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Make your video game!

Started by Inkidu, November 09, 2010, 04:49:12 PM

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Oniya

Quote from: Cyrano Johnson on July 18, 2013, 08:03:35 PM
The original Mechwarrior game likewise had an open-ended fight-for-hire feature -- which made perfect sense in the Battletech universe and was frankly far more fun, and had more replay value, than the game's "plot." Yet this, the game's best feature, got ditched in subsequent Mechwarrior titles. What I wouldn't give to see an open-ended mercs-in-giant-robots title once again.

As I remember it, we pretty much scrapped the Mechwarrior 'plot' path and stuck with fighting robots.  Mr. Oniya used to excel at taking out anything and everything with a Locust.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Cyrano Johnson

With a Locust? Impressive. Most impressive.
Artichoke the gorilla halibut! Freedom! Remember Bubba the Love Sponge!

Cyrano Johnson's ONs & OFFs
Cyrano Johnson's Apologies & Absences

Oniya

Get in reeeeeal close and bite 'em in the ankle.  They fall down, you get all but one leg-worth of salvage.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

alextaylor

Always wanted to do a RPG focused more on the character development than the progression! Like instead of XP, you'd be gaining life experience.

Instead of leveling up after killing 30 orcs, you'd gain some "Orcslayer" perk, which gives you a bonus to fighting orcs in the future, some combat skill, and the animosity of orcs in the region. You can maybe get a "Goblinslayer" perk later, but the combat skill gain won't overlap with Orcslayer. If you had warrior training, there might not be any combat skill gain with the minor slayer perks either.

You could maybe do a quest where you rob someone's house, disable all the traps, and get a "Robber" perk, which gives an increase to stealth skills and such. That way, you can't just 'grind' your "lockpicking" up by killing 1000 rabbits and distributing points from the level up.

Characters would be made from pasting together a few perks that define their life. If you wanted to make a warrior, you'd probably put together a "Trained with the militia" or "Highway robber" background perk, along with a "Big bodied" physical perk and so on. No more rolling dice 200+ times until you get a character with all 16s.
O/O

Mathim

I had this awesome idea for re-tooling the Strategy RPG (Final Fantasy Tactics style, not every other kind while pales in comparison) to incorporate more realistic interactions with the environment like cutting down trees, damming rivers, building things like catapults, and having weather conditions and natural environmental disasters occur, and also wildlife becoming part of the battles in certain places. Plus more and varied job classes. Freakin' awesome. I've got huge amounts of plans already drawn up so if there are programming type people out there just looking for an idea, I should probably run it past them.

I also came up with an idea for a puzzle-themed game based on a mechanic I thought up for a new Legend of Zelda game. The idea was that Link finds a wand/rod/thing that conjures up a moldable block that he can drop anywhere which will take on the shape of whatever it falls on and he can then shift it to move it wherever he wants and orient it however he wants, to progress further in a dungeon (like having it fall onto a staircase so it takes the shape of a staircase, then move it elsewhere so he can get up higher, for example). But it then occurred to me you could use that to make an entire puzzle-game out of that sort of gimmick, like Labyrinth (where you move the thing to guide the little metal ball around the holes, not the movie with David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly). It would be really neat, especially if you had to make the block fall onto certain symbols and then have to roll the block around so the symbol on that particular side of the block had to align with a certain spot to unlock a door or activate a switch or something. Fun stuff.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Inkidu

#80
Endless Horizon

Type: 4X game that's basically an open love letter to every strategy game I've ever enjoyed. For the sake of not having to come up with five or six additional alien races I'll discuss it from the point of humanity.

Setting: It is the year 2050 and the various galactic-ready races have begun to develop a natural need for a unified one-world government is on the minds of the most powerful nation states. You are appointed the Commander in charge of that initiative. For example as humanity you are placed in by the U.N. character for world peace (at any cost).

Using the most advanced tech your race can bring to bear you either wage war or use diplomacy to bring the various nation-states under your auspices. One of the first tech trees would unlock at this point (Warfare). Using money, power, and persuasion you create a one-world government. However, once your new world order is created you use your popularity to create a new unifying government for the planet. This would also bring in the Collateral Damage mechanic, more later.

