Make your video game!

[Inkidu]

Okay so I read reviews and I learned that people are often times unhappy with the products the various game companies put out. So here's your chance to stop the whining and pitch your idea for the video game. Some rules and guidelines.

1. It has to be creatable. You can't use technology not on the market to date. So PC, 360, PS3, Wii, 3Ds (its close enough) you get the picture.

2. It cannot exceed an M rating from the ESRB or an 18+ or the equivalent in your area.

3. Try to use a real market game if your trying to describe something. (i.e. it has Zelda-esque puzzle solving.)

This isn't supposed to be a totally ideal exercise that's why I limit your creative freedom.

Mine:

I want to produce a game that's set in a near-future setting with real world aesthetics. It's a single player game or co-op. It involves three or four pre-defined characters with different skill sets but none of them are soldiers. The premise is that they have to escape a city under attack by a horrible alien race. The aliens are tough and the game relies a lot on opportunistic attacking rather than hiding in cover and shooting. Though there are straight action sequences placed at points throughout the narrative.

It would use a Gears-of-War-style cover system or like Conviction. I would like to see the active reload system too because they are mostly unskilled with guns which are used mainly like in the first Splinter Cell to shoot power cables down on the aliens or to hit barrels. There's some driving and motorbike segments but mostly it's a kind of dynamic stealth. You often won't have time to wait for the most opportune time to strike. The aliens are big and slow though with smaller easier to kill seeker units. You might actually do better grabbing a piece of rebar and stabbing an alien in the back than trying to shoot it. I like that idea from Condemned that everything can be used as a weapon.

Each character has their own goals but they meat up at certain points (or in the case of co-op and unique two-player campaign.   

[Sabby]

I would bring back Brawler's.

Don't have a story yet, but you would play a man in a dystopia/oppressed city, where some area's deemed unimportant are left to the gangs, while the authorities that do intervene do so with highly superior tech and equipment, with no regard for innocent life.

You are outfitted with the Overdrive, a device grafted on your arm, possibly from helping a raid on the Governments facilities. It sends drugs through your system that enhance your reflexes, making time slow, but that's just the start of it. It is slowly repairing and improving you with nanobots. Your becoming faster and stronger and tougher, but there is a limit to how fast you can improve. If you exceed this limit by healing too much... you'll start to find your body stricken with pain, and your powers increasing to the point where you cannot manage them.

In gameplay, you would be from a third person perspective. You would have the standard light attack/heavy attack/sweep/grab combination of controls, but one on one fighting and group fighting would be totally different. Facing off against one gangster would have your fists landing against individual blocks. What we get here is the Turn It System.

Turn It System is a customizable counter system that develops from a simple set of stats you alter. If you faster then most, then hitting the counter button at the right time for a strong opponent will cause you to dodge and land a series of lightning fast counter attacks. But his own Turn It is in strength, meaning that that counter could just as easily land on a strength based counter, padding harmlessly on his chest.

Counters can be countered. Facing off against someone with a similar Turn It suddenly changes to something more akin to The One, or The Matrix, two people of similar skill and move sets locked in a chain reaction of counters, until one of them slips up... and the more counters that happen, the higher the stakes. Simply countering a counter (say, a strength counter verses a speed/stylish counter) would be something like clapping your hands over their head to stun them, then you get a free shot, kick, headbutt, punch, whatever...

But when your in a boss fight, and end up in your 9th consecutive counter... this is when things will get interesting. Your both fast/stylish, the stakes are high, whoever misses this counter is likely dead or crippled (if you have the right stats, high stakes counters can cripple limbs) finally, the boss misses his counter... you begin slamming your palms into his chest, thundering dozens a second, moving him back, until a park bench is behind him... press the kick button, you knee him under the chin, lifting him up, kick him down into the table, straddle his lap and keep palming, your Overdrive kicks in until your arms are just blurs, breaking the table, shaking the ground... and then you slowly stand up. Which button do you press? Kick? Stylish somersault curb stomp finisher.

But if you had lost that counter... that'd be you.

You aren't all powerful though. When the authorities do respond... you're not exactly Superman. Your body is controlled by Euphoria physics, while the land scape is DMM. If your fighting and riot control shows up and you all scatter, and someone shoots you in the chest, your reactive physics kick in. You run, stagger, stumble, eventually collapse behind a wall for cover, and then turn the dial on your Overdrive, and a cloud of Nanites fly out and then spear into the bullet wound. They start painfully repairing the damaged areas, pushing the bullets out, causing you to thrash and groan.

You've just replaced more of yourself with the Overdrives Nanites. You are now more powerful, but more dependent on it. This is fine... once. But spread the Nanites too thin, too fast, and there could be problems (I haven't figured that part out yet)

The only way to fight gun equipped enemies is with surprise and ambush, utilizing the urban environments physics. Watch 3 of them walk into a building? Jump down through the roof to stun them, taking one out instantly, smashing into the two before they can recover and fire. They have backup kicking in the plaster? Shoulder through a wall, get out of there, hide... once they lose you, your on the hunt again.

This is the core gameplay, fighting hordes of henchmen, powerful lieutenants, using customizable move sets, changing your Turn It to your own specific style, and then becoming the urban predator, taking down armed opponents with stealth and then brutal hit and run tactics.

But there's a much bigger fight coming, and you need allies. Fighting these gangs, you free the people from their grasp, but they are still under the Governments heel. This won't stop until you've marched on their doorstep. You inspire followers, and must conduct raids to equip them.

