The Quick Ideas/Concepts Thread

[Pixel Punk]

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for a while now, trying to avoid starting a project, but...
A pokemon farming/crafting game. I cant decide if it would be best to leave it at that, a farm game, or to incorporate farming into a typical style pokemon rpg.

Basically you could grow berry and apricorn crops
to craft items from the games. Different crops will attract different pokemon to visit your garden. the more healthy your crops, the rarer the pokemon become.

You could also milk miltanks, collect honey from combee, gather eggs from bird pokemon, and hatch pokemon eggs in incubators. you could also get a barn, or breeding pen.

I've thrown around a story idea of living on a secluded island with your father, who one day is kidnapped by an evil organization for such and such a reason, and thus your story begins.
I just haven't thought of a good reason to make a player feel the NEED to return home and tend to the farm. Another idea is that you start with an Evee instead of choosing a typical starter.

Anyways, that's my "Quick" idea of the day.

 

[Xilef]

Harvest moon was good until it lost it's identity and became a battle-free RPG game.

A farm game without pokémon will be great, especially if it had online connectivity to buy/sell crops and livestock

 

[Gubid]

You mean like Farmville?

 

[peachy]

I hope this isn't necroposting, but after reading the guidelines I don't feel like this is worthy of its own thread yet. It's barely a concept but I'm enjoying the idea of it so far, so I thought I would seek some feedback.

Setting
An entirely different universe with different countries, continents, and cultures, but I think the technological progress and overall aesthetic will be pretty inspired by the 1920's. Since it's an alternate universe, it leaves me free to pick and choose aspects I like from various periods, as long as they make sense together. Radio, boats, cars, and slightly crude but still existent air travel should hopefully make exploration seem fun and varied without being too modern.

As for the history of the world, I have one thing in mind that basically defines the setting. An appropriate amount of years back, let's say one hundred or two hundred, there was an earth-shaking cataclysm to be determined later that led to several civilizations and continents being wiped entirely off the map and was the direct cause of the mutation of much of the flora and fauna of the world, leading to "monsters" as we know them in most RPGs.

Only a few nations still stand truly strong after the cataclysm and then the onslaught of murderous creatures, and the ruins of cities and towns are peppered all throughout the map. A few smaller countries still attempt to cling to independence, but runaways and refugees from doomed communities continue to populate the slums and streets of the more fortuitous areas.

"Magic" exists, but it's extremely painful to use and takes an incredible toll on a person's body. When someone is born with the gift, they rarely live past their teenage years or, best case scenario, their early twenties. It's generally considered to be a mutation brought on by the cataclysm by most of the population, but others argue that there are examples of human beings with extraordinary powers as far back as the ancient days. Those capable of magic are feared and mistrusted in smaller, superstitious communities, and they are pitied and sympathized with by those who understand what it means for their health and lifespan. For many years, being capable of magic meant leaving a painful life until you died an early death, but in recent years a strange new solution has been found.


Concept for the game
This is where it gets even rougher, but I've a few thoughts swirling around.

A few new academy-like institutions have been founded, devoted to the care and training of young men and women with the "gift". The inner workings are enigmatic, but the results are undeniable; those who attend live and thrive long beyond their expected lifespans.

What actually happens is that students are bonded to a strange creature with a requisite mysterious name like "Revenant" or "Eidolon", and in exchange for essentially being possessed they gain newfound control in their abilities and an impressive amount of power. The creatures are much more intelligent than the typical mutated monsters running around, but other than that I'm still rather unsure about them. They have their own thoughts, goals, and personalities, however, which should lead to interesting clashes of personality and a nice amount of tension. They may be capable of taking total control of their bond's body for a short amount of time, but other than that they're sitting in the passenger side, so to speak.

The main characters would be cadets at one of these academies, either teenagers or young adults. With teenagers you have the appeal of writing really youthful drama and also being able to see them as people before they bond to a creature, but adults are less overdone and generally have more mature issues and concerns and a more developed view of the world.

