Your Game Concept (1 Viewer)

[Ike]

Okay,

I know I do it. What is the dream concept of a game? Post as many as you want, as detailed as you want. (I don't think this is a poll, and this area don't get much use, but if you see to call it a poll, move it.)

Some that I think would be neat.

A 3rd person console game that's a western. It's part Action, part adventure, part RPG, and part card game. It's very open ended. You can ride your horse from several towns (ala GTA III) and gain reputations as one of several chosen professions: a sheriff, a gambler, Posse member, or gunslinger. Depending on your chosen profession, you progress through the game very non-linear. There is a bad guy for each profession (such as a real meanie for the sheriff, a great card player for the gambler, an elusive target for the Posse member, and a lightning fast cheat for the gunslinger.

If you wanted, you could just drive your horse through town, talking to the local townsfolk. Based on how you do your job, you get money, and with that money you buy needed supplies, and even a house. You could court a wife, and have children. And the game system would be so advanced that they could be involved in the evolving plot.

Is this possible? Probably not. It's like ten games in one, would come as a whole box set, and would take 20 years to develop. But that's why it's a concept game.

Post yours!

 

[Nick Sievers]

Ike, yeah i think it would be cool to drive your horse around town
But yes by the sound of that I would buy it.

 

[Gary King]

Project Ego meets Oregon Trail?

Interesting mix, to say the least.

 

[MathewM]

Oregon Trail...

I remember playing that on an Apple IIc in 1st grade...I believe besides pong it, was my first gaming experience.

It's too late now, but this is a cool topic. I actually took a class in film school dealing with game development (the story and structure, not programming). Unfortunately it was back in the day when vr was supposed to be the future (where'd those cool 3d helmet games go?) and those crappy interactive movies we're cramming the market. Both concepts busted like the dot coms. I did envision online rpg gaming as being the next big thing as well as an interactive day planner game (the sims anyone). About 2-3 years later both stormed the market. If I just would of known how to program.

 

[Sean Oneil]

Oregon Trail! I had completely forgotten about that game

 

[Graeme Clark]

Sounds like a massively multiplayer online RPG type game with a Western setting. I think it could actually work if it was, and you could mix some interesting elements as you've suggested.
For battles you could have a quick FPS game that might resemble Counterstrike with pistols and shotguns, gambling could be one of the main ways of earning money. That could make for a pretty interesting game.
My idea floating in my head has always been a new version of ChaseHQ through open 3D cities where you would try to take different routes to try and cut off the escaping car, and of course there'd be plenty of obstacles to go around, jump off of, and shortcuts through malls, office buildings and parks. I guess it would sort of be like crazy taxi, but with trying to catch another car and guess where it's going instead of just following an arrow.
Driver may have been somewhat similar to this, but I never got around to playing it. I tired the PC demo and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
I've also wanted to try and create an RTS game with 3 or 4 completely different races. And by completely different, I don't mean StarCraft different, but different tech trees, resources etc. Briefly, you could have one fairly traditional side who gater resources, build buildings, construct units etc, the other side though might only have one floating building which everything is done with and it's only resource is time and a limit to what it can do. It can be upgraded for better tech, but while it's doing that you cannot do anything else, also protecting the building would be of utmost importance, since if you lose it, you're pretty screwed. A 3rd race may not have any units at all except for builders and would have nothing but stationary units. There are those that already play "expandabase" in many RTS games and use turrets for attaching, they my get a kick of of having to do this.
Balance would be a bitch, but I think it would be rather interesting if you could get it working.
And while I'm at it, and even though this isn't my game idea at all, I think it's time someone try theNetstorm concept again. The internet has certainly matured since 97 and it was a really fun and interesting game. It may even work well on a console.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Intereresting idea. I've actually been thinking about a third person action/adventure/RPG game that relies heavily on time travel. I thought that having a game where you can not only travel between eras, but reverse things for a short time would be interesting. For example, you could turn back time 5 minutes in order to solve one of those annoying switch puzzles where you could hold a door open for yourself. The trick would be that the game would be a little more rigid in its "rules" for time travel, and would allow for paradoxes to be created. For example, if you encountered yourself in another time-this could cause problems. The mechanics might be tricky, but I think it's doable.