EVERYTHING is customizable... if you can get better guns from a difficult raid, outfit the resistance with them, change their armour, adjust their training, their jobs, get your hand on assault vehicles, modify them, your army will be yours. Your soldiers, your training, your equipment, everything you earned, and you distribute it how you like. And it will matter. You may think you have the best stuff so far... you may not think you need to scout out the other dozens of potential raiding sites, and trigger the revolution. But then you see you were overconfident... you could have trained them better, fed them better, got more and better equipment... you watch your fledgling army cut down, and the game is over.

But if you do put in enough effort, how rewarding would it feel to watch this resistance you built from the ground up steamroll over the oppressors?

This game combines two things I feel are lacking these days. Brawling, and custom built companions.

[Hemingway]

Oh, but there are so many I'd like to make. Since they're usually the ones I'm the most critical of, though, I'll go with a shooter.

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.

It'd be a modern or near-future setting. Probably the latter, because it allows a greater degree of freedom. With tons of high-tech hardware. Since I'm sick and tired of traditional villains ( OH NO it's a rogue general of the Russian army / Middle Eastern dictator whatever shall we do ), this one would probably pit the US against Europe. China would probably have some part in it, too, but they're a cliché, so we'll probably ignore them.

Story-wise? Who gives a shit. It's mostly the gameplay I'm concerned with, so forget about the story for now. It'd be something along the lines of Modern Warfare, though. High stakes, betrayal, all that. But no Nazi doctors, no superweapons with silly codenames, nothing like that. It'd be fucking serious, man.

So. Gameplay. What is it that really irks me about these games, that I'd set out to change?

Well, first of all, there'd be no fucking snipers. In most FPSs, snipers don't even make sense, as most of the firefights are over distances of maybe a hundred meters. Way I imagine it, snipers would be something like the killstreak rewards in Call of Duty. You deploy sniper teams outside the battlefield, and some unluck bastard is picked off. Poor guy.

Secondly, shotguns would be, you know, actually useful. Game developers don't understand how shotguns work. I assume this is because their research amounts to playing Quake. Shotguns would therefore have a far longer range than in most games, and cocking it wouldn't take like five seconds.

Thirdly, there would be no anti tank weapons. No RPGs or anything like that. Rocket launchers belong in Unreal Tournament. Or they could be in the game, but they'd be really weak unless you actually scored a direct hit, and if you fired one inside a building you'd fucking die. Because that's what would happen in real life. There are no noob tubers in real life, baby! ... because they're all dead.

I think that's it for the nitpicky bits.

For the overall gameplay, I'm tempted to say cover-based first person shooter. It'd be sort of like Brothers in Arms, except even in cover, it'd be played in the first person. Both in order to make cover more, I don't know, reliable, and to make camping around a corner where exactly one pixel of your body is visible, a lot harder. You'd have to expose yourself to fire when firing ( unless firing blind, which would be a waste, pretty much ). Smoke grenades would be essential. Their proper use would be explained in the tutorial, because, man, a lot of people seem to think they're ninja smoke bombs or something.

Speaking of grenades, there wouldn't be any silly one grenade limit. Or three magazine limit. Seriously, who goes to war carrying one hand grenade and a total of three clips? It'd be stupid. You'd get a ton of all of that. The idea is to make people actually use the tactical tools at their disposal, not hoard them.

Which brings me right on to the next thing. You ever notice how in a lot of games, you can be sitting in a machinegun nest, just raining bullets on an enemy, but he still manages to calmly pick you off? Yeah, there wouldn't be any of that. Or, at least, there'd be less. First of all, machineguns would work the way they're supposed. You'd have to mount the gun on a bipod for maximum accuracy, but doing so, it'd actually be accurate enough to kill anything that happened to wander into your sights. Not just that, though. There'd be some mechanic for working out suppressive fire, too. In real life, you're probably not going to get up in front of someone firing a machinegun, risk getting ripped to shreds, and pick the guy off. In games, though, you're not really penalized for trying and dying. Instead, being under fire would make you way less accurate. You could try to return fire, sure, but you probably wouldn't succeed. Unless you learned what those grenades marked SMOKE were for. You idiot.

Oh, man. This is getting longer than I thought. Is anyone even reading at this point?

Well, time to cut it short. I'm probably leaving out a lot of stuff, but I've covered the essentials, I think.

[Sabby]

something's been bugging me lately... there are no zombie survival games, anywhere.


City of the Dead

In this game, you play one of several selectable characters, with a small variety of different traits between them. Fast, nimble and small, or strong, tough and with military training? You need to navigate through New York City, which is in the grip of hordes of zombies, and on the other side is potential sanctuary.

At first, you'll be alone, having to scavenge through buildings for food, water, meds and weapons. You know that scrubbing a bite mark with strong disinfectant right after a bite can slow and even stop an infection, but any other medical knowledge depends on your character. Zombies are spread out, alone, or in small groups, and only a few can run and pose any kind of threat.

Soon, you'll find a survivor, and from here, you must plot your course through the town using your map. Night times are best spent in a fortified area, scavenging if you can, while the day times are best spent travelling along your path. Depending on which ways you take, your journey will be very different. Different area's, scenario's and survivors... combinations of survivors may pose certain benefits or confrontations, and leadership or conversation skills you have as a character trait can help you defuse them.

Outfitting your survivors and settling their arguments, you need to set a schedule for each night, assigning who watches what, who searches, and other jobs. If all goes well, there is a time lapse, with the morning coming and the results of what you find. If you applied a good searcher, maybe food, or a gun, but if you neglected to search out doorways and have them barred or watched, the time lapse could be interrupted by a zombie.

