Ideas: Designing a game concept

[Clephas]

I came up with this idea on a whim, but I thought about how interesting it would be to list up a bunch of game design concepts (not necessarily the mechanics, though it would be fine to include those as well), and present them to the community in general.  Basically, you would set a basic theme, a genre, a story concept, and a list of ideas for how you would like the gameplay to work.  Think of it as brainstorming and just jot down whatever you want to show off. 

 

This is just an example, made to give you an idea of what I mean.

 

Genre: RTS, RPG, squad-based

 

Story concept:  Setting in a fantasy world, where sorcery is gradually being reduced to a science, usable by more than a tenth of the population (as opposed to the one in ten thousand of previous ages) and magic-users have become the new upper class in most nations.  War has broken out between three nations over the territory of the Ryland City-States, a federation of twenty-three city-states that recently collapsed into civil war after the titular king and the Senate were slaughtered in an act of sorcerous terrorism.  The three nations are the Dicel Republic, the Isolar Alliance, and the Cytal Hegemony.  Each nation has its own sorcerous specialties and preferred paths of study.  However, the war has fallen into a stalemate, with each of the three nations holding roughly one tenth of the City-States original territory after numerous conflicts and massive casualties in several terrible battles.  Because of the degree of exhaustion the armies of all sides have suffered, they have begun to rely on mercenaries to do the dirty work of securing the country side and of aiding their conquest.  Your protagonist is a mercenary officer, formerly of the City-State of Litonia.  How he navigates the war will decide his fate and possibly the fate of his former homeland.

 

Game mechanics:  Player controls the protagonist and gives order to his unit (varying in size from five troops to one hundred) through hot-buttons.  The protagonist uses varied sorcery and weapons to cut his way through the battlefield, earning as much money as he can along the way.  Battlefields will range from simple open field battles, to forest ambushes of supply-trains, and sieges where sorcery flies alongside catapult stones to shatter walls.  Outside of battle, the protagonist has the opportunity to interact with members of each faction (the three main factions and the surviving City-States) and make connections, earning him chances at work with better pay, as well as access to varied sorcerous research and powers.  Search mode would allow the protagonist to search the ruins of ancient civilizations for useful artifacts of the previous age, and independent mode would allow him to purchase or otherwise obtain the services of different units or skilled partners in combat, purchase new and different or better equipment, or make political inroads within the local system.  The amount of political influence the protagonist has gives him a better chance to be awarded with jobs from local officials and the factions. 

[zhurai]

the question I have about this topic/to this topic's participants:

 

If a game developer (especially indie I mean here) comes around, is it okay with you guys (the participants of this thread) if they  copied the idea, or copied the idea and changed stuff here and there?

 

Are you guys interested or like the idea of a game dev utilizing the game concept/ideas?

 

(it'll probably be ok if they added their own ideas to that idea so it'll be also original...)

 

(I'm asking cause I'm thinking of learning game development... and in my case, if I made anything I'd try to post in here quoting the idea... but hey might as well ask if people are ok with it)

[Flutterz]

I remember reading somewhere about an idea for a game where you play someone who can become invisible. The catch being that people can still hear you/feel you and will be incredibly alarmed if something starts moving on its own, even if they didn't see it (like for example they know they always put the remote in one place, and now it's in another place). I also recall things like if your objective is in some sort of guarded facility, you could get people to call the guards multiple times when they hear something, and end up having the guards ignore them because of all the false alarms, and then you'd have free reign.

Sadly I don't think this idea lends itself well to game development.

[Clephas]

the question I have about this topic/to this topic's participants:

 

If a game developer (especially indie I mean here) comes around, is it okay with you guys (the participants of this thread) if they  copied the idea, or copied the idea and changed stuff here and there?

 

Are you guys interested or like the idea of a game dev utilizing the game concept/ideas?

 

(it'll probably be ok if they added their own ideas to that idea so it'll be also original...)

 

(I'm asking cause I'm thinking of learning game development... and in my case, if I made anything I'd try to post in here quoting the idea... but hey might as well ask if people are ok with it)

 

Ok, here is my policy on using my basic ideas: Give me credit for the original idea, but past that you are welcome to use it as you want.  I don't put stuff up on sites like these expecting no one will use it.  In fact, quite the reverse.  I would love it if someone made the game I described above a reality. 

 

I might even elaborate on aspects you are uncertain of, if you want. 