 

[Dan Brecher]

I've always wanted to see a Resident Evil style game but with ghosts, and yes this would mean any form of weapons rendered completely useless against them. Like Luigi's Mansion, though obviously with a more adult and spooky visual take, these spirits would require different tricks and puzzles in order to defeat. Give it a Silent Hill atmosphere and we're away.
The idea was two teams of elite ghost hunters were summoned to investigate an alleged haunted house by some rich chap, one team would be CPU controlled and there would be more to their leader than meets the eye (a twist in the game would have seen their team leader pulling stunts and hurting other team members in order to create fake phantoms he can easily claim he got rid of, thus taking whatever fee the house owner was paying up to whoever gets rid of the ghosts).
You'd control the leader of the other group of hunters who've all be locked in the house with the other team by the evil spirirts, the only link to the outside would be one of their team members who'd be in their control van parked outside, you'd be able to cut to him and interact with him as he watches every room via infa red cameras.
The game would have the player uses their mind, and the elements around the characters would be as real as possible. For instance flashlights would be used but batteries would be limited, and youd never find spares or healthpacks in the most uncommon of places...etc

Dan (UK)

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I for a LONG time had this really good concept for an RPG battle system (kinda developed the game around the battle system) but have since forgotten it. It was like a mix of FFX, Chrono Cross, and some more old-school RPGs.

 

[Camp]

I want a FPS that actually does what the GeoMod engine promised: I want to blow holes through walls and make my own path in ANY level. Give different wall construction materials specific "strenghts" and each ammunition type its own power so each reacts realistically in the environment. I ought to be able to shoot through sheetrock with a .44 and through a brick wall with a rocket launcher.

I simply cannot understand why that level of realism has been so difficult to achieve. I wonder if level designers are just too lazy to support this feature since it would make their job more difficult.

 

[BrianB]

I wonder if level designers are just too lazy to support this feature since it would make their job more difficult.

Don't blame the level designers - I know a bunch who'd *love* to do a game with that amount of flexibility. It's not as easy as it sounds though - how do you design puzzles when the player can blow up any wall in the game? The /size/ of your maps increases - what's to stop the player from constantly dig a hole down? Do you just place an artificial 'metal ground' underneath the world?

I know the Volition guys had to face questions like these - I'm pretty confident they hyped the geomod system before working out a lot of the gameplay practicalities...

Freeform gameplay & emergent behaviour is great stuff when it works - but it *sucks* designing & engineering it sometimes.

 

[Scott Walburn]

Hey guys, this post really struck a nerve. I've had this idea I've I would really like to be a game.

I sure everyone has seen Simpsons Road rage which is a rip off of crazy taxi.

What would love to see is the simpsons combined with Grand Theft Auto 3. Picture it, the city the game is set in is Springfield. You could choose which simpson character to be such as Bart or Homer. Then you could have chief wiggum and the springfield chasing you as law enforcement. Also, you could work for Fat Tony or the Yakuza for all those who remember the episode where Marge starts a pretzel business. I would buy this in a second if if mirrored GTA3 with Simpson characters. I can just picture Homer pistol whipping the guy that owns the comic book store. Just the thought of it makes me laugh.

I know its just a GTA3 knockoff, but I would love to envision what this game would look like.

 

[Gary King]

To chime in on the world reconstruction 3D shooter bit, I haven't seen any algorithm suggested that would handle a completely generalized version of GeoMod.

Although "blow up any wall" seems like a simple concept, there are some serious complications implementing it. Some deal with making it look good (T-junctions, texture coordinate singularities, awkward collision detection, and triangle interpenetrations are just some of the nasties that could rear their very ugly heads), and some deal with making it work. All FPS engines use some fairly hefty visibility precomputation to allow the worlds to look realistic (a single level in Halo or Unreal Tournament can be composed of millions of polygons... a lot of work goes into dividing those levels so that no more than a few dozen thouasnd actually get rendered in a given frame). Computing a BSP tree for a large level can take anywhere from several minutes to a couple of hours... that's not terribly well-suited to an environment that can be deformed on-the-fly.

 

[Scott FP]

Being a sports nut and this concept is from left field. I have found more cons with the idea then pros but here it goes.

Start a football sim as a Blue Chip College football player entering the NFL draft. Say RB. Hire a agent, get drafted, negotiate your contract. Go thru training camp setting indicators to dictate how much time you spend on certain drills including studying your own offense.

All you do at game time is play RB. A coach calls the play and all you do is run. You would also have the responsibility of picking up blitzes and reading defensive formations (ie go out to flat for a pass).

You get hurt you rehab, maybe lose some negotiating power because your overall skills declined after the injury.

Basically it would be a pure RB sim. Yes I know there are a 1000 holes as far as gameplay and only a hardcore gamer would be interested. Just a thought though.

