catbarf on 10/12/2011 at 18:15
A New Zero is the game you're thinking of. I'm going for something similar, but without the pseudo-RTS or economic aspects, and with all aircraft (as opposed to ships and such). And, of course, a heavy focus on the physics and design part of it, since A New Zero is very simplistic in the design and handling of the aircraft. One of the goals is for it to be 50/50 sandbox/combat, where building a working and controllable plane is a challenge in of itself, instead of focusing entirely on the competitive aspect.
Granted, it's still a team-based game where you shoot each other with airplanes and try to blow up the other team's base, but I think that's a broad enough concept for some fresh ideas.
Edit: Oops, just noticed the double post. Now I get it :D
demagogue on 10/12/2011 at 19:33
The other thing it reminded me of was that tv show Master Blasters (there might be other shows with this premise), where there was two teams building rockets to do some task (like shooting a car through a football fieldgoal posts; having the rocket parachute down, land, and launch a rover; who can land closest to a bullseye 1/2 mile away; all sorts of crazy tasks), and they had a week to do all the design and building, which is such a tight deadline you really have to get an idea and just build it and deal with complications as they come... then on Saturday each team sees what the other has been doing and how they dealt with different issues, and then actually firing the rockets to see who's design worked best & actually worked as planned!
That's the part of this idea that I like. There's an effective deadline in beating your opponent to the punch, unless your idea is so awesome it's worth the risk of taking longer. And I like the idea when you see your opponent's plane coming over, you finally get to see what it's capable of and how they dealt with certain issues.
What made the show fun that you might add to the game is some variability that you have to account for in the design, so it's not the exact same design considerations & process every single game. I can imagine after people have played it a number of times, they'll work out an optimal design the fastest to build and then that whole part is neutered; it's just who can follow the optimal plan fastest. But if the circumstances are variable and there isn't a single optimal design, but different options that have a mixed bag of pros and cons that even vary each game, then that stage is still fun... So maybe there's changing weather or physical conditions (even at the basic level of gravity, air pressure, etc), different terrain, distances, altitudes, different defense systems the design should account for, flak guns, radar, day/night cycle, different technology available or even differently evolving technology over the course of the game ... And then different combinations of these kinds of factors each game, so each calls for its own design challenges and you have to experiment.
Or maybe even the basic mission changes, like what your craft has to actually accomplish to "win" the level -- maybe different types of bases have to be bombed in different ways, high altitude vs low altitude, precision vs carpet, multiple buildings vs single cluster... But what about even more alt missions, like who can build the first plane that can do some obstacle course, or some particularly crazy task (but you might build that into the base scenario by putting the crazy task in the way of bombing the other guy's base). I mean half the fun of the show Master Blasters was they didn't know what the mission was they were designing for until it started, and the tasks were always very creative and out there... making you have to design to do things you didn't predict and don't typically think about. Some of that would be coming up with different scenarios, but some of that could just be what I mentioned before, mixing and matching different variables they have to design for, so there's some variation each game and needing to combine two different task goals takes some thinking. Like: our reconnaissance planes tell us we need high altitude planes to cruise over the range of their flak guns, with precision bombs to hit multiple targets, carpet bombs won't work well, but the air pressure here is X which gives us certain aerodynamic & weight limits (within reason; it's still a gamed-down version), and we just have Y technology & materials available for us to work with. So let's figure this out, build something, & experiment. That kind of thing I think would be fun.
Edit: I kept thinking of stuff that I added to the post.
catbarf on 10/12/2011 at 19:52
Quote Posted by demagogue
What made the show fun that you might add to the game is some variability that you have to account for in the design, so it's not the exact same design considerations & process
every single game. I can imagine after people have played it a number of times, they'll work out an optimal design the fastest to build and then that whole part is neutered; it's just who can follow the optimal plan fastest. But if the circumstances are variable and there isn't a single optimal design, but different options that have a mixed bag of pros and cons that even vary each game, then that stage is still fun... So maybe there's changing weather or physical conditions (even at the basic level of gravity, air pressure, etc), different terrain, distances, altitudes, different defense systems the design should account for, different technology available or even differently evolving technology over the course of the game ... And then different combinations of these kinds of factors each game, so each calls for its own design challenges and you have to experiment.
Or maybe even the basic mission changes, like what your craft has to actually accomplish to "win" the level -- maybe different types of bases have to be bombed in different ways, high altitude vs low altitude, precision vs carpet, multiple buildings vs single cluster... But what about even more alt missions, like who can build the first plane that can do some obstacle course, or some particularly crazy task (but you might build that into the base scenario by putting the crazy task in the way of bombing the other guy's base). I mean half the fun of the show Master Blasters was they didn't know what the mission was they were designing for until it started, and the tasks were always very creative and out there... making you have to design to do things you didn't predict and don't typically think about. Some of that would be coming up with different scenarios, but some of that could just be what I mentioned before, mixing and matching different variables they have to design for, so there's some variation each game and needing to combine two different task goals takes some thinking.
I agree entirely. What I was thinking is that by balancing the various components appropriately, it would lead to natural counters between different types of aircraft, so a player who sticks with just his 'optimal' build will get steamrolled by someone with a counter to it.