[zhurai]

on that note, your idea actually might be interesting but currently out of the area of things I can currently make atm

 

(the "Player controls the protagonist and gives order to his unit" part makes it sound like it's an RTS similar to WC3 where you have heroes... as compared to say SC2/BW where you don't use hero ones)

(ofc you maybe referring to the single player version or something though)

 

---

 

But yeah, your requests seem reasonable at least to me, although I haven't started anywhere. I'm just watching craploads of videos about game development, and trying to set up my new computer personally so... yeah ;o

[hotsauce2000]

on that note, your idea actually might be interesting but currently out of the area of things I can currently make atm

 

(the "Player controls the protagonist and gives order to his unit" part makes it sound like it's an RTS similar to WC3 where you have heroes... as compared to say SC2/BW where you don't use hero ones)

(ofc you maybe referring to the single player version or something though)

 

---

 

But yeah, your requests seem reasonable at least to me, although I haven't started anywhere. I'm just watching craploads of videos about game development, and trying to set up my new computer personally so... yeah ;o

 

Getting started with game development doesn't need to be all that hard, zhurai.

 

It really depends on what your goals are and what you're interested in. If it's getting to know how AAA development works, then it can be a big mouthful with throwing yourself into an engine such as Unreal without prior knowledge, but if you're looking to start out small and build yourself up, then there's plenty of opportunities for beginners.

 

An extremely easy engine for quick and dirty prototyping is Stencyl, which both offers you an opportunity to code, but also a very flexible drag and drop option. Stencyl's both free and just fine if you aim to make say a simple flash or mobile game. A great place to start.

 

Other than that there's slightly more complicated alternatives such as the popular Unity engine. Unity has a large and in general helpful community and it enables you to release on a ton of platforms - consoles included. But, all in all it really depends on what you're setting out to do and your level of dedication.

[zhurai]

Getting started with game development doesn't need to be all that hard, zhurai.

 

It really depends on what your goals are and what you're interested in. If it's getting to know how AAA development works, then it can be a big mouthful with throwing yourself into an engine such as Unreal without prior knowledge, but if you're looking to start out small and build yourself up, then there's plenty of opportunities for beginners.

 

An extremely easy engine for quick and dirty prototyping is Stencyl, which both offers you an opportunity to code, but also a very flexible drag and drop option. Stencyl's both free and just fine if you aim to make say a simple flash or mobile game. A great place to start.

 

Other than that there's slightly more complicated alternatives such as the popular Unity engine. Unity has a large and in general helpful community and it enables you to release on a ton of platforms - consoles included. But, all in all it really depends on what you're setting out to do and your level of dedication.

 

yes I know.

and yes I'm going to do unity, watching a lot of the videos atm, and brainstorming some ideas that I thought of myself anywho

... I just need to actually set up my main pc which is also taking up a lot of my time atm (with the main other problem other than time as of atm is that I'm shit with graphics, but I could technically use the asset store...)

 

btw what I was referring to above was I don't think my current knowledge of unity is able to make an RTS type game that might require networking, and various other things.... although I guess that could be done via using the asset store

 

(ok, I'm going to derailing this topic, which is about making game concepts/ideas :/, not about game dev)

[Okami]

Shadow Wars

 

Genre: classic RPG

 

Story concept:

The story is set in present time real world except that there are many creatures lurking in the shadows and you are one of those creatures non the less than Vampire. Vampires are most populated creatures that are living in the shadows and ones with most power and influence and most of shadow kings are vampires. Shadow Kings is counsel to most powerful individuals in word in the shadows and they are keeping the peace in this world. Shadow Kings where assembled 4000 years ago when many vampire clans were at war between themselves as well as against other creatures and they nearly destroyed the world in their war so Agrees one of the first vampires and Casiel prince of faceless gathered most powerful creatures of shadows to stop the war Casiel died in that quest but Agrees managed to stop the war after that he created Shadow king's counsel to rule and keep peace in a world of shadows which he did up till this day. Many small fights still occur but thanks to Shadow kings it can't turn to all out war. You are just one of many vampires living in this world of shadows whoever you aren't part of any vampire clan and you don't know if you ever where because you have amnesia and can't remember anything past world war II when you awake in nasict underground laboratory so you together with your 4 friends Azul werwolf who was banished from his clan because he killed his clan leader, Haren and Kjatra elven twin sisters whose whole clan was destroyed when they try to stole dragon egg from Driger leader of only still existing dragon clan and mysterious Nadja half human half faceless who where nearly extinct 4000 years ago when their prince Casiel died so they nearly newer show themselves up thill to day and most believe that they are extinct, you 5 are famous outlaws in world of shadows doing Whatever is needed to get what you want of course you aren't nowhere near enough threat to get attention form shadow kings. One of the things you want is to get answers on who you are but even best information dealers don't know anything about your past past world war II which is very strange. Strange things have been happening lately more battles between clans and there wasn't even a word from shadow kings than one day Maimi right hand of Agrees shows before you, you can't even believe then someone then high up shows before you match less what she has to tell you, and that is "Shadow kings are killed I am the only survivor and I am badly heart remember your past or both shadow world and the world of humans are doomed" she say just that and disappears. You don't know what is going on is there someone powerful enough to kill Agrees and all shadow kings and if there is someone like that what can you possibly do to stop someone like that.

