Making a game? Pitch it here!

[Impossidog]

Hey guys, there has been talk about making games on here and you all seem really capable at making games! If you are like me you may have some cool ideas so why not share them and get some feedback?

 

I will start by pitching the game I have been working on for the past 6 months (which I have like nothing done)

 

 

So it is a single screen Adventure Game that takes place at a bus stop. The main goal is to explore the aspect of meeting new people and using your observation skills to get a sense of what kind of person they are and what matters to them. 

 

It is all about the dialogue and what the player gets from it.

 

I would love to hear your feed back.

 

 

and lets hear what ideas you have for a game! 

[melmer]

Boooooorrrrrrrring

Your single screen adventure game should be about a haunted bue stop. You were pushed in front of a bus and killed and you are now a g g g ghost stuck in purgatory at the bus stop. You can possess people and use them to talk to the other passengers, using your observational skills to get a sense of what kind of person they are (murderer?) and what matters to them

I've just sexed up your pitch with a murder mystery twist. BAM! No need to thank me

The game is like Majoras mask, you play the same ten minutes of the morning commute each day. Different passengers come and go at different time, only certain passengers will talk/give out the right information depending on who they are conversing with. Guy with headphone on will ignore everyone except the pretty girl who arrives at 8:43am (or something less cliche) etc

[mikemariano]

So it is a single screen Adventure Game that takes place at a bus stop. The main goal is to explore the aspect of meeting new people and using your observation skills to get a sense of what kind of person they are and what matters to them. 

 

It is all about the dialogue and what the player gets from it.

 

 

MIngton gave you an example goal, but you don't need a hook yet.  You should either work on more of your character/story/dialogue or just start creating your game in whatever tool you feel like exploring.  It may be that the story comes out of the way you play the game.

 

Have you seen the William Inge play Bus Stop?  I haven't, but it is all about characters in a diner next to a bus stop.

 

Have you played GTA IV?  Are you ready?  Do the bus stop.

[Gaius Julius]

The game is like Majoras mask, you play the same ten minutes of the morning commute each day. Different passengers come and go at different time, only certain passengers will talk/give out the right information depending on who they are conversing with. Guy with headphone on will ignore everyone except the pretty girl who arrives at 8:43am (or something less cliche) etc

I would really like to see the Majora's Mask mechanic used more. So many games are inherently repetitive and the Majora's Mask approach is a way of making that repetition both diagetic and interesting.

[clyde]

The twist

Your death was actually a suicide. You murdered yourself!

[Zeusthecat]

Here's a free video game idea for whoever wants it:

 

A two player game where one person plays as a pyromaniac that uses various abilities to try to burn down a building and another person plays as a firefighter using various abilities to try to put the fire out. There would be various buildings with different layouts and each one would have a dollar value assigned to it. The pyromaniac is scored based on how much damage they do and the firefighter is scored based on how much they save. Whoever has the higher dollar amount of damage done or property saved at the end of a match is the winner.

 

This game would have some sort of a combo system where chaining together different abilities would unlock limited use special abilities that are much more powerful. This game would have ultra realistic fire propagation and water effects and would run on Unreal Engine 4 because graphics r king.

 

(I fully expect that a game like this already exists somewhere and that this is not an original idea)

[dibs]

I have a game idea, but it is a secret. I have notes scribbled down and everything, and a name!

[clyde]

Your description reminds me of Netrunner, Zeus. Only imagine that the only way the firefighter can win is she puts out seven fires; and the pyro has to set a fire every five turns or so. There's an assymetrical dependency in that way. Actually, it's more like a game between the owner of the building and the pyro-maniac.

[Zeusthecat]

Your description reminds me of Netrunner, Zeus. Only imagine that the only way the firefighter can win is she puts out seven fires; and the pyro has to set a fire every five turns or so. There's an assymetrical dependency in that way. Actually, it's more like a game between the owner of the building and the pyro-maniac.

 

Unfortunately I will never experience the joys of Netrunner because I have no friends that live within 100 miles of me (that is meant to be read to the sound of a tiny violin playing). 

[Mawd]

Well the short version is to do to spells what Receiver did to guns. I've got other ideas to flesh it out a bit but I'm happy to shelve things while I discover technical ability and a way for the controls to not seem completely arbitrary and unfun.

[clyde]

Unfortunately I will never experience the joys of Netrunner because I have no friends that live within 100 miles of me (that is meant to be read to the sound of a tiny violin playing).

Well when one of us makes your free game idea, they should look at Netrunner's systems for inspiration.

[clyde]

Well the short version is to do to spells what Receiver did to guns. I've got other ideas to flesh it out a bit but I'm happy to shelve things while I discover technical ability and a way for the controls to not seem completely arbitrary and unfun.

