The Game Idea Thread

Andail · Sun 12/10/2008 08:57:20

Quote from: darrkchylde on Sun 12/10/2008 05:01:55
you play as a guys shadow and the guy gets murdred so you haveto find the killr by slidin under doors and avoiding lamps.

Not bad at all, but I hope you find a proof-reader before releasing this one

auriond · Fri 17/10/2008 04:46:37

I've just got an idea of a game, played in first-person view, where you are a detective having to sort out paperwork in order to solve a case. So the game plays out as a mostly paper-trail chase where the detective never leaves his desk. Occasionally you can call up other characters, watch videos, have other characters come into your office and be interviewed. It would be a short game, but the whole idea is to immerse the player in the game world as much as possible. Better still if the "detective" isn't a detective at all, but a desk-bound Joe who just has to solve this mystery - possibly in secret. New developments can play out as cutscenes imagined by our wannabe detective. There could even be some kind of searchable database a la SIDNEY from GK3 where you can find new information.

Not terribly exciting, but I thought I'd throw it out here for whoever wants to tweak it into something more

jetxl · Sat 18/10/2008 10:52:56

This might not be the right place to post this but I didn't want to make a new topic or revive the original thread...

Quote from: Helm on Wed 07/06/2006 23:00:22
Discarded Helm game idea #234265247: I play the part of a man stranded on an island. How I got there is not very important. My first interest is securing food and potable water. I scavenge in the wilderness, trying to avoid dangers and get my basic resources going. Then I make basic tools with which I defend myslef if needed, fish, harvest, hunt and upgrade my living conditions (thatched hut by the beach, wee!) more efficiently or what have you. If it rains a lot and I have no shelter, I might get sick and die. Once my basic needs are taken care of, I start to travel the island and map its' geography, slowly finding remains of an older civilization, clues that lead me to search the various caves on the island. I fight off a bear in one cave, carefully navigate the slipperly terrain inside, find it too dark. I emerge to search for means of fire, find some broken lens, concentrate the sun's rays (only on a very sunny day) on a piece of wood, or alterately, I try the rubbing wood together thing to get fire. Anyway, once I have fire (also, cooked fish straight from the sea, but watch out for the shark!) I return to the caves and with the added illumination find a series of painted instructions on a wall. They're very symbolic, and I have to discern where the clues lead me on the island. Now with fire, I may maintain a beacon flame at an elevated spot on the island, that needs regular tending, and hope that one randomly passing ship will see me. On the adventuring front, once I find the location the hints hinted at, I find a hidden passage to the deeper cave system of the island, where only the braver survivor dares to dwell...

at the end of the game, I'm ranked for how I survived, what habits I had, if I was a vegetarian, a pacifist or none of these things, what I ate and how much I did, how sick I got and how many days I lived. How much of the island I charted, what kind of clues did I gather and how far into the subterrainian mystery sideplot of the island I get into. Finally, if I was rescued, and what my overal morale was.

This is a kind of adventure game I'd love to play. A very realized version of the 'deserted island' cliche. Now think how most people have utilized the deserted island scenario in actual adventure games. It's endless day, you walk wherever you want, no danger, you collect objects and combine them and solve PUZZLES until the designer deems it right to transport you from this locale to the next one. Boring, underutilized, marred by unambitious design. Everything I say above is not easy to make in AGS, but scripting-wise nothing is stopping you. I can't do it, but somebody else might. It's difficult to do, but it's a better game than the usual fare.

And then I saw Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked. Thought it was funny, that's all.

darrkchylde · Thu 03/12/2009 18:25:07

Sperm Quest! in this gaem you play as a sperm tryin to find a egg but you accdentaly wind up in a woman's eye insted of the regular starting place. Explore da human body on your jorney!

Babar · Thu 03/12/2009 18:28:06

I think that was already made. One of the OROWs

GarageGothic · Thu 03/12/2009 18:31:43

But did it have the controversial religious twist of being set at the Virgin Mary's bukkake party?