Say this happens, and one of your people is bitten. You do your best to slow the infection, but later, you may have to kill them, and another survivor may panic because of this.

But this is all inside affairs, relatively safe. As you move further to the cities heart, the crowds will get bigger, and not all buildings will be safe to spend the night in. Sooner or later, you're going to have to fight, preferably with a goal in mind.

Example. You have 8 survivors. Most are non-combatants, not the best with the pistols and other light weapons you've given them. You have two survivors who are quite strong and good with a melee weapon. You give them the kevlar, tell the other's to stay, and then tell the two men to follow you. They will always engage a zombie that comes too close, but will never do so otherwise unless they are directly in the way of their destination.

Using your map, you tell them the plan. Across the road is a loading bay with a van in it. You need it. You need to get there as quick as possible, and there are zombies thick on the street. You open the door, and run.

Your character is controlled by adaptive physics, as are all survivors and zombies (only when effected though, when crowds form, there will be canned animation for anything not being directly effected by you), your steps have weight to them, so you lean and shift realistically as you turn corners or stop. For instance, you run and almost run into a zombie, but pull back at the last second to swing your axe. There would be actual momentum and balance taken into account, and you would duck and weave like a football player to avoid the zombies. Depending on your traits, you may be naturally gifted with dodging, or be better with shoves and swinging your weapon, or maybe the experience points you invested in pistols means you automatically target the nearest head that you can see.

Your team mates will automatically defend you when you perform an operation, like opening the door to get into the building, and will not move forward to sweep the area without you to say so... in an ideal situation. The persons personality and how they feel towards you may yield different results. A loose cannon that doesn't like you won't wait, and may not stay as close as he should, where as someone who see's you as a competent leader will stick close and be more alert.

every play will be different. Depending on your path that you plot, your leadership choices, your skill set, the first few play throughs will be utterly unique. And when you start to gather the same survivors a few times, you take a different street, and find a new person you never met before, driving a car and crashing it. What do you do? Let him be a distraction, and get your followers by? Or do you lead the zombies off as a small team, while the rest of the team saves him? Maybe he knows something that could help you.

Every night will be another base to lock down and search, another chance to be taken while you sleep, or see a team member die, and every time your crowd gets bigger, things get more complicated. Soon, every time you set foot in the street could be a mad dash, with every swing and every bullet having to count, to get you to the next safe spot.

Can you make it through New York?

[Wolfy]

I'd make a game where you're the ruler of hell, and you punish leopard cat-boys by giving them spankings.


...err..I mean...Look! over there! *points at Turtle doing a Seinfield impression, and runs away*

[Sabby]

Adding to City of the Dead here.

Combat is handled via the Keep Moving! System. You have two modes, Calm, and Alert. Calm is exactly what it says. You're weapon is holstered, you're movements calm. You can manually enter Alert, or it can be triggered by events, like a noise.

Once in Alert, you're weapon is out, you move quicker, and your field of vision expands, or in other words, your third person perspective changes to encompass more or the environment. You can turn your gaze like any other third person shooter, but depending on what part of you're vision an enemy is in will determine your action. By looking directly at one, you're pistol will target the head much easier, but if you are rushed by a zombie approaching from the edge of your vision, you'll be slower to target with ranged or melee, and may even get into a struggle.

This system will make those street dashes more tense. You run, sweep your vision around, trusting you companion to cover the other direction, quickly popping any zombies that approach.

However, you can aim manually if you wish. Keep Moving! System is to help simulate the experience of films like the Dawn of the Dead Remake.

[Inkidu]

I see a lot of room for RPG-like elements in your zombie game Sabby good job. Though throw in some non-zombie hazards (human and non-human) and you've got what sounds like an epic game.

Edit: Forgot to add my new idea.

GOLEM

(This is my take on what all FPS games should be)

The first thing I would like to address about most FPSs is the lack of presence. This is probably going to end up like a realistic Deus Ex game but here goes. I want realistic movement. No turn perfectly. If you look down you see your legs. You look in a mirror you see yourself. You reload you see the motions. It's not simulator. I'm very lenient. Sure you'll have slower more realistic movement but you'll still have body armor and regenerating health. I do like the idea of little to no HUD though. You either have to look on the side of your clip (most will have the new clear window clips have) by tapping the button or activating an Active Reload-esque reloading sequence by holding the same button.

The plot is near-future alternate history. It's Union North V. Confederate South (no real racy slave issues or anything. It's more of the idea of being independent and nationalism all that.) There of course would be two campaigns with set pieces like an attack on New York and D.C. and Huston or New Orleans. The idea is maybe a little textbook but:

The tutorial is basically a bit in a training course where you define your character's looks, and skills. Are they a demo guy/girl. Do they like marksmanship or big guns? Stealth? However this is also a team game so you have to spend some time recruiting or being recruited (based on your leadership skills) by certain characters.
The dialogue won't be on the level of Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol but what your character does say defines their personality.

I want something contextual too. If you walk up to a rail you character if not crouching will grab the top rung stand up on the bottom and you can either shoot almost down or at enemies below, or lob a grenade with more accuracy.

If you move to a wall your character will put there back to it and you can edge along and you can gently peak around it. No more straight face into a wall and acting like a few lean keys is giving the real experience. So if you're not exposing yourself and you don't iron-sight aim you can blind-fire around cover. It might be very tricky to actually do but I think contextual game play is the FPS's future.