You then get the ability to reorganize the world as you see fit:

Republic: A military driven Startship Troopers style republic
Monarchy: Think Imperium of Man, lots of centralized power
Democracy: Basically what the UN was trying to do with a World Senate. Lots of power, but power is fickle, especially the larger the empire is.
Federation: A trade driven corporate collection of various trade unions.
Fundamentalist: Basically like Civ it's a polite word for police state or fascist.
Theocracy: Fundamentalist religion driven.

At this point the government and trade tech tree would open. It would also teach you how to keep power. While your government type will never change again many parties will appear. Various types of governance have more than other. Fundies for example only have three. Theocracy might have three, monarchy will have about 5 that reflect various houses vying for the crown, and republic will have about five. Democracy and Fed will have about 10 reflecting the volatile nature of democracy and commercial interest.

Anyway, now that the world is conquered the whole of mankind turns its vision upward, and the first truly great space-faring ships are formulated. This unlocks the third tech tree (ship tech, which is not the same as military, more to come). The first ships are primitive. Dirty vision tramp freighters setting out to colonize the solar system. One of the things I want to do is have every kind of planet usable in some way. Asteroids, Gas giants aren't livable but they're usable. This is when the last tech tree (for now) gets unlocked (infrastructure deals with stuff like academies, mining, etc.)

So humanity starts with the moon, then Mars (Mars is considered arid and livable). None of the races will have a terran, ocean, jungle, or desert planet in their starting system (or their preference for example). Well, this time would introduce you to the civil war aspect, the "Imperial Control" stat, and ship-to-ship, ship-to-ground combat.

An un-avoidable spat of unrest will rock your empire. Your empire splits in half with you getting the remained so you'll have an advantage. At this point you might have primitive fusion and planet-buster nukes as well as some standard metal armors (tungsten for example). You'd usually fight the government the government sort of opposite of yours, or random, but not yours.

Once you have quashed the rebellion or the rebellion has quashed you (yes it would be possible to lose, but you'd get an option to keep playing as the people who beat you if you want, just for funnsies)

After taking the last settlement (ie. planet, asteroid mine, whatever has the ability to produce some kind of colony ship) you get an event that tells you that your scientists have discovered a way to navigate the perils of time dilation. Each race has its own form. I haven't nailed them down exactly, but humans will either have some kind of broadcast technology or some kind of space lane thing

Other methods include:

Warp drive (traditional take a chunk of time-space with you)
N-space nodes (point to point but without gates but an inability to put it where you want)
Stasis Catapult (put them on a deep freeze in some gel and shoot them close, or later, past the speed of light in a straight line toward the system that's incredibly fast but has a small margin of error (requiring more turns to "hone in" on the system you were aiming for.
Some other stuff, at least seven.

Anway: The galaxy is out there for you to colonize. At this point the tech trees (which have already randomized and name-changed somewhat to reflect your government will get the last tree which is probably the smallest (xenoology dealing with alien races, speaking, communicating, cohabitation). Then it goes the way of most game. Conquer using science, war, diplomacy, or trade, or wonders/culture.

Mechanics: So yeah, it might be a micromanage fest, but I want it to be in a way that's heuristic, intuitive. It uses the standard production/gold/science/food mechanics (because honestly I haven't found one that does it better for TBS).

I want the science-fairly on the hard side. No ships made out of suns or living metal or some of the more mystical elements.

It'll also be pretty damn dark, I want to use the Endless Space way of doing battles, cinematic but more opportunity to use cards, and an ability to pause outside of multiplayer. This would double for ground operations too. You see your men running across a surface of a planet, you see the mechs, tanks, and whatnot.

Another thing: System Synergy. This is a concept of organizing solar systems in your empire to get shit done as it expands. For instance Sol will start out a bit varied, but the pressure to make it a government based system will be pretty overt. Say your next system has lots of asteroids and arid planets. What's the best thing to do. Mining system. All the buildings should reflect maximum exploitation possible. It is one of the Xs after all. So you'll have whole systems funneling food to the empire.

Some other mechanics. Ships are rare. Even the most basic is a massive undertaking. Now this becomes easier as you advance and get more resources and all, but even with whole systems geared as shipyards there are still limited caps on fleets and fleet size. The key to protecting your empire isn't a fleet in every system. The key is a garrison on every planet.

