Julius's gamedesign braindump

[Julius]

Ok, here I will post from time to time some game-play ideas that come up in my mind. Everything is PD (ideas are cheap), so if you want to create such a game, no problem (maybe I will even help out)


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First one that came to my mind while looking at some civil unrest tactics used in Egypt, is why not make a "riot" simulator as a kind of RTS, with one side playing the police/military forces and the other side the protesters.
Could be done as a multiplayer game, with one guy controlling top down the police forces like a traditional RTS, and a group of others in a more FPS fashion with squad commands etc to guide the protestors.

Non violent strategies could be implemented, but also some "not soo non"-violent On the police side you have the water cannons and possibly tanks etc.

If done with really good attention to details and the right political ideas behind (heh, that's the cool thing about FOSS: not having to worry about customers), then it could even become a training simulator for protestor tactics, and maps could be shaped after real world locations (I would love to see the mainstream media echo on this kind of game ).

[Julius]

Ok two more standard fare late night quickies, since I can't sleep (too damn hot here):

1. "Street CTF" Like street basketball in the sense that you play with only one flag and one goal, used by both teams, and the color of the flag changes if you go outside the core area, or when you hold the flag for a longer time. Advantage over regular CTF. Faster gameplay, smaller and non symetric maps, and probably playable with less people. Perfect for LAN-parties I presume.

2. "Capture meta-game" Instead of just capturing aeas/control pointd in a large scale multiplayer FPS (see Enemy