 

[Gubid]

I like the concept. The only problem I have with it, lies in the school. I understand the reason you want the school etc, but it seems that it will become the focus of the entire game. This will, in my opinion, be a hindrance to the game and prevent you from expanding the world beyond what affects the school. While this is perhaps the goal, its just not my thing. The world is built for exploring and not getting to explore it makes me cry.

I do like the idea of the host/candidate idea part of it though.

 

[-Silver-]

Title Ideas: Be The Boss / Boss Fight / Bossed

Gameplay: Dungeon Keeper crossed with Half Minute Hero, but with a pretty art style :heart:

Start the game by creating your Boss character. He/She is the leader of a new bandit organization in the countryside. You have a handful of lackeys ready to do your bidding, fearful of your ruthlessness. Each 'stage' of the game gives you a new camp and location as a base to work from - so the first camp is a small woodland hide-away. From the camp, you can send your bandits on a variety of short missions such as constructing road blocks and collecting taxes from wandering merchants/citizens; raiding villages/towns; looting the countryside manors of nobles; searching caves for treasures; etc etc. These missions play out as fast paced mini-games ala Half Minute Hero and generate income which you can use to spend on upgrading your weapons and armour, training your bandits, and installing defences to your camp.

At the end of each stage, a hero (or later on a party of heroes) will attack your camp. I'm imagining a side-scrolling tower defence game here, where you lay traps and send your bandits to wear the hero down along his path to do battle with you, the boss, at the end. With the hero dead, and the reputation it gains for you and your bandits, you move on to the next stage. Stages progress into more heavily populated areas, culminating in your bandit army storming a castle and crowning you as bandit king of the land.

Thoughts? I like the idea of having some interesting concepts for small games in the back of my mind, just in case the opportunity to create something presents itself. Hard at work on my wolf platformer at the moment though: viewtopic.php?f=159&t=75968

 

[-Silver-]

snip

I like the sound of this. It's a solid idea. Certainly flesh out the monsters that work as symbiotic hosts to those with the 'gift' first, and you've got the grounds to build some really interesting characters. I once worked on an RPG with a very similar idea, with 'monsters' that provided incredible power to their chosen masters. Originally I just shoe-horned them in there to work as summons, but then built them to be the last remaining servants to an ancients-old demon locked away by mages from long ago. They lack the ability to physically interact with the mortal world, and so manipulate mortal men to work towards their goal of freeing their demon king through lies, biased evidence, and false sympathy. There's no clash of personalities as present in your idea, but instead it was the idea that power would always corrupt, no matter how genuine your intentions.

I'd also vote for adults as the main cast - mainly because, as you say, they're underdone and give plenty of ground for more mature subject matter. But also because (I'm 25 next week, so probably should be considered an adult =P) we really are just as prone to emotional drama and immaturity as teenagers. It would also be great to see a 30 year old man/woman wrestling with the idea that he's considered old for those with the gift of magic, and trying to come to terms with death. Perhaps at first he's scared of that thought and tries to run from it, but as the game progresses he accepts his fate and tries to right any wrongs, complete any unfinished business, and attempts to leave the world in the best state he can for those he cares about. Basch and Gabranth from FFXII are great examples of powerfully emotional 30 year olds in an RPG. Balthier is proof that not all adults are sensible and mature, and can indeed be as carefree as teenagers. No reason you can't have teens as well though.

 

[peachy]

You have a good point, Gubid. I have to admit the reason a school or military academy-type institution occurred to me is because of... don't laugh, Final Fantasy 8. Since I first played it I really enjoyed many of the concepts of that game but not the overall execution, which probably inspired my choice of setting the main characters into a school.

I was thinking the school setting provides a convenient way to get characters in the same place and a direction for the early game, but it could easily become too focused, which would likely be counter-productive to the development of a big, unique world. It's certainly a balancing act. Thanks for giving me some food for thought.