There are also unique heroes (most come from your race until you research something in Xenoology) that can run systems or fleets.

The essence of combat and destruction: Planets can be blown apart or made uninhabitable pretty easily. You as a ruler are assigned a score based on your general tendencies toward either destruction or temperance. Yes, you can plant your battleships over a planet and bomb it back into the stone age. It's quick, it's efficient, the world learns to hate and fear you (especially if there are no military installations on the planet other than a barracks (the most basic needed to station troops there). You get certsain bonuses and penalties based on the magnitude of these scores.

So taking a system. Systems are not conquered immediately. It'll be an endeavor (this is to give your opponent time to react since fleets are small but generally fast). They're still limited by what they want to do though. Yeah, they can blast your troops of the planet from orbit, but what do they want or need.

So I've been picking at it some more, and I've come up with some new ideas:

So we have:

Numerous Races who you have to take from planet, to system, to galaxy.
A robust choice of government structures and political parties.
A combat system that entails not only controlling ships and space stations, but the planetary garrison.
The idea of aligning systems to produce a function.

So new stuff:

Trade routes and lanes. In general if there isn't an enemy fleet parked above your system you've got a route. Broadcasters (warp gates whatever you want to call them) would need a gate in the system. This is what allows resources to flow to your bureaucratic systems. Everyone else would need at least one comm relay in the system. It has to deal with how many turns of movement it is from a government sector whether or not they need a relay, but since gov systems would be costly and contribute no raw resources to your empire it would balance out making one every few systems

Well, here's some problems that can happen with that. If you lose contact with a system for about a hundred years or so (pretty unlikely seeing as enemy ships would be trying to take it. It could go into medieval-stasis state (just for fun again). In general your empire is only as good as its roads.

Also: Tech discoveries at least in the military and ship sector are somewhat randomized. Everyone'll have access to core tech, but humans have a greater chance of getting aircraft carriers as a dreadnought class than other races, but have a lower chance of getting higher-end plasma. They could, but you're playing against the RNG. Everyone has access to some kind of dreadnought though.

Let's see...

Civil wars can happen, but I don't want it to be a game-ender. You can call a cease-fire or even get your rebelling faction to ally itself against a common foe.

You can beat the game several ways: Diplomatic (creates a Hegemony), Conquest (Capture all enemy held systems), Empire (control 80% of the systems, not a big believer personally, but why not), economy (control a vast amount of wealth total not in your treasury), and tech (a predictive computer or control over black holes none of that transcend to energy stuff . I'm thinking about some culture, great wonder based thing too.

Also, because I'm a big sucker for customization you can name not only the systems but each of the planets in you (default is system name I, II, III) want. Depending on what they produce the most they'd also get a special prefix like if you were all production for ships

Gemini Shipyard Instead of just Gemini. You could rename the special stuff too. So it could be Gemini Imperial Drydock or something.

I would also work on something that fleet managing a breeze. However, I believe in moving small amounts of ships so that's half the battle right there.

Also, I would offer some civilization portraits and the ability to upload your own. I hate making custom races and having to select from the small pool of preexisting portraits.

Ooh, another neat idea. Maybe each planet could be broken into four sections each section would have certain number of squares. Improvements have to be put into squares. All land based facilities would need a certain number of squares (one to four), the number of squares changes based on the size of the planet or heavenly body. Asteroid fields and gas giants would be small or tiny, for instance.

I was thinking you could control all this through the scroll wheel on mouses (and yes it's mouses when you're talking about the device) to zoom to the varying levels of governance. I want as few menus as possible.










If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Ironwolf85

I'd like to see a game that deals with faith, maybe a monster hunting game that actually tells a story about not just the monsters the inquisitor fights, but his own personal story of faith in the face of both monsters and men. Going from novice trying to make the world a better place, to however the player plays him, including from a religious perspective.

Make it more about investigation and sword fights, with magic actually being rare

It'd be an M-game for sure, and probably resemble the Witcher Universe a little. But the character is far from the dark brooding Geralt when the game starts, if he ends up that way it's the player's choice.

It's just not a perspective that games tend to do.
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Inkidu

You know what system would be really good for a fantasy game? Splinter Cell: Blacklist's stealth gameplay.