For example, you may have an awesome highly-maneuverable dogfighter, but if the other players see this and start building high-speed high-altitude jet bombers that can outrun you, you've got to adapt or die. So you build an unmaneuverable but fast jet interceptor of your own, but then the other guys start using small low-level fighter bombers that are maneuverable enough to dodge your unmaneuverable attack runs, and so on and so on.
Different map designs would probably influence it too- a map set in a canyon network would have very different design considerations from a map of wide open skies. Races, obstacle courses, and things like that would be a great idea for another game mode.
Something that could be interesting would be finding a way to make a team work together on just a couple of designs, so the distinction between the sides is clear, but I feel like that might encourage better players to 'hog' the design process. Maybe have it so that every player can fly any of the designs built by teammates, and a short enough build time to really encourage teamwork in construction? That way people who want to do their own thing could do so, new players could fly planes built by their teammates to see what works and what doesn't, and a team that can works together and knows what they're doing could crank out just a couple of solid designs that would do what they need.
Bakerman on 13/12/2011 at 20:43
This isn't so much a game idea as an idea that could be included in a game. What if we were to apply the (
http:www.stackoverflow.com) Stack Overflow model of gaining reputation to games? What I'm referring to is the way that on SO, all your 'reputation' points come from other people upvoting your questions and answers. This is kind of the opposite to the way a traditional forum works, where your post count is what's displayed on your profile. It's also counter to the way games work - you get XP (I'm sort of sliding from the idea of 'reputation' to 'experience' but bear with me) from just doing tons of stuff. But what if we were to apply some sort of peer-review process to it?
Obviously, you could easily apply the idea of 'reputation' to a game, and have XP work as usual. So what I'd do is, take a game like Counter-Strike. When you get killed by someone, I'd pop up a dialogue that allows you to 'upvote' them (or whatever the terminology). Yes, you get the opportunity to increase their reputation when they kill you. The idea is that the system would encourage people to play the game fairly, as judged by their peers. You wouldn't upvote a cheap kill via exploits or blind luck, but you'd upvote a kill after a tough duel, or if someone genuinely snuck up on you.
I wrote a full post about it (
http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/129091) here. Didn't want to repost it, but nor did I just want to post a link.
The idea's fraught with problems... but I'm fascinated by the idea of ranking players not just for activity, but the quality of that activity. And it seems like other players are the most available resource for judging that quality.
Neb on 11/6/2012 at 01:11
While I was half asleep the other day I half dreamed/imagined a survival horror that involves you being stalked in a city by the ghost of a submarine. You can hear sonar pings when it's after you. D:
Must remember to take my pills.
Koki on 11/6/2012 at 08:41
A freeroaming survival horror in a submerged ruins of a city? Sounds like a pretty good idea.
catbarf on 12/6/2012 at 04:45
Kind of a reversal of Neb's idea, I'm imagining a submerged city (like, say, after the polar ice caps melt or w/e) and the player is a diver exploring the remains, with ghosts/hallucinations/flashbacks occasionally putting elements of the pre-flood city in. Like, say, a sequence forcing the player to dodge ethereal traffic to cross a street. Something like an underwater Cryostasis.
demagogue on 12/6/2012 at 05:16
As long as you could keep the pace up. Wouldn't want it to drag too much moving through the water.
I wanted to see a kind of sub-fighter shooter Freespace-style in a vast scifi ocean setting, with many underwater cities, bases, and pirates.
The other kind of setting I want to see a game treatment for is something like the city in The Fifth Element, Blade Runner, Back to the Future II, and an Anachronox cutscene... where you have impossibly high skyscrapers, aerial traffic, free & open movement GTA style, and car chases through it.
catbarf on 12/6/2012 at 07:07
Quote Posted by demagogue
I wanted to see a kind of sub-fighter shooter Freespace-style in a vast scifi ocean setting, with many underwater cities, bases, and pirates.
Have you tried Archimedean Dynasty, or its sequel AquaNox? The former is rather dated and the latter more of a Freespace-esque shooter rather than an open world, but they are pretty much exactly what you described.
Sulphur on 27/1/2013 at 19:01
I was just thinking about a Saint's Row 2D platformer, with Hoverboards in it. Sure, that game might not have appealed to everyone, but I'm not talking about one dope game. I am talking about having enough wild ass ideas, dope ass original concepts, and shit no one has ever seen before, that could help a company win. Like my idea for a Saint's Row: Dogs and Cats. At the start of the game, you pick a dog or a cat, choose its fur color, etc. Then, you are unleashed, as a stray, into the game world. I am imagining an open world game, as big as a city in GTA or SR, only instead of playing as a human in a city, the whole world is a lot bigger than you. Since you are pet sized, the whole game world could be the size of a single neighborhood, but huge, with all these little paths that only a pet could take. I imagine giving the cats claws, the ability to climb any surface, and 9 lives. The dogs would have a much larger health bar, barking and biting powers, but only one life. Everyone gets night vision. The mission of the game is finding a home, and survival. You are a stray, so the pound is after you as a major enemy, like the police in GTA or SR. You will need to find, or steal food. You will encounter other animals, that you can befriend, or fight. You will encounter people, some nice ones who might throw you a bone, or set out a bowl of milk, but others might be mean to you, hit or kick you, and abuse you. Michael Vick dog fighting, check. Finding a nice young lad, who always wanted a pet, check. Your main mission in the game is to find a home, level up, and just have a new dope ass type of world to play in. My vision is a lot bigger than Tokyo jungle, by the way.
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