I'd also vote for adults as the main cast - mainly because, as you say, they're underdone and give plenty of ground for more mature subject matter. But also because (I'm 25 next week, so probably should be considered an adult =P) we really are just as prone to emotional drama and immaturity as teenagers. It would also be great to see a 30 year old man/woman wrestling with the idea that he's considered old for those with the gift of magic, and trying to come to terms with death. Perhaps at first he's scared of that thought and tries to run from it, but as the game progresses he accepts his fate and tries to right any wrongs, complete any unfinished business, and attempts to leave the world in the best state he can for those he cares about. Basch and Gabranth from FFXII are great examples of powerfully emotional 30 year olds in an RPG. Balthier is proof that not all adults are sensible and mature, and can indeed be as carefree as teenagers. No reason you can't have teens as well though.

Haha, very true. Teenagers certainly aren't the only ones prone to immaturity.

I like your concept for summons, too. That's mainly where my idea sprung... when I play RPGs I always feel like the Summons, GFs, Espers, or whatever they happen to be called in the game are undeveloped and underused. There's a lot you could potentially do there, instead of just making them cool-looking monsters with no personalities that cost a little more MP than other abilities.

I appreciate the input from both of you. I'll look into developing my idea more, enough for a thread of its own perhaps.

Title Ideas: Be The Boss / Boss Fight / Bossed

Gameplay: Dungeon Keeper crossed with Half Minute Hero, but with a pretty art style :heart:

I don't have much to add, other than it sounds like something I would enjoy. What direction where you leaning toward for the tone of the art and overall style? Something a little cutesy, or mischevious, or even flat-out villainous?

 

[Cait]

Genre - School, drama [to me, drama is good times, bad times, funny times, tense times]

I have this idea for a game that deals with a school; a magic/sword high school. An elite school that people attend who will likely become wizards, scholars, teachers, knights, adventurers, etc. At the start of the game you have the choice of two characters, a boy and a girl character, who both have very different goals. At some point, there is conflict between the two parties as they try to accomplish their goals. There is something at work in the shadows, nothing is completely as black and white as it could be.
1. guy character - the sole survivor of his village, lived with his grandmother until he began to attend high school. He wants to begin his life over again, and to do that, one step is to discover what or who attacked his village, plus why.
2. Girl character - She was found in a cavern and adopted, the headmaster became her guardian. Her goal is to locate her family, why she was abandoned and where they are.
[Basically it was my intention to have a starting story, that these people have lives before the start of the game, pains, griefs, happy, irritating pasts like we all have. Even if I create them, I don't want it to seem like I just created them.]

Now, I am planning some sort of relationship [friendship] thing in which you can buy gifts for you friends and people. For what reason, I have no clue, but right now, in the middle of planning it out. You can take classes, and likely get increases, or likely learn new skills. Everything has the potential of story, from talking to a character to heading to a town. You explore the world, while you [which takes place in a region, not the whole wide world, because I wanted a deep region, not a barely empty world ...

Now, comes the interesting possiblity, I can do one of two possibilities.
1. You experience both character's stories at once, which I don't like actually. You don't get connected to the characters and too much switching, imo. No replayability, none.
2. You pick a character and you stick with that character, you hear their thoughts, see the story from their pov.
I am more leaning towards option #2, but I'd like to hear other opinions, honestly. I know that the characters would be teenagers, and many people have trouble with teenagers main character. But I'd like to develop a world in which the characters begin as teenagers, eventually growing older as I make games, each game will have new goals and might have new characters, or use a different main character altogether. That's my idea, any ideas or thoughts, please give. I'm damn determined to finish this game, I've even quit wasting my freaking time on stupid things....

Though, the one thing I'm not sure about is how to deal with the school, you spend a lot of time there, you have your own dorm room and you can attend classes. I'm thinking of having a 'Tales of' style cooking area, where you take "X" and "Y" ingredient and put it together to cook. You will be able to purchase a lot of stuff, some and quite a bit might be worthless and the plan for treasure chests might be that not everything you get from the treasure chests might be helpful or otherwise wanted...

Treasure chest - you find a rotten ham sandwich.... a potion [uh, how long has this thing been in here? Why? I think it's gone bad, it has mold on the inside of it. Rusty armor from 500 years ago, etc.] You get the idea, though.