Oddysseus · Fri 04/12/2009 03:02:15

Idea:

You play as a character in a storybook. The top half of the screen is a drawing, the bottom half is the text of the story, for example: "Unfortunately, the door was not left unlocked." You could sometimes advance to the next 'page' by changing the text - i.e. dumping a pot of white paint on the letters 'Un' and 'not' so that the sentence reads "__fortunately, the door was ___ left unlocked." You could also use grease to make the page transparent and then be able to see the words on the opposite side - "The password is 'Grease,' you proclaim." Or you could just use a fishing hook to snag the paper itself and turn the pages to skip over a nasty fight. Or maybe you use the ancient art of origami, or make a paper airplane. Lots of possibilities, I'm sure.

Ryan Timothy B · Fri 04/12/2009 04:23:51

That reminds me of the game suggestions I made for this video clip:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=30502.msg517146#msg517146

I swear, if I were to make a game with a hand drawn character on paper, it would totally be like that.

Scarab · Fri 04/12/2009 05:51:28

I had an idea for a game recently which I think would be impossible, but a nice concept.

Basically you play a renegade cop/vigilante of some kind, who must solve a series of murders by using the evidence you find at the case to find suspects (nothing new here), but then your job is to stalk them to find out who was the murderer, by making observations about their behaviour and maintaining undetectability.

The plan is to have 200 characters in the town, all of whom have completely independent lives and run through the course of their days on a pre-existing schedule. You can talk to them and each will have their own personality, and recognise you if you make yourself seen too much or if you befriend them.

This game is partly inspired by Darkly Dreaming Dexter, partly by In a World of their Own, and partly by the Character Control Module.

The CCM wouldn't work in this case because it controls the characters by putting them all in the current room, just invisible if they aren't 'in' the room. This is a problem because there are character count limitations in rooms.

My idea for controlling these characters is to have a massive seven day schedule for every character in the game (this is where it starts getting unfeasible) and whenever you change room, the game checks the schedule for who is due to be in the room and what they are due to be doing, with a time compensation scheme for schedule interruptions causes by the player interacting with characters within the game.

The biggest problem with this game is the massive overhead work of constructing 200 characters, not to mention the hundreds of rooms which would be needed. In order to keep file size down, clever coding techniques would have to be used left and right (i.e. doubling, tripling and quadrupling up on characters and re-using rooms)

The other issue is the limitations of the Point and Click mechanics, as this would work a lot better as a 3d-sandbox world, so the navigation of the town would be less convoluted. An overhead driving mini game would remedy this perhaps?

OK, so that's the idea. Thoughts?

Wonkyth · Fri 04/12/2009 06:47:39

I had an idea like that, but it was for a turn-based RPG, it was tile based, and it wasn't AGS...

Oddysseus · Fri 04/12/2009 07:26:45

Idea:

"Dr. Brain and his Marvelous Machine"

You play as Bartholomeu Brainard, inventor extraordinaire. Since the outbreak of the Zombie Virus, you've been working on an impenetrable robot body in which to place your squishy, vulnerable brain. Unfortunately, you were bitten during a zombie rush before the design could be finalized. Fortunately, you managed to kill the remaining attackers and transplant your brain into the prototype before the virus could corrupt it.

Of course, the prototype's power supply only lasts 72 hours. And the nearest functional electrical station (as far as you can determine) is 300 miles away. Oh, and the prototype body still has some kinks to work out. But together with your decapitated body - which you can direct and give basic commands via remote telepathic control - you just might make it.

That is, if the designer of the Zombie Virus - your former lab assistant, Steve Croolshickle AKA "Evil Steve" - doesn't kill you first. But hey, he just has an army of the slavering undead. You have a giant robot body and the power of SCIENCE!

ddq · Sat 05/12/2009 05:41:06

I really want to make a mystery game that takes place on a train, as a homage to a level in Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door and North by Northwest. I originally wanted to set it on the chunnel train until I actually did some research and realized that it was a really quick trip. So now, I'm thinking a normal, above-ground train would be fine. I'm still trying to formulate an idea for the main plot, but I'm thinking either something supernatural or a more realistic murder mystery. Passage of time a must. Definitely have some smooth jazz music. I'd rather be on the writing side and maybe do the programing and puzzle design, but graphics aren't quite my thing.

