion of you (not like in Dragon Age, where certain decisions give rivalry points to certain characters).
these party characters all have unique fighting styles/abilities and an ultimate weapon which unlocks two ultimate attacks.

the idea is half mine and half one of my friends. we're both Final Fantasy fans and we came up with the two main characters. ive basically taken it and added in a plotline.

 

[XMark]

I posted this idea in another thread, and kinda refined it since. I'd totally like to play a game like this...

A large group of terrorists take over a mall, shooting a bunch of people and taking some hostages to make demands. And you're just an ordinary guy at the mall with your girlfriend. You initially hide as the terrorists attack, and from that point on it's entirely non-linear.

You can just try to escape, or you can go all Die Hard and take out the terrorists one by one with a combination of stealth and action gaming, and rescue the hostages. If you get to the mall exit safely, instead of running away, you can just tell your girlfriend to run away while you go back in to fight the terrorists. Insert super-dramatic scene here! (Oh by the way, make sure you got rid of the terrorist sniper that's watching the mall exit before you do that)

If you go the Die Hard route, initially the terrorists don't know about you, but as you kill more of them, they identify you from security camera footage and get more active in their hunt for you. And the leader starts taunting you through the mall's PA system. At that point you need to avoid being seen by security cameras, or destroy them, or find your way to the security room to clear out the terrorists that are watching you, and shut down all the mall security cameras from there.

If your girlfriend ever gets caught by the terrorists they'll try to get you to turn yourself in by threatening to kill her (time limit to execution starts counting down - you can try to rescue her, turn yourself in, or just leave her to die to rescue some more hostages or just save your own ass). TVs in electronics stores show news footage of the terrorist attack and you can find out useful information from watching that. The game would only be about two hours long but it would be meant to be played multiple times over to see how many different ways you can get through it.

Perfect 100% ending would be if you rescued your girlfriend and all the hostages and killed all the terrorists. If you don't take out the terrorist leader by the end of the two hours then a SWAT team comes in to take care of the terrorists, but a whole bunch of hostages get killed in the chaos (that's the bad ending).

 

[drizztmainsword]

@XMark,

That sounds like a really solid concept. THe one caveat that I have with it is the mall setting. There just isn't enough variation and size for me to truly like it. I think a better scope would be a large section of a city or large town that has been cordoned off by the terrorists (which could certainly include a mall).


As for me, I'd have to choose from a rather large list. I'm a game designer, so my list of "dream projects" are long. This is a rather arbitrary choice, but I'd go with my concept that features a man who is effectively a corporate vigilante in a coruscant-esque futuristic city (flying cars, mile-high buildings, etc). The player could choose to follow his corporate backing or abandon it (after all, a corporation with a clandestine vigilante force is going to have some rather nasty skeletons in its closet) and try to vigilante work on his own.

It'd sort of be a vigilante RPG, with the player able to choose what sort of persona he wants to develop. He could become a feared bastion of harsh justice à la Rorschach, or become somebody loved by the common person like more of a spider-man character.

 

[urbannomad]

take Temple of Elemental Evil's engine (Isometric very good 3rd edition D&D translation)

Make it multiplayer

Make the game ENTIRELY modular. Basically, create a random world, with random dungeons and random quests. Random story seeds that lead into other random story seeds randomly. Basically make everything random. No real overarching story, but rather "Large Story Seeds" which lead into other Large Story Seeds.

I want a good multiplayer D&D game that is different every single time you play it. Make the seeds very simple so you can put thousands in, and get random ones in dozens of games.

This.

I really was hoping they would do this with Dungeons and Dragons online.

 

[pyrosaw]

Get Uber Entertainment(They made "Monday Night Combat") to make a multiplayer TPS about a violent kids show. You build turrets out of LEGOs, throw teddy bear grenades, you get the point. It's classed based, so I've worked outthe engineer class, sniper class, heavy class, demoman class. Engineer will play as medic, as he can build health machines(Lokk like vending machines), and build armor boosts for characters. Give the sniper a jetpack. Why not?

 

[Drall]

Okay, so:

The game starts off with you walking ahead with hundreds of other people, all walking in the same direction. Every single one of you is covered in chains. The player's goal would be to break out of the group, and find ways to break all the shackles around them. The only way to break the shackles would be to do unique, original things. There would be no directions on where to go, it'd be up to the player to forge their destiny, break the shackles, and unlock their imagination. All the while a mysterious figure hunts you down, trying to drag you back to the group...

Let me use an example for breaking a chain. Going to the top of a mountain and jumping off would break a shackle and give you the ability of flight. There would be no prompts, the player wouldn't even know if they could fly, they would have to take the risk. And there would be many other ways to break the chains. The goal is basically to use your imagination to the extreme.

 

[The Heavy Metal Nerd]

A multiplayer game with competitive RTS and FPS aspects.

I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 yesterday and got to thinking about the AI Director: 'What about a game mode where you could play as the Director?' Now, I know this isn't original, but it's where I got the idea from and it's easiest to explain it like this.

Here's what I'm thinking. For the Survivors, the FPS gameplay would remain the same: Reach the Safehouses/Gather Gas Cans/Hold out until Rescue arrives as normal.

But for the person playing as the Director, the game would play as an RTS. You'd have a top-down view of the general region the Survivors are in and can choose when to summon Infected at pre-determined spawn points. There would be cool-down meters for summoning Special Infected and Hordes of Common Infected, or maybe even limited uses for them. (Only 3 Tanks the entire Campaign for example) In addition, you could only have so many Infected alive at one time, with Special Infected counting as multiple Common Infected towards your limit cap. For example, do you spawn 100 Infected in the next room? 20 and a Hunter? Or just a Tank?

The ante would up during the Finales though, with reduced cool-down times for summoning Special Infected, or increased caps for the amount of available units at one time.

You could even leave item dropping up to the Director player as well, with the restrictions that unless he drops items for the Survivors every so often, he loses the ability to summon as many Infected (Only 10 or 20 instead of 100), or his cool-down times shoot through the roof. (20 Minutes for a Jockey instead of say, 5) Building on that, you could even buff the Director as a reward for dropping rare items like Health Packs and Laser Sights by slightly temporarily decreasing cooldown times or increasing spawn caps by about 5 or 10. That last bit could create a very interesting dichotomy I think...

Anyway, just an idea I've had bouncing around in my head, and I think you could easily transplant the idea from L4D2 to most FPS's with a little tweaking...What do you guys think?