 

Game mechanics: you control protagonist and up to 4 other party members in the same way as most popular RPGs like for example dragon age origin.

 

 

I will add more details later I am tired from typing and when I am tired from typing I spell words wrong as English isn't my native language so I need concentration to spell it right. So if I continue now it will probably be hard if impossible to read. But be sure there is much more to be added.

 

EDIT:

 

More details.

 

Story concept:

Word in shadows is socaity for it selfs independent from human socaity. They even have they own money currency. There are many hiden difrent firms  hiden all around the world that are run by shadow creatures for the shadow creatures (Shadow creatures is name for all unhuman creatures). Most Shadow creatures are part of some clan, clans always have just one race of creatures in them by there are usuly multiple clans of same race. there are 15 shadow kings Agrees who is the head of shadow kings and said to be most powerful shadow crature in this world and all relms conected to it, Maimi (AKA qeen) his right hand and 13 other councelers. There are many shadow creatures working for shadow kings but only shadow guards leed by warewolf Sax and word of shadow are geting their orders directly from shadow kings. Ahadow guards are unit of high level creatures triend for battle and assassinations and word of shadow is counsle that deals with matter that don't deserve shadow kings attention. There are many relms conected to this world by portals but they are usuly not bigger then one or two human towns and they are usuly low populated, to get from one relm to another or to this world you need to get aproval of word of shadow. There are 5 vampires in shadow kings including Agrees and Maimi,  2 warewolfs, 1 harpy, 1 dark elf, 1 necromansers, 1 yukiona, 1 fire spirit and 3 dragons. Dragons are nerly extinct race the only dragon clan has only around 30 dragons and it is belived that not more then the same number exist outside of clan but they are one of most powerful race of shadow creatures. Shadow cratures working for Shadow kings can't be part of any clan. Faceles have gon into hiding 4000 years in the past after their prince died so nerly nobady saw any faceles in more then 300 years so it is very strange that one half faceles is in your small group showing herself openly in world of shadows, but she dosn't know more about hersel then you do as she was raised by her human mother and never met her father after her mother died in time of world war II from old age she started searching answers when was when she met you faw years latter. There are many difrent races of vampires and one of them is born with ability to use vampire magic they are most powerfull amoung vampires and they are sad to be able to beat vampires match time older then themselfs. Vampires gein power with age but if one has inaf skill he can become stronger then vampires older then himself. There is 2 main tipe of magic, race magic that only setrn race can use and allrace magic that anyone can use tehnicly speaking even human could use allrace magic but becouse they bodyes are so week none have tried and survive to talk about it. Also true any race can use allrace magic some races just arent that good at using it vampires are one of them exept for one setrn race of vamires . You seem to be one of thouse vampires as you used magic when you nerly died fighting 1000 year old vampire but the magic you used dosn't semm to exist in nether allrace magic nor any race magic and it is only mentioned in legens, legens about demons, shadow creatures that whent extinct more then 10000 years ego.

 

Game mechanics: You would have choices in the game that would detrmn autcomes of your misions.

[Katatsumuri]

Hmm... Game Ideas... 

I think I might have one:

 

Magitech

 

Genre: RPG, Hack&slash, minor sides of RTS and Squad-based tactics.

 

Summary:

 

The Continent's human realms are in chaos. In the north, the Seapeople (imagine vikings) and the Northern kingdoms (imagine standard high-fantasy kingdoms) are engulfed in infighting. In the east, the desert sand is stained red with the blood spilled from the constant wars between the ancient realms (a kind of mix between ancient egypt, ancient Nubia and Moor-era spain) that have ruled the area for millennia. In the west, the city-states and human settlements bordering the great forest are locked in constant conflict with the ancient wispwoods that govern the forest (large, unmoving sentient trees) and its dryad protectors. In the south however, the Great Empire experiences a time of relative peace. Almost covering half the continent, this bastion of humanity is flourishing. With it's countless legionnaires, powerful battlemagi and the almost unstoppable Imperial Paladins, there are no other nation who can resist them in terms of military strength. However, fifteen years before the beginning of the game, the Mountainmen (based loosely on medieval Switzerland) living in the Magna Mountain-range in the center of the empire, rebelled against imperial rule. Under the cover of a large storm that isolated them from the rest of the empire, the imperial garrison was destroyed, and the mountainmen declared their independance. Now, fifteen years later, due to rumors of gold in the mountains, the emperor gives the order to bring the area back under imperial rule. A single legion is dispatched through the eastern pass. But, the legion dissappears, and is presumed to have been wiped out. Angered about this, the emperor gives the order for a large-scale assualt and "recolonization" of the mountainrange. In theory, it is a plan to get rid of the previous populace and replace them with loyal imperial citizens. In practice, it's an order to commit genocide.

 

You (the player character) are a traveller who, lured by the rumors of gold, have decided to set out into the mountains. After travelling through the eastern pass, you discover that the imperial legion sent in to reclaim the area, has indeed been wiped out. After a messy situation involving Mountainmen scouts and imperial survivors, you are through circumstances forced to join the cause of the mountainmen. What quickly becomes clear though, is that while (due to a strange natural phenomenom) the mountaimen lack magical capabilities, they make up for it with an incredible grasp of technology powered by the crystals that exist in abundance in the mountains (this is the "Magitech" from where the title comes from). Due to the mysterious man that leads them, they have access to such things as: Gas, long-range artillery, fast-firing crossbows, cannons, gunpowder-based weaponry, flamethrowers, and lastly, Mechanical monsters. The missions conducted during the span of the game will be anything from covert operations in imperial territory, to frantic large-scale combat against imperial forces. You also have command of mountainmen squads during certain missions.

 

Had nothing better to do, so I typed out everything I could think of, which is why it might've neded up a bit confusing and convoluted...

[Clephas]

Genre: Turn-based RPG (would like to add in a strategy element)

 

Story: It would be set in a fantasy world where humans and a race of summoners who can enslave summoned people and beings with coercion spells are at war, involving the dozens of other races also present.  The main protagonist is a slave-soldier summoned from Earth by the non-humans and transformed by his summoner into something greater than human.  She ends up taking part in raids on human territory and various other military actions, all the while trying to come to terms with the new reality of her existence as a slave bound by coercion spells.  The first part of the story would be focused on her efforts to master the skills necessary to live in her new world and free herself from her summoner.  The second stage would involve a mass slave uprising and an escape from the territory of their masters.  The third stage would involve the establishment of a nation in unoccupied lands with the protagonist as military dictator, and the expansion and solidifying of power (economic and military).  The fourth stage would involve all-out war with the slave-masters and an ongoing conflict with the human nations on the other side. 

 

Game Mechanics:  Obviously, the first part would be party-based combat and exploration of a world with an overworld map.  In addition, making a system where the protagonist spends her time trying to sneak past the eyes of the slave-masters in order to learn the magic she needs to free herself and gather allies amongst the other slaves would be an excellent addition.  During the middle part of the game, I'd also like to add resource management, facility construction, economic management, and buildup of the military to the gameplay, along with at least some form of strategy (I thought of a chessboard-type overlay map where the protagonist can deploy parties of generic soldiers produced by her training facilities to fight turn-based battles against raiding parties, small armies, etc.).  Permadeath would be present except for some story-vital characters, though even some of those would be able to die, changing aspects of the late-game story.  Regular troopers would be able to gain levels, change troop classes (both through alternate training programs and advancement on their current class-type).  Unique characters would possess their own unique classes or unique versions of existing classes.  Strategic-level magic (volcano-summoning rituals, firestorms, etc.) would be available for a large cost for making the eventual invasion of human or slave-holder lands easier, at the cost of having to spend extra time building up the devastated civilian areas due to population and infrastructure damage.

 

As an extra note: I've already written out a scenario outline, character descriptions, and a detailed setting for this, lol... so I would absolutely love to do this, but if I go with only my own resources, it would stop at 'just another ugly VX rpg with a better story than is usual' since I don't have the programming or artistic capabilities to go further, lol.