Also no random hopping about like armored rabbits. There is no jumping. All jumping is dealt  with contextually as well. Also your weapon in hand limits the stuff you can do to. You can't one hand shoot a SAW or anything like that.

[Sabby]

I see a lot of room for RPG-like elements in your zombie game Sabby good job. Though throw in some non-zombie hazards (human and non-human) and you've got what sounds like an epic game.

Oh, there would be ^^ there would be base statistics, like speed, strength, reflex, medical, small firearms, large firearms, small melee, large melee... but there would also be several different speech skills. You don't have to tailor a character specifically for leadership. It isn't a choice between practical skills and talking. Each character simply has a different kind of speech skill.

Perhaps you level headed and can appeal to most people with logic, but have trouble handling the more irrational members. Or maybe the exact opposite, maybe your strong and inspiring, but not exactly the smartest.

And there would be human conflict :) Every chance some crazies will try and take your shit in the night, or maybe a certain combination of survivors leads to an altercation. Having the hooker and the priest around too long, the priest may finally decide to mercifully send everyone to God, and pull a gun on you.

As for the rest of the RPG elements, you'd earn some good skills. Upping you're small melee gives you a better chance of getting free of a grapple whilst holding small melee. Upping large melee means you no longer need to stop for a good swing, but can take zombies down while still running. Keep upping a gun type, you'll get headshots faster. Then there's more unique skills, your 8 directional stepping being faster or more precise, slowing down less for change in direction, learning kicks and shoves to get room...

Then there's more passive and esoteric skills, being more attuned to strange sounds, generally being more alert, inspiring followers in combat, ect.

[Sabby]

I have it... this is why I deprive myself of sleep! My best idea's come from it! =D

Okay, in video game's, magic is just guns with more colours. Fireballs, ice storms, summoning skeletons... it's all blunt, brute force. Magic is typically something open to various different uses and techniques, yet is always portrayed in game's as 'rokketlawnchairz maed ob fiierz!'

I've got a system worked out in my mind. No plot, just a gameplay design so far :)

The game is third person, fantasy setting. You have a staff, but melee is weak, and mostly used for parries, counters and getting some room. You're magic is you're weapon, and it is controlled by the control sticks, letting you weave you're spells in different ways.

Okay, you're face buttons are where you assign you're spells. Passive one's, like magically enhanced dodging, are context sensitive and happen when needed. Say you have Fire on A, and Wind on X. By tapping A button, Fire is equipped.

You're Left Stick is movement, while Right Stick is you're hands. Direction and movement on the RS control's you're spell. Simply flicking it in a direction will hurl out a spark of a fireball, weak, fast. Slowly pulling the RS back, and then chucking it forward hard will sling a bigger fireball. Casting you're stick to the left, and then quickly sweeping it around to the right will cause you're character to do just that... cast his hand to his left and then swipe out a wave of fire.

Cast the stick to a side, and then slowly sweep it? You'll leave a wall of flame. Spin a fast circle and it's a shockwave. Pull the stick so it face's behind you, then spin it around and point to an enemy, and he'll charge back a powerful fireball and spin to sidearm it.

But to mix it up, you have Channeling, and Weaving. Channeling is handled by the Left Trigger. Say you have a powerful monster which has been knocked down for a moment. Flick the RS hard at him, and your hand will be outstretched and pointing at him. Fire will charge around you're hand, and the monster will be engulfed after a few seconds. Pulling down the Left Stick gently will stoke that flame and make it gush upwards, while slamming the Trigger down hard will cause a detonation. Keep gently pulling to cook him in the flames, or use up more of you're power to try and finish him quicker.

And that's just it's use with Fire. With TK, it could be used to apply the radius of you're spell. Push the stick towards a small group, wait for the TK to happen, then pull down the LT all the way, to lift up the people, the rocks, the debri, everything in a few metre radius... then release the LT to pound them all into each other as the radius suddenly pulls back to a pinhead, or pull the RS back quickly and fling it forward to toss them all.

Do you see what I'm trying to do here? It's not a bunch of predetermined parameter's, I'm using the range of the sticks and the pressure of the trigger to give you actual control of you're magic.

The more complicated Weaving though, takes work... spells level up, and so you can work towards combinations. Say you have a Lamp spell on B, and a TK spell on Y. Lamp is a non-offensive, a little glowing wisp for searching, that flies around with your stick... but when both spells reach a certain level, you can quickly tap B, then Y.

A little chiming ball of energy pops into life, and will flit and dart about with your RS movements, sweeping through crowds like a hornet, or annoying a tougher enemy, wittling it down.

Haven't thought of much else... maybe Weaving Lightning and TK will let you shock an enemy, and then use Channeling to make them arc out chain lightning :)

[Hunter]

Two words:  Claymore MMO.   ;D

[Oniya]

Is that the explosive type, or the big, pointy slab o' steel type?

[Hunter]

Is that the explosive type, or the big, pointy slab o' steel type?

The anime type.

[Hemingway]

I have a brilliant idea for a game that would forever change the face of open-world sandbox games. Because I'm generally not a fan of sandboxes, not unless they're very well done. The whole purpose of this game would be to create a sandbox with countless different threads, so, well, that could be the entire focus.

Setting would be futuristic. It wouldn't be post-apocalyptic per se, but it would take place at some point where society has basically fallen apart. Anarchy. Anarchy could probably be the name of the game. There wouldn't be any internet or fancy things like that. Just small, scattered communities. Probably take place in California/Nevada. A huge, open map, where getting around would actually take some time, but more on that later.