If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Mathim

I would like them to make another Conker's Bad Fur Day. I mean, it was such an amazing idea, take a cute little mascot-style character and then turn the title into an adult-oriented thing with lots of parody elements, completely off-the-wall and unpredictable plot and varying styles of gameplay (primarily platforming but with variety). I have an idea for the same sort of thing which would involve new genres not touched on by the old thing, like a few stages involving rhythm game style and racing, plus fighting game style fights. Get a little bit of everything, slap it together with batshit crazy characters and story and it'll probably be one of the biggest cult games ever.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Oniya

The little Oni has entered the realm of fanfic, and is working her way through a dark sequel to Majora's Mask - what happens after the moon crashes into the world? 

I have to say, the idea of a thoroughly post-apocalyptic Zelda game has a certain appeal, but I don't think she's going for quite that dark.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Sabby

Don't remember where I read this, but each game Link looks more and more like Wolverine. Might as well go full post apoc.

Oniya

Thanks for that image of Wolverine in a green skirt, cap, and tights.  O.O
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Inkidu

Majora's Mask is pretty damn dark already. :\

Anyone else want to play that 4X game I made, or am I really the only one who wants to take it from unification to conquest?
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Mathim

Quote from: Inkidu on February 03, 2014, 04:05:00 PM
Majora's Mask is pretty damn dark already. :\

Anyone else want to play that 4X game I made, or am I really the only one who wants to take it from unification to conquest?

Had to go look up the definition of 4X game there. Not really my thing, I prefer the more limited, extremely small troop campaigns to the stuff that controls huge battallions all at once. I like being able to control stuff but not on that scale. Too much to keep track of, so at some point it loses its appeal. I can see why people do like those though, so I'm not without some level of admiration.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Sabby

#89
I have an idea for a Castlevania like game that I really haven't seen before. Basically, what I'd like to achieve with this is the RPG platforming of modern Castlevania games but with a more unpredictable and emergent gameplay that focuses more on skill and reflexes.

Basically, you're highly mobile in very large environments which are destructible and full of different elements. You have absolutely no melee attacking capabilities and most of your special unlockable skills are defensive or evasive, like teleports, shields and wall jumps and such. Your only weapons are throwing knives, which can be aimed in all directions, but each knife has it's own physics. A heavier knife will arch more and so not be very useful attacking something above you, where as a weaker and lighter knife can go on a straighter trajectory even going upwards.

Here's the catch. Almost all enemies attacks, whether melee or their own ranged, can collide with your knives, so a battle with a single enemy could just be the two of you clinging to walls and zipping from pillar to pillar and sliding on wet stone floors trading daggers, which clash in mid air and clatter harmlessly. Beating the enemy isn't about getting close and unloading attacks like in Castlevania, it's more like long ranged fencing with parkour. Both you and your enemy are really effected by each hit landed on you, so if you take a dagger to the chest while in mid wall jump, you're probably going to careen into the next wall and hit the floor. Or maybe you recover in mid air and manage to land properly and leap away from the follow up dagger.

But this is a Vania game! So there has to be loot, right? Yes. There are different daggers with different weight, trajectories and special properties. You have the light and fast dagger that can be thrown fairly quickly, the spinning blades which can continue to careen and ricochet after being deflected, slower tomahawks which can bat smaller weapons aside, break away daggers that explode into shrapnel upon collision with an enemy dagger, bombs that let off a concussive blast, elemental daggers (I'll get into those soon) and just different trajectories to use, maybe even slightly random arcs to throw your enemy a loop.

So most of the fights would be spent dashing past each other and throwing these daggers to collide with each other, but say your electrified silver axe hits their combustion kunai and goes spinning directly upwards. You can wait the few seconds it would take to ready a new axe, or you could spring off the wall, catch your old axe in mid leap and immediately throw it again. Lets say it misses but manages to slam into the inch deep water on the floor. Electricity + Water = Lightning burst, which also effects any daggers in the air, as well as stunning/throwing/damaging anyone near it. Those three needles that were just thrown? Sent spinning and electrified. Then a fire boomerang arcs around and collides with a smoke bomb chakra. Powder + Fire = Explosion. Another electrified weapon hits magic ore in the wall. Massive force blast. Remember, these weapons work on physics, so a massively repelled chakra could just carve straight through someone. Now you have a magnetic repulsing field in the middle of your battle, which will redirect any weapons you try and throw through it. A different ore may result in an attractive field.