One obstacle to keep in mind is that if the player has the option between spells and they require the player to remember a series of specific inputs, they will tend to stick to one or two spells because they can't remember how to do all of them in the moment. Magicka and some fighting games have this problem.

[Mawd]

One obstacle to keep in mind is that if the player has the option between spells and they require the player to remember a series of specific inputs, they will tend to stick to one or two spells because they can't remember how to do all of them in the moment. Magicka and some fighting games have this problem.

Yeah I could see that being a problem. I'm still in very primordial stages of development. But my best idea for it would be to treat elements like they're nouns and the actions as verbs. So as a starting wizard you would receive the noun 'air' and the action 'wall' that would be used to create a wall of air to deflect arrows or some other spells. Eventually you'd pick up action words like 'jet' or 'nova' to further change how each element could be manipulated.

I'd hopefully be including environment puzzles to still make it worthwhile to know your whole magical vocabulary.

I think also there would be room for a mechanic where you make a spell scroll that would let you do an Elder Scrolls style one click cast. Only you'd have to meditate to give the scroll power and other players using a certain ability would be able to see how much power you are exercising and could summon beasts or directly invade your home. That way I think the balance would hopefully be tipped toward making a bunch of weaker scrolls rather than a big powerful one because a big powerful one would either mean a noob or 'serious business'.

Without players invading the cost of increasing scroll power would be an increased chance of baddies spawning or some such.

 

Having said all that I do wonder if I'm supposed to be more secretive. I guess I will have to trust/delude that I will be able to make a game with more soul than a copycat.

[tberton]

I'm not making this, but I just read an interview with Tom Francis and this came up:

 

10. One last random question (ok, not that random this time!). If you could turn any human activity into a stealth game, which one would it be and why? I think turning human activities into stealth games is my profession now, but if I have to pick something more everyday than heists and spaceships... avoiding someone you vaguely know but don't really want to say hi to. That's the one time I'd really like to have a visibility meter, and some AI barks to let me know if I've been spotted yet.

 

A stealth game where you have to avoid people you don't want to talk to would be amazing. Somebody do this.

[dibs]

I went back to the Gamemaker bit I wasn't able to get working before. I now have portals working in one direction! whoot.

 

 

Prototyp'ed

[Impossidog]

Well the short version is to do to spells what Receiver did to guns. I've got other ideas to flesh it out a bit but I'm happy to shelve things while I discover technical ability and a way for the controls to not seem completely arbitrary and unfun.

 

There is an old GDC talk from John Blow about prototypes and in that he made a prototype for this exact concept. He explains the problems he ran into and why he ultimately gave up on the game.

[Mawd]

There is an old GDC talk from John Blow about prototypes and in that he made a prototype for this exact concept. He explains the problems he ran into and why he ultimately gave up on the game.

 Neat, I'll try to check it out sometime.

[TheLastBaron]

It's not an actual idea for a game, but I want to make a game where instead of having sound effects there are just a bunch of different audio tracks and ambient stems playing all the time and everything you do just dynamically mixes them or adds processing to certain sounds so that there's still the impact of the sound changing in response to your actions, but sound isn't actually being created.  The main inspiration for this  was when I was thinking about how great the sound design for all the abilities in Dota is, but when thinking about it I think my favorite ability is Global Silence which literally just mutes sound for all the players on the other team.  There's also SSX which has a really cool audio engine that does a bunch of real time music remixing in response to trick in the game you do.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tLiA1dbMpls#t=98s

[Dewar]

If you could do it, that could make for some really awesome middleware.

[tegan]

A game where the actual game portion is some throwaway platformer or something with really easy to collect achievements. Every time you unlock an achievement, you get a slightly more grandiose effect (icon in the corner, icon plus achievement name in the corner, icon plus achievement name in the corner plus a "ding" sound) until it reaches its logical endpoint and the last achievement triggers a half-hour cutscene in which the player has to sit through an award ceremony.

[dibs]

Is it combined with the sinking feeling that you are a fraud and that everyone thinks you deserve the award, but you know it was only a series of small tasks that you somehow managed to not fuck up?

[BigJKO]

Imposter Syndrome: The Video Game?

[dibs]

I was thinking phd: the video game

[BigJKO]

They're possibly the same thing.. 

[clyde]

Y'all know that Deirdra Kiai made Impostor Syndrome: the video-game right?

http://deirdrakiai.com/impostor/

I would think that this is a direct reference to it, but people can't figure out how to vote in the Amnesia Fortnight thread (even though it's pretty simple) so I can't assume anything.