It would be played entirely in the first person, as seen from the characters eyes. Unlike some games, where you never see the protagonist actually do anything ( like reach out to open doors ), you'd see everything as though you were that person, for the sake of immersion. Which is what it's all about.

So, for transport. Because that would be a huge part of it. Your modes of transportation would be walking around on foot, and riding on an oversized badass hog. Yeah, the more perceptive people here may already recognize the setting as being similar to that of Full Throttle. From which it would also borrow bike-to-bike fighting. Two riders, tiron irons, beating the crap out of each other at high speed. These would be both random encounters, and people out to get you, depending on your choices made.

Combat wouldn't be limited to that, though. There'd be guns, of course, but rather than have a whole arsenal, you'd be limited to a badass sawn-off shotgun. Definitely a lot of the shooting action, if not all of it, would be played out in slow motion. I don't know why, but it'd be cool, so what other justification is needed?

I haven't thought much about what the overarching story, if any, would be. However, as a way of getting you started, the first thing to happen would be for you to stop and pick up a hitchhiking biker chick. Who would go on to steal your bike, and drive it off to her gang's hideout. Which, after wandering through the desert to the nearest town, you would track down and shoot the hell up. At that point, you'd basically be free to do as you pleased. Kill the woman, spare her and take her along, whatever you want.

Which is sort of why I'm leaning toward "no overaching plot", too. In sandbox style games, the plots often end up feeling ... contrived. In my experience, at least. By just dropping it alltogether, you could instead focus on the admittedly EPIC task of creating a world where every choice has real consequences, and where there's always more than one option. Mass Effect's carrying over savegames would have nothing on this piece of art. It'd be all about curb-stomping and shooting your way through a dystopic future, and thus creating your own story as you went along. I think it could be done, with the proper motivation and given enough time.

[Bentley]

Mine aren't very well thought out.

The first I imagine as Heavy Rain-esque. Except, you're already dead. So, you'd be a ghost. Instead of the usual weapons you'd have the ability to extract energy from various sources like batteries, lamps, etc etc. Said energy would be then used to interact with the environment and living characters. Depleting it results in dispersion which would act as a replacement for death. Storyline wise, I'd focus on character emotion. I think the game would start with yourself attending your own funeral. It would branch out from there, with the ghost character following three or four of the attendees of his/her funeral. I'm thinking they're connected by shared purpose and knowledge. Working to unravel some sort of conspiracy, perhaps. The ghost character knew too much and was killed for it. As the spectre he/she is now privy to even more information which he wouldn't know if alive. The stages would consist of gaining energies and using various methods to relay messages to your friends. I wouldn't want it to be easy, so there would be obstacles in the way. Like Heavy Rain, you could mess up, which could result in the death of one of your friends. Also, an emphasis on choices. Save one friend, the other dies. You might be a ghost but you still can't be at two places at once. And, of course, like Heavy Rain, ending would be dependent on what you did.

The next one is pretty ridiculous and couldn't take itself seriously at all. It's heavily borrowing from Nightmare Before Christmas. You know that scene in the beginning with the trees with different holiday symbols? Well, in this game the levels are holidays. I'm thinking Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Easter, and maybe something in the summer. Each level you'd have to perform specific tasks to make sure the holiday goes smoothly. I'd try to steer clear of cliches, but I'm not sure that would even be possible. Not sure of an antagonist either. I don't know, since it's already pretty ridiculous, might as well say it's some force trying to steal holiday cheer from the world.

Last is self-explanatory: Zombie Apocalypse RPG.

[Sabby]

Fragile.

Because now I hate the old idea I had for a brawler. What was I thinking?

Story is unimportant for now, but it's about a character I've had for a while, Rachel. She has a disorder that makes her bones very brittle, so she is confined to a wheelchair, and is very weak. Gentle, innocent, optimistic... the most she can do is walk a few steps unaided, but if she falls, she can break bones. Curiously though, they always heal...

For some reason I haven't figured out yet, Rachel's hidden power, an alter ego, is awakened. Frail is everything Rachel is not. Brutal, sadistic, violent... her entire body is encased in a shell of red energy that protects her from all damage, grants her immense strength, and repels all force. Bullets, punches, large objects, all either crush uselessly against her or just bounce off.

Frails eye's are bright and wide, voice deep and gravelly. She smirks and savours violence, cracking her knuckles, rolling her neck, prolonging fights.

In the first part of the game, she will be struggling with her transformation. Frail is forced into existence by someone with an agenda, and directed at another super powered person, someone who knows Rachel. Frail is meant to taunt and torment him. If Frail is defeated, Rachel could die simply from falling over.

But Frail will break free of the control, and naturally turn her attentions against the persons who set her loose. Rachel will be able to call up Frail, and while they are both different people, they work together, even if Frail is still very brutal and hard to control.

Okay... now to the gameplay. Frails red shield repulses attacks when strong, meaning she can withstand anything without moving an inch. But when her shield is weak, she can be moved and harmed more visibly, recoiling from shots. Bullets will make her flinch, explosions will send her airbourne, as opposed to just taking tank shells to the chest with no discomfort.

Vehicles can be thrown, with the grab button. Tap the button, she will toss a truck up and balance it in one hand, and can hurl it like a javalin. You have standard light and heavy punches (all punches, she is a street brawling style). But what's unique here is the Taunt Button. Taunt is always useless in games... here, it adds to her character and gameplay.If you punch a power armoured soldier until it slides back on it's feet stunned, and walk towards him, and press the T button, she will punch her palm and smirk, before you land the finishing punch.

T give's a pause where you can prep your brutal finisher. Grab a tank's gun and lift it up so it balances on it's back? Press T, she will roll her neck and flex, before punching it down the street. Soldier swings rifle at your head and it breaks? Press T, she will brush hair from her face and cross her arms.

T is basically a very cool fashion of prepping a finisher, but finishers themselves are a different thing. Once you've prepped with T, you press the direction you want. Stun a robot, press T, you have your demoralizing second of coolness, followed by a flick of the stick to the left. She will punch him hard so he flies left, in almost a vertical line.

You have utter control of the direction of your finishers. A massive thing for me, but ya never see it anymore.

[Oniya]

I have one question about this one.  How can Frail be defeated?  Is there a time limit on the transformations?  Are there things that you have to shift back to Rachel in order to accomplish?  With no weakness, the game would amount to a beat-fest.  (I do like the Taunt feature, though.)

[Sabby]

Oh, I never said that =3 Her shield works just like shields in games usually do. It recharges after a while, but can be damaged. Full shield = no visible damage, not even from direct explosions. Medium shield = she stops standing stationary to repel attacks and automatically blocks with her arms (just an animation change). Low shield = she can be knocked down.

Knocked down = a broken bone. The shield is somewhat like a time shell, where everything inside of it is frozen and exempt from natural physics, so her strength is not from muscle mass, the shell itself is moving. If she were really moving like that, she'd be killing herself, but Rachel is in a time warp. Frail is the red shield.

But that shield goes, Rachel is now exposed. Frails must reform, but one punch can kill Rachel.

So her animations change with her shield level to show how powerful she is. This also effects Taunts though. Full shield taunts are slow, confident, like the aforementioned tank flipping, but a medium level shield Taunt is going to be more angry, since she's actually having to defend herself and take hits. She slides back on her feet from a powerful punch, arms crossed over face, you hit the Taunt button, she roars and throws her arms out behind her and charges with a glowing fist reared.

Taunts for low level are desperate. Same scenario as before, she gets punched down a street, but instead of sliding, she rolls and hits a wall, and when you get up and hit the T button, she stands with both arms hanging limp, feet spread, seething, and pulls some limp hair from her face. This one does nothing, but may buy you a second as you and your enemy watch each other.

[Sabby]

Oh, I have to amend. T has a dual use. When the enemy is stunned from recoil, attacked, whatever, your T is a taunt, where as if you were on the receiving end, like was described, it's a counter, which doesn't let you prep for a directional finisher. However, it can let you take a fight back, or even stun.

[Oniya]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense.

[Inkidu]

Quote, "Rachel can die in one hit." Prepare for the nerd rage if that actually happens. If it's just a one hit thing it becomes a rather questionable dodge-fest until Frail reforms. Might as well have her die when she deforms at that rate. The story still seems one-sided to me though. Rachel seems absolutely pointless. Maybe some dichotomy about hating her alter ego or something and maybe it will come later when you add story but right now Rachel's kind of might as well be nonexistent.

[Sabby]

I honestly wasn't trying xD the idea has been half formed for a while now, it need's a lot more work. I dunno if Rachel would even be playable, all she can do is walk with her hand braced on something. I just picture it being a very brutal way for Frail to lose, have the very thin layer of dull red finally shatter, and the now soft voiced and normal eye'd girl staggers back and then has all her ribs and both arms shattered by a kick.

But yeah, I hear what you're saying. I was considering having Rachel afraid of Frail. Once more of a team environment forms, with other characters joining the story, Frail might be more inclined to co-operate, with Rachel in her wheelchair speaking for her, but uneasy about letting her out.

I just wanted a beat 'em up with directional finishers, the old Rachel/Frail thing just came up from the pile of unfinished ideas to fill in XD

[Sabby]

Okay, did some thinking on Taunting. Don't know if the name works, but will keep it for now. It can be used in the following situations. When facing an enemy weaker then you (a soldier), when an enemy of any kind recoils/is stunned, or when you get into an even grapple.

Facing a soldier, using Taunt, depending on the context of the situation, and whether or not you want to add a directional finisher, you will get your scene. If you are standing in front of the soldier and want a forward finisher, you will cross you're arms, blow a strand of hair away, then surprise him with a gut punch that sends him down the road. If three of them unload until their clips run empty, you will likely do the same pose with a jumping ground punch. As long as you have high shield, this should always work with just the grunts.

Using it like that with mech's is a stupid idea and will get you're over confident face kicked in >.> attacking at the moment it attacks you may cause your fists to collide, and if you have high shield, you will damage the fist and send it back, where you can then Taunt/Finish. Medium shield will cause you're fists to collide with no clear winner, deadlocked, in which case your Taunt/Finisher will be different and only shove them back/cause damage. Low shield, and it's fist will win over yours and you will slide back, in which case your Taunt/Finisher will simply be rushing back into combat.

Stunned is when the enemy is groggy for whatever reason, in which case, you're Taunt/Finisher is always brutal. Even at low shield, you will do obscene amounts of damage and send it flying, though you'll likely be dead on your feet and the attack will be one screaming charge punch or shoulder ram.

And yes, there will be dramatic slow motion :) Facing a weaker foe, or causing/being Stunned or Deadlocked are the scenario's where you can initiate a Taunt, and from there, a directional attack or counter depending on you're position as attacker or defender.

Imagine this with boss fights! =D I'm really trying to nail the feeling of super powered brawler's in even and destructive combat, where whole streets see the collateral.

[Sabby]

Oh dear God, my mind works best on sleep dep and coffee it seems...

Been awake a while, playing Jurassic Park Trespasser, and it's just so quiet and haunting, and I started to think... and this came to me. A game about being the last person on Earth.

You wake up in your bed. The house looks somewhat odd, as if it's aged, the wallpaper torn in places, dusty. You walk through the house, come to you door, leave, and see a dead, silent city, cars parked with doors open, houses windows and doors unlocked or unopened, curtains drawn, kids toys or briefcases just left on the ground... it's as if everyone just got up and left.

Vegetation is taking over, grass pushing up through pavement, lawns over grown, store fronts over taken by vines. You can go anywhere, inside any house, explore as you like, and each area would tell a little story. Going inside one house, little visual clues would help you piece together what happened here. The briefcase that was never finished with being packed, the drawers pulled out, clothes hastily stuffed in, the gun case with the pistol half under the bed, still locked...

You would be controlled by adaptive physics, which let you use your arm with the mouse. It's in first person view, and you reach your hand out and grab items, maybe a knife or pipe, stow it away, move or push or drag or shove items, swing things, aim your guns. Better clothes and such allow storage of more and bigger items, so you would scavenge for such things so you could put that old AK-47 away along with the fire axe and have your hands free to move and stack items to get onto a roof.

But your not entirely alone... not everyone is gone. Some have stayed, faceless and silent, fingers long and slender, incredibly strong. The first time you see one, it will simply stand there, watching you... and then stride towards you, and try to kill you.

They can be alone or in small groups, and react mostly to sound. They seem sedate but intelligent, and the same reactive physics that controls your arm controls their movements, so they can step up onto ledges and drop down, feel along the corners that they explore around, touch the door that you just barricaded from inside... before it shoves it's arm through and starts to rip it open.

So say your cornered... maybe if you stay really still, it will pass you by... you could always put that revolver to use and put a few holes in it's chest, but that's going to draw attention. Is it worth it? Can you get out before more show up?

This is a survival game. You see how long you can go, how far you can get, and how many pieces of the puzzle you can find. Why is the world like this? What happened? Why were you asleep through it all? Why did you even wake up?

For now, I'm calling the game Alone.

[Sabby]

Oh, wait, they wouldn't be totally silent... maybe they would call to each other when they search for you. Picture one walking out onto the road, and you lock up, but accidentally backstep into a box which topples over. It turns to you, tilts it's head, considers... then points one long slender finger at you and wails.

[Inkidu]

Okay so it's only four pages in so it's not technically thread necromancy, it's just belated CPR. Also I'm not sure if this breaks my own no-future-tech rule, but all it really requires is more stable internet.

Anyway. I understand that I give a lot of grief to the MMORPG. That's because most of them are tailored for the grind. Large virtual Skinner boxes where people are rewarded with killing large numbers of local wildlife for no real point than to get to the next level. All the while, PvP is relegated to some strange version of the Fairness Doctrine, and people are set up in such a standardized environment that winning isn't so much skill or creativity it is mathematical break down and better numbers. Whoa, got a little tangential there. Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm going to detail my own MMORPG or What Blizzard Should Have Made.

Exploration focused: All the potential things I see MMORPGs doing is in the environment they're set. I don't read Conan books or the latest fantasy novel to hear how bad-ass the barbarian is with his level twenty-five axe of cleavage is. I go to see him being bad-ass in far away places.

So shocker, shocker. My game won't actually be in the mythical land all the adventurers are from. The starting place will be, but soon you set off on a ship ride to some unknown land. Some technical aspects of relegating the various areas of the land to different servers and teams with an over-arching idea and development strategy would be ideal for this.

We're also going to get rid of the clunky avatars that some seem to laud in favor of a more Commander Shepard/Link control scheme. It's about exploration, finding dungeons and items, looking for loot, because I want the "adventures" to be invaders exploiting the unmapped regions of this newly found continent. Hell, people already exploit the lands they play in, lets just make it official.

No ability standard number combat (or whatever the hell you call it in rpgs)- That means no leveling-up. You're not going to be praised because you can play the game longer than anybody else and just have a number to show for it. However, it will have a robust skill tree and several disciplines. They're not number driven. Want to learn magic? Take the magic skill at creation. Want to be a warrior take basic arms. Want to be a blacksmith? Go for crafting (it is kind of like the system in Two Worlds II but without the numbers). So this leaves it in the realm of real-time combat (see good internet required). You shoot someone with a bow or stab them with a sword. Your weapons are only as good as the people who make them for you (or you make). Bowstrings snap, blades break (that doesn't mean  you can't still hit stuff with it or fix it). Gold is actually worthless as weapons but can make them look pretty. Magic is only as good as the time you spend working out spells (which require words/paper/and one time herbs and beasts miscellany to make spell-incense out of). I see a lot of potential for magic system abuse so let us but in a fail safe. It requires not mana but your life force (which regenerates) any spell deemed too powerful would obviously kill you and since leveling won't help you if you want the big spell you've got to take the risk of reducing your own health to cast it. Of course, you could always put up a shield and not go for the Hiroshima of the week spell. Magic has one big advantage in that it doesn't break.

There is no PvP. Anyone can kill anyone at nearly anytime. It's a savage world. Sure you might get your corpse looted, but honestly when you didn't have to grind sixteen hours to get it is that much of a problem? Plus you can always waylay the guy as he goes to sell your junk. I see a lot of room for exploitation and campers. Well, remember the archer's bowstring breaks, he runs out of arrows and the inventory space each player has is very real-world. You can't carry ten bear pelts so you should have bought the pack mule or brought a friend/know how to craft it there on site. I hope this will keep rampant camping down, but if not I'm not above looking seeing that the person hasn't moved from that spot in hours, kills only PCs who haven't even attacked him and dropping a meteor on him.

Another thing about the environment. I want some destruction. Large world altering crap to sell expansion packs aside. You'll knock the occasional pillar over, you'll dislodge rocks, cause an avalanche or two. All which has the potential to kill you, and yes the random dragon will rise and lay waste (W.O.W. got something right) but if that's the case any NPC dragon ownage will be semi-permanent.

Character Death: Okay you die. You get mercilessly looted. Where do you wake up? You wake up in the nearest graveyard in your underpants (unless they actually left you something then you wake up with it). However, these aren't your average graveyards (that would be too societal for my darkest-of-worlds idea. You wake up in certain native areas that are associated with death. Like I said, a sword you can make with a bar of steel and leather is not as sentimental as the mythical blade of Mynos that you quested for ten hours. However, lets say that you lovingly crafted a steel bastard sword with ebony inlays and gold tracings. You had someone enchant with lightning and you named it Fluffy the Destroyer (I want players to name everything they can get. It's about being a hero and heroes have signature weapons. Well I'm not above letting you booby trap it or "tailor-making" (an expensive crafting skill that is hard to find the book on and unless you leave one of your limited precious slots open you're not probably going to get it) it so that it wields worse in someone else's hands, but if that fails you can always find the bastard and kill him. Anyone who kills you goes down in your journal as a vendetta. You can chose to pursue them and slay them, or let them be. If you are killed by someone who has an open vendetta against you you don't get  to re-open one on them. That's the risk. So you don't have there name and general location forever etched into your journal. However, if you remember the guy's name and actually write it down I can't stop that.

Economy: That is to say there is none. There's no infrastructure in this hostile new world, so no economy. The starter island has tons. Blacksmiths, teachers, mages. You can quickly fill your desired number of slots (something I want to keep low maybe four or five). So you might pick magic, but if you elemental, necromancy, and healing, and illusion you're not going to have much room for crafting say as the guy who picks basic weapons, archery, smithing, and herbalism.

Why is this? Because the actual gold part of the economy is back home (not in the land) you send any statues, idols, trinkets, and whatnot back home via the only trading post in the land (starter area that's not actually the starter area) and all that really does is increase your heroic and lordly holdings in your home country (of which I'm giving several to chose from) you can carry around a purse full of gold but it eats up an inventory slot and is just thief fodder.

This is to hopefully force something that's overlooked in MMORPGs. The other people. When you're forced to go find someone who knows how to make arrows and he'll give you a good price (in gold or herbs) you build a relationship with that guy. If you know an honest guy who's never stabbed you in the back when you go adventuring you want to be with that guy. Other small social aspects like formal partnerships, business deals, and weddings are possible, but I want people to enforce these real bonds with one another.

So in so is not just some healer, he's the best damn healer on the server and if you can do your job as a warrior and keep him safe he's going to make sure he uses that uber healing party spell that takes him down to one-hit-and-I'm-dead. People will build real relationships and real reputations. Don't go around with so and so, he likes to poach the loot. Sure there's some of this among close circles of friends, but I want people to clamor not for the best amongst them, but the group-perceived best in the area.

Speaking of poaching, if you think you can simply camp a spot and kill the fauna like it's rabbit season your right, you can. However, when no more rabbits pop up because some jackass has destroyed the environment completely. Go find him and punch him.

The whole thing is to get this real-world. I'm unique, I'm not just my avatar. Armor makes you move faster if it's lighter absorb more damage if it's heavy. However, you can customize. Chest, left and right arms, left and right legs, left and right shoulders, boots, and lower body. You want to be known as the guy who goes into the ruins of a jungle temple just so he can get a rare black and blue parrot feather for his arrows? Go ahead. It's all about the rep you make for yourself.

There are lots of things about this. Want to get your name out there? Go put an ad up at the local job board. Word of mouth is always good. It wouldn't be a game where everyone's a hero. Nope, I would make people chose their heroes and villains.

What I want to get away from though is this idea that you have to spend hours and hours getting anywhere in a game. You could be a badass from the second you walked off the boat and started killing people left and right, but when a mob hunts you down good luck. Sure you don't need to go looking for that rare but you can and it might take an hour or two, but you could get by with regular feathers. Play the game, put it down, go outside. Games are not some all-consuming thing. They're my hobby, but I also like to read, that doesn't mean I waste in front of a screen needing to get to the next level.

There is literally so much banging around in my head about how to tweak this I could go on, but those are the big things.

EDIT: Another thing, and I realize I'm kind of ripping this off from Shadow of the Colossus, but hey it's a good thing. Huge monster fights. I'm so tired of  it being portrayed as basically sticking the monster in the foot until he dies most likely of an untreated tetanus than blood loss. No, you want to kill the dragon you've got to get on the dragon. You've got to climb around it and stab it. Obviously if you're a mage you'd play the distraction role, or blast it while it's in the air to get its attention but someone with a sword (probably several) have got to stab it, unless you get like a lucky eye shot or something.