 

[benos]

More ideas about a rpg simulation by building cities, but it still has the rpg elements of a normal rpg, fighting monsters, etc. You have to collect alot of stuff so next time you enter a city after talking to a certain person like a mayor, he'll upgrade things around the city/town or whatever. And get special items for rewards.

Sim city-ish rpg. Like say, there's a building that's still in construction and you need more stuff to upgrade it, this is starting to become like cityville...... :huh:

But like say, the cities, towns and villages were attacked into a invasion of monsters, demons, or whatever, meanwhile trying to rebuild your world. And stopping the invasion. Sounds way too cliche, but at least try to make the sim thing more important as the storyline. Even so their is going to be forced "final boss" in the end to limit some less freedom around.

Sop yeah, that's kind of my idea, even so properly that's already been done.

Oh yeah, even have a after game. Once the main final boss is finished, and saving everything, rebuilding, etc. You can just finish off remaining side quests if you haven't already or if more towns or cities, etc might be still be unfinished. And maybe a fill in some more hours to make some add-on quests, to continue a new storyline about something else.

 

[Byron]

This game concept came from a dream I had. You can read it Here
Black Hole! Mikes Last Wish

Black Hole is a platformer game about a man and his struggle to get back to his love before the world is destroyed.

Story:
Mike is at work in some sciencey planety place when his boss tells him that a black hole will swallow the world up in about 30 minutes. "If I were you I would go and be with your loved ones." He says before walking off.
Mike, knowing that there is nothing they can do to save the world decides to take his bosses advice and get back to his wife.
Charlotte is wheelchair bound and finds it hard to get around. When Mike isn't at home she paints.
Whilst mike is running home the news breaks out and all chaos breaks loose. Now Mike has to battle the chaos of the city, however he has to be with his loved one before they die.
For this is Mikes Last Wish.

Platform:
Construct 2.
(I don't have construct 2 however I have used it and I plan on getting it.)

Gameplay:
Arrow keys to move. Up to jump.
z to attack
x to lift
c to interact

I don't really have any more information about that. But yeh.

 

[Byron]

Why does nobody ever use this thread???

Well anyway, the latest instalment of Hiccup Crows amazing mind!

Some sort of Space fighter game thing!

I will be working on an actual GDD for this game but here is the concept so far.

The idea is that it is a typical space fighter game, you got other ships coming at you and you gotta shoot them down, but at points in the game there will be an area change and the controls will switch to asteroid kinda controls, the only way to leave that area is to kill all the enemies. Although saying that, I want it to be possible to go through most of the game without killing any enemies, and you get physical bonuses for not killing them. Obviously you get point bonuses for killing enemies and money.
There will be upgrades and things like that for your ship, but I want to keep it possible for cutscenes and voice acting.
The whole game will be quite heavily story & character driven. So I guess it's time to say a bit of the story:

There is some sort of space war shit fuck going on. You don't really pay attention to that shit anyway, cause you are the amazing pilot of an amazing ship which you built yourself, and you don't got time for that shit, cause when you're not working on your ship you are out there killing shit. And when you ain't killing shit, you are working on your ship.

You are sent to go complete an important mission on a distant planet (You get those a lot) However during the mission you get trapped in a barage of enemy fire and are not able to escape. Your ship assistant sees the inevitable doom looming upon you and so she pushes you out the window with hope that you survive. The ship is blown to smitherines and you are left in the wilderness unconcious.

When you wake up you are dazed and bewildered. You are in a hospital bed. People instantly rush to you. It becomes aware that there are gaps in your memory. You can't really remember how you got to where you are, luckily all your ship knowlage is intact. You kinda remember something about your ship being wasted. After seeing it, you instantly set out upon repairs.

A few months after you have finally got your ship to working condition. TIME FOR SOME FLIGHT PRACTICE. You don't have the capabilities you used to have, but it works!

AND THUS BEGINS YOUR EPIC ADVENTURE INTO SPACE AND OTHER PLANETS AND SHIT. SECRETS LIE TO BE DESCOVERED AND MANY MANY THINGS TRANSPIRE TO MAKE YOU QUESTION IF YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE WAR.