Do you just try and overwhelm your magnetic shield using spider mage enemy by tossing handfuls of relative weak kunai hoping to find a chink in his defense and not allow him to retaliate, or do you wait and dodge his attacks so you can counter while he's vulnerable? Every time you strike him, he sheds spider eggs, so the longer the fight goes on, the more dangerous it is to be knocked to the ground. Do you try and kill a few of the spiders with a handful of fire kunais each time you land, or use wall leaps and wall runs and rebounds to fight the mage in the air?

Even if you both have equally heavy and fast daggers, throwing yours to intercept theirs at the last second means you'll probably catch a nasty cut on the deflection, especially if your both throwing handfuls of weaker daggers! You might even kill yourself with your own blades being turned at close range.

HectorX

A combination of Dwarf Fortress, Galactic Civilisation and The Sims.

Hilarity would ensue!

Stendarr

Quote from: Hemingway on November 09, 2010, 11:07:46 PM
I'd aim at making it as close to a simulator as possible, while still keeping it, you know, actually fun. Because no one wants to play a game where you take one hit, then have to sit out the next of the round. It'd be a camping nightmare. But let's talk setting first.
You just described Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege and I can tell you it is the best shooter in the world (in my opinion), I mean minus the fact it was made in like 99 so the graphics and whatnot are shit but you get the point. Oh yeah I almost forgot, the multi-player has some campers but fewer then you'd think.

Mathim

On another forum devoted to Zelda games, there was a thread for discussing ideas for future weapons and items for Link to find in dungeons and whatnot. I came up with the idea that, for a 3D game (since this is much simpler in a 2D environment) the magic rod that creates blocks from thin air could be tweaked to make it more puzzle-oriented. You create an amorphous block in the air and decide where to drop it; flat ground, stairs, etc. Flat surfaces allow it to merely become the normal cubic block that can be pushed. Dropping it on stairs, however, allows it to take on the shape of the stairs so you can then push it elsewhere if you need a staircase to reach something. Or if you have a hole in the floor you can drop it into there and use it as a mold and then extricate it from there and maybe a certain keyhole needs to be fitted with something in that exact shape to open a door. Stuff like that.

The idea expanded into having to make the block fall through certain rings or maybe light circles that would give them different properties. Like maybe one type of ring makes it feather-light so it can be carried by hand. Or one gives it bouncy jelly-like properties so it can be used like a trampoline to boost your jump to let you get up higher. This could all be used to make a non-Zelda-related puzzle game where each stage requires strategy to get your character through a room with a limited amount of time and/or a limited number of blocks they can create. I know puzzle games tend to lose their appeal but this could be fun if it really pushes the player to think and is challenging enough to make them want to get all the way through each stage. Maybe even have a stage-creation option so players can try to stump their friends.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Sabby

Hmmm, I think I'll remove the elemental combinations from my Daggervania game. It might be too much happening at once. What I would like to add is a melee attack that isn't for killing the enemy.

If you tap the attack button, it's a quick swipe which can deflect a dagger. If you hold it down, it has a wind up which can pretty much return the dagger. Similarly, the swipe can make an enemy recoil a little and push yourself away from them, where as the wind up can knock them away. So the combat is probably going to resemble something along the lines of Crouching Tiger Metroidvania, with mid air battles throwing blades and clashing gauntlets.

Jusey1

I would post mine but I cannot... It won't do me any good if someone else takes the idea before I am finished with it... (I am a Game Developer/Designer myself and do know the Unreal Engine plus many more sooo....).

Sabby

And now you have everyone in this topic fuming with jealousy Dx

Inkidu

Quote from: Sabby on July 21, 2014, 07:07:30 PM
And now you have everyone in this topic fuming with jealousy Dx
Really? I'm not. I'm fuming with frustration at the lack of good digital TCGs out there but that's it.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Oniya

Quote from: Jusey1 on July 21, 2014, 07:06:06 PM
I would post mine but I cannot... It won't do me any good if someone else takes the idea before I am finished with it... (I am a Game Developer/Designer myself and do know the Unreal Engine plus many more sooo....).