 

[Jason Seaver]

My favorite unused game concept appeared in response to a contest held by STart magazine back in... Well, back when there were Atari STs being made. That would be "Ensign Expendable", where you play a security ensign in a red shirt on a Galaxy-class starship who has just been told to report to the transporter room. Your options are to run and hide, try to take over the ship (a surprisingly easy task), or accept the assignment and try to avoid being eaten by the aliens despite your dead-slow reflexes and non-functioning weapon. If you survive, you might be promoted to "recurring bit character"!

I'd buy it, but it wasn't the one that won the contest. That would be... drumroll, please... "Department Of Motor Vehicles Quest"!

I'd also like to update a few classics:

- a 3D version of "Burgertime" that preserves the original play mechanics of the first,

- a new "Star Raiders" that keeps the wide-open, unscripted, you-against-the-entire-Zygon-armada feel of the original while working in the surface-bombing segments of "Star Raiders II"/"The Last Starfighter"

- "Joust Advanced", a GBA version of "Joust" with some Pokemon-ish elements worked in. Different mounts, riders, and lances have different abilities. There's "Joust Classic", "Joust Quest" (a scrolling platform-style 2-D game with the original mechanics, but instead of just smacking other birds around, you're collecting those advanced lances and mounts while rescuing fair maidens or something), and "Joust Arena" (where you hook up with friends and do battle)

Also, some friends and I once joked about making the worlds simplest simulation game: "Hot Air Balloon". You've got your "burn" button, and your "drop sandbag" button; avoid those power lines.

Another idea that might be fun - and might fit better with more modern gaming styles - is a "last big score" style heist game with multiple (or even random/dynamic) scenarios, where you recruit your crew, scout the location, familiarize yourself with the people you may encounter, etc., basically doing a lot of preparation before getting to the part where you actually rob the place.

 

[Andy Sheets]

I love the western game idea. There's a game in development for the PS2 called Gunslingers which sounds like it's going to have a go at an open-ended western experience. I hope it turns out well (I used to love Law of the West on the Apple and Commodore computers, btw).
My dream game is pretty simple: I just want a good superhero game. That is, the vast bulk of comics-based games are very narrow, action-oriented games which might very well be fun but don't come even remotely close to capturing the vibe of a cool comic (the Capcom fighting games are a great example - entertaining, but how the hell does Wolverine beat up Magneto one-on-one? It don't make no sense!). I'd like a comic book game with a more open-ended RPG style. You create one or more characters with various abilities and looks (the create-a-character feature should be as extensive as humanly possible) and then you get to go around and beat the crap out of any and all villains rampaging around the city, preferably with a real-time approach to the encounters. I think a few developers have had similiar ideas over the years but, unfortunately, every time they start making this game their company falls apart

 

[Ike]

I'm seeing a lot of "open ended," "random," "dynamic" tyoe stuff. I think GTA III and Shenmue's spoiled us.

 

[BrianB]

Basically it would be a pure RB sim. Yes I know there are a 1000 holes as far as gameplay and only a hardcore gamer would be interested. Just a thought though.

There's a soccer game that does something close to that - Libro Grande. It doesn't have the progression aspect, but you play as one character in the team - that's all you control.

Nice on paper, but it *sucked* as a game...

 

[BrianB]

Another idea that might be fun - and might fit better with more modern gaming styles - is a "last big score" style heist game with multiple (or even random/dynamic) scenarios, where you recruit your crew, scout the location, familiarize yourself with the people you may encounter, etc., basically doing a lot of preparation before getting to the part where you actually rob the place.

"They Stole A Million" - on the C64. Excellent game, but buggy, that did just that.

 

[Travis D]

I have an idea that could never work for the simple reason that people are dumb bastards.

FORTRESS - You are part of a military fortress in the future with dozens of other people who all participate in this game via the internet. Whenever you are not participating, your character is sleeping in the barracks. You use a picture of yourself via a scanned picture or netcam so that you are an individual that can be identified by other personel. You do check point patrolling, because sometimes other military outpost try to infiltrate your fortress. These invading people are also connected through the internet. Sometimes your fotress will be called upon (by a computer that does so at random.) to invade another and you'll have to sneak around other real players or kill them and steal their clothes so you can let your buddies in. It will incorporate a form of geomod that allows you to cut your way through glass, air ducts, vents, and ceilings. If someone busts in on the barracks while you are asleep, they CAN kill you. When you die, you will be sent to another fortress with people who have also recently died. And any new fortresses formed, will be formed randomly so no one can memorize all the layouts and find all the weaknesses.

I know a lot of things could go wrong, but if everyone did like they were supposed to do, it would kick major ass.

Also if you have any suggestions to this game then please add them.