Controls:
Normal controls:
Arrow controls v<> move down, move left, move right.
Z button, Shoot normal bullets.
X button, Shoot secondary Weapon
C button, Shoot super weapon
V, B, N, M buttons, Possible upgrade weapon buttons.
Space bar, boost

Asteroid controls:
^ Accelerate
v Decelerate
<,> Rotate ship
Z button, Shoot normal bullets.
X button, Shoot secondary Weapon
C button, Shoot super weapon
V, B, N, M buttons, Possible upgrade weapon buttons.
Space bar, boost

 

[coyotecraft]

Maybe we should drop the pretense of posting quick ideas for feedback or development purposes and just have a place to throw ideas around.

I've tried imagining an rpg where you play the role of a white mage who can't commit violent acts or else they'll lose their power to heal. In towns you'll have have random encounters with sick or wounded people that you have to heal. I haven't thought of a good story to go with this.

Going along with the concept that fighting = bad. I actually tried developing a game where you want to lose battles. You're possessed by a demonic sword and start at lv100 and have basically a berserk status. In battles the goal is to K.O. yourself so that the sword doesn't kill the enemy. You level down as you progress through the game. Ultimately you try killing yourself and drag the sword to hell with you.

 

[Injury]

The past of a nation haunts to present citizen. They may have won the war, but everyone is in shock of what had to be done. Everyone else is terrified, and so the nation lives in isolation.

Mass suicides begin and you are left confused and without a home as a child. You become a refuge and wander the other nations and are taken in by a small family of merchants. After some times passes, you mature and receive a package in the mail with a key and just one sentence, "Return to your true home."

You leave and go back home, not knowing what awaits you in what was once a great, yet terrible nation.

Poop.

 

[coyotecraft]

Bizarre fantasy world. Off-color landscapes. Yellow water. Blue rocks. That kind of thing.
Fire cubes instead of fire balls. Electric rings instead of bolts.
Everything is just different, but not opposite.

 

[Injury]

You are stuck on a space station med lab when all hell breaks loose. Qurantine procedures are enacted and all the bulkheads are sealed. You must make your way from the med labs to the escape pod, opening door by door and dealing with the crew, who are horrible monsters, all the while saving others who aren't infected and gathering resources.

Alternative story line that involves a bio weapons corporation rivalry with the CEOs, leading one to poison the other's crew in an attempt to control the med labs and the pharmaceutical grants/money for the cure that they have.

 

[Xilef]

You are stuck on a space station med lab when all hell breaks loose. Qurantine procedures are enacted and all the bulkheads are sealed. You must make your way from the med labs to the escape pod, opening door by door and dealing with the crew, who are horrible monsters, all the while saving others who aren't infected and gathering resources.

Alternative story line that involves a bio weapons corporation rivalry with the CEOs, leading one to poison the other's crew in an attempt to control the med labs and the pharmaceutical grants/money for the cure that they have.

I once had a horror concept for a space-station gone silent, you are sent in to investigate, but then after a while of sitting on this idea Dead Space came out and ruined it all for me...

I still have the same concept in my head with System Shock 1 style game-play but not really doing anything with it, want to elaborate your concept more?

 

[Injury]

I have never played Dead Space, and System shock was pretty fun.

I was thinking fallout meets space station meets zombies/horrible mutants.

Sci-Fi Horror Thriller RTS. Another great game that has just come out is Dungeon of the Endless, and I draw from that when I think that there should be a minimal crew to start, people to gather or recruit with certain resources and the paralyzing trauma of a lack of power in areas.

I don't really know where to go after that.

I like the idea of system shock elements mixed in. Kinda form the character around the way you choose to train in the start, and then bring the storyline to them after training.

 

[Xilef]

I like the idea of system shock elements mixed in. Kinda form the character around the way you choose to train in the start, and then bring the storyline to them after training.

You must be talking about System Shock 2, I'm thinking System Shock 1, where inventory management is a bigger focus over the player's arsenal.

I'm thinking Ultima Underworld meets space station meets Metro 2033

 

[Injury]

Yes, sorry System Shock 2. I just wish I had spacey themed tile sets, isometric or otherwise, to map some stuff out, get something made!