Ali · Sat 05/12/2009 13:34:19

ddq: If you haven't played the Last Express, I'd hunt it down and play it immediately! It has murders, and the passage of time is central to the story. It also has characters that move from place to place with their own motives, a bit like Scarab's idea. It's also great.

Stupot · Sat 05/12/2009 13:34:49

Quote from: ddq on Sat 05/12/2009 05:41:06
I really want to make a mystery game that takes place on a train, ...

Then check this out...
http://www.agathachristiegame.com/motoe/

Anian · Sat 05/12/2009 21:27:40

Quote from: ddq on Sat 05/12/2009 05:41:06
I really want to make a mystery game that takes place on a train, as a homage to a level in Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door and North by Northwest. I originally wanted to set it on the chunnel train until I actually did some research and realized that it was a really quick trip. So now, I'm thinking a normal, above-ground train would be fine. I'm still trying to formulate an idea for the main plot, but I'm thinking either something supernatural or a more realistic murder mystery. Passage of time a must. Definitely have some smooth jazz music. I'd rather be on the writing side and maybe do the programing and puzzle design, but graphics aren't quite my thing.

Wait, so you thought a 50km track would take long for a train to cross?

...anyway, I suggest going for something in the past (Last Ex is before the first world war and Murder on the OE is probably between the WW's cause that's when most of Poirot's mysteries are set) - because trains were much slower and and had more interesting interiors.
Personally I hated LE cause I always (and I played months apart) I would end up with the same ending or two and the intrface seemed like I was kind of in a box (not much freedom, yet you easily miss something)...but the graphics were cool and the story as well...didn't like the time system though.

Still if you want to make it modern, perhaps trans-siberian railway line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway) - plenty of white backgrounds, rarley can get out of the train, old carriages, mysteriuos lands, few people and takes long.

Oddysseus · Sat 05/12/2009 21:34:16

Idea for a game:

"Hugs for DethBot999"

It is far future. You are malfunctioning killer robot. All the people run away and make the loud screaming sounds when you come near them. But you no want hurt humans. You love humans! But everytime you try hug people, their meatbodies go squishy and they squirt red juice. You hug too hard.

You must use parts of environment to build softer hugging machine. But everytime you take parts of building, building fall down and crush humans! You know you can build hugging machine, but will there be humans left to hug when you do?

ddq · Sat 05/12/2009 23:20:03

Quote from: Oddysseus on Sat 05/12/2009 21:34:16
Idea for a game:

"Hugs for DethBot999"

It is far future. You are malfunctioning killer robot. All the people run away and make the loud screaming sounds when you come near them. But you no want hurt humans. You love humans! But everytime you try hug people, their meatbodies go squishy and they squirt red juice. You hug too hard.

You must use parts of environment to build softer hugging machine. But everytime you take parts of building, building fall down and crush humans! You know you can build hugging machine, but will there be humans left to hug when you do?

It's actually already a flash game, but with tickles instead of hugs: http://www.kongregate.com/games/xpndsprt/the-tickler

And anian, the Trans-Siberian Railway sounds great! I'm definitely going to research it some more. Thanks for the idea!

Stupot · Sun 06/12/2009 18:25:46

I'd play a game set on the Trans-Siberian Railway :-)
Go for it, man.

Crimson Wizard · Sun 06/12/2009 23:13:07

Quote from: Stupot on Sun 06/12/2009 18:25:46
I'd play a game set on the Trans-Siberian Railway :-)
Go for it, man.

Just a possible source of inspiration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express

ddq · Mon 07/12/2009 02:28:45

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sun 06/12/2009 23:13:07
Just a possible source of inspiration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_Express

Christopher. Freakin'. Lee. How would I beat that? Have Christopher Walken as the player character?

Anyway, per my new self-imposed rules, I don't announce anything I'm working on before it's finished. And I know for a fact that I couldn't make this game on my own, I just don't have the art skills. So file this under "We'll see," unless you'd be interested in helping with the graphics and scripting, in which case file it under "We'll SEE."