Will you at least let us know when you are finished with it?

[adorable kitty eyes]
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Sabby

I love dynamic gameplay. Halo, Bioshock, Xcom, anything that can surprise me and force me to adapt to whats going on interests me. So here's a whole list of dynamic systems that would be nearly impossible to have working together as a fun and balanced game, but screw it, we're selling dreams here.

Fallen Gods

You begin the game as a tribe of ancient humans. You can play the game in a Day Z like fashion by choosing a human, or pull out to a more strategy game like view to manage your tribe. You explore the world to discover resources and technologies and can decide whether or not to share it with others. The social system is essential, so a strong tribe will need to make alliances and share technologies and resources, but each tribe is different and wars can easily start.

So the first part of the game acclimates you to how all this socializing and researching works. Hopefully by now your a strong tribe with many allies, but also many enemies that can't or won't oppose you just yet. That's when the skies ignite and machines fall from the stars. A three way war raged over Earth and three different species of alien are now stranded here, their soldiers scattered and isolated, new and strange technologies scattered, new diseases and non-native species scattered. Everything changes over night.

What do you do? Do you throw warriors lives away trying to bring down alien soldiers holed up in a cave? How will you even make sense of their strange technology? A rival alien faction may show you, if you aid them. Or maybe you've been stricken with a new disease or your game has been killed off by new species. What do you do then? The aliens could cure you, but should you side with them? Then you find out the tribes that opposed you have given themselves up to the more warlike aliens in exchange for technology and gene splicing, making them powerful hybrids. You need to respond, but your whole tribe must agree on who to side with and what to offer/take, or you risk civil war or even a complete schism.

Now the social system has blended seamlessly with an Xcom like research system. You have ties with a tribe of animal trainers, a stockpile of stolen alien alloy and harbor injured alien scientists. Combine all this together and you may be able to advance your tribe. Now you have mounted Sabrecats in alloy armor with vibrating alloy spears. You don't have the resources to make anything close to the aliens weaponry, but you can apply the theory to what you have, making weaker but more plentiful pipe guns and clay grenades.

The game can be over as soon as it starts or be a week long epic.

Sabby

#99
I'm onto something here. Remember Xcom? Now imagine your not fighting over points on a map. You're fighting over points IN TIME.

Something invades our planet and tries to destroy us. We fight them off, and find that they attacked us from a distant future. Reverse engineering their technology, we are able to view our Time Stream, from the first expansion to eventual heat death.

Now us and the enemy can travel to any point in history at will, but here's the catch. Every time you travel, you split the Time Stream, creating a new branch. Say the bad guys go back to support Hitler with advanced technology. We can go and try to set things right by appearing before those events (creating another fork in the process) so we can be there to stop them. Or, we could just defeat them, and leave the Time Stream to change on it's own. Now events hundreds of years in the future are effected, humanities technology level has raised so we're exploring planets with ease by 1999, or World War 3 begins in 2009, and becomes too much of a mess to clean up and justify the risk of creating another universe.

And what happens when you were focused on keeping key events in the original Timeline from being tampered with, and the enemy just goes to Earth 2, a parallel Timeline branching from the Egyptian Empire to develop into a whole different world by this point. What technology could they steal from there? Or maybe it's a post apocalyptic Earth by now, where society is just perfect to be reformed into a hardened galactic super power 3000 years from now.

Imagine what a battle ground the main branches in the Time Stream could be, the very first new Timelines where majority of the new Earths eventually come from.

You're not fighting with mere armies and units, you're fighting with whatever is available to you in multiple Earths, at multiple times, and each time you fight you make two potential battles for later. The objective of the game is to finally catch up to the enemy and destroy them before you both completely ruin the Time Stream. When you succeed, you find your true enemy was a highly evolved Human race, trying to destroy itself before it could discover the Time Stream.

Naturally, this can't be a fully fleshed out turn based or real time tactics game. The amount of battles that need to take place would turn every game into a year long affair, so it would need some kind of heavily streamlined system, like a management game, but still deep and complex enough to be engaging.