Invention: Game settings

[Clephas]

Basically, in this thread, you come up with a basic game setting you'd like to see brought into reality, starting from the genre of game and genre of the story, moving on to the details.

 

Here is a basic format

 

Game Genre:

 

Story Genre:

 

Gameplay description:

 

Setting Details:

 

Other:

 

 

Here is an example

 

Game Genre: Turn-based Strategy/RTS/VN

 

Story Genre: Fantasy/magitech

 

Gameplay description:  The game is split between a large-scale resource-management on the world map, where you allocate resources and troops, build up defenses, and engage in research; real-time battles during invasion or defense of a province, in which you command up to twelve units of up to ten thousand soldiers each in field battles ranging from straight wilderness, town defense, and castle sieges with the ability to build siege engines, minor fortifications, and the like with resources at hand (either in your supply train or the surrounding area, up to and including dismantling nearby buildings such as houses to provide materials); and a story portion told in VN-style, with events either begun from the resource-management phase or events based on how you have expanded your territory and how well your war effort against a particular faction is going. 

 

Setting details:  A continent that is on the verge of a huge surge in magitech (technology reliant on magical rules combined with more recognizable technology), as the beginnings of something resembling the Industrial Revolution have started to bud, with the first assembly-lines and interchangeable parts having been developed in a few of the more advanced nations.  However, this sudden surge of technological development has disturbed the existing balance of power, resulting in a continent-wide war, in which nobody is sure who they can trust, and border skirmishes are a fact of life.  The sudden collapse of the great Empire of Tosalt creates a huge power vacuum, as the provinces declare independence and the center of the Empire sinks into civil war.  You are the former military governor of a mixed-race frontier province, surrounded by the dead Empire's enemies, and you find yourself lifted up as a temporary leader, in order to protect the people of your land.  You can make alliances or war as you wish, but the complex network of alliances, enemies, and races can make either choice have unintended results that might very well ruin your lands.  Your first task, securing your people's immediate prosperity and safety, might be more difficult than you first imagined...  It is a world with many races, ranging from giant beast-like dorasa to more common races such as elves or dwarves.  As the human leader of a multi-racial nation, you find yourself in the position of balancing one race's needs against the needs of the whole on a regular basis, and going too far to one side could result in a rebellion you don't have the resources to put down...

 

Other:  Unit types range from simple spearmen (basic infantry unit) to magitech cyborgs made from the corpses of the dead using a combination of necromancy and enchanted artificial limbs.  Sieges not only involve the taking of the castle walls, but also dealing with any magical defenses the fortress might possess (in many cases, this being a far more difficult task).  With a magical barrier, you can either choose to sit back and pound it with catapults and sorcery, or you can choose to hunt down the barrier keystones, shattering them to bring it down more quickly... unfortunately, since the keystones are usually well-defended, this means you will likely take much greater losses than you would simply wearing the barrier down... though you would have more supplies left when it was over.  Dealing with efforts at espionage (spies, assassins, and saboteurs) is a constant effort in both the RTS and world map stages.  Construction of provincial border checkpoints, the use of armed patrols, and the establishment of the rule of law all make it harder to insert such individuals during the world map stage, but during the RTS stage, such efforts can only be countered through the use of counter-agents, even going so far as to insert spies into your own troops to ferret out traitors and spies...  Your protagonist will eventually be faced with a choice between making himself immortal through high sorcery (which will earn him suspicion from races with a high nature-affinity such as elves or nature spirits), form a contract with the land in order to become a higher existence (thus earning the suspicion of the industry barons), or marry a princess from another nation to create your successor, continuing the story into the next generation (there will be a single princess from each of nine different nations, who will become part of the story only if you don't choose either of the immortality options).  What you will choose will effect how your nation grows and what kind of society will form, as well as your fate and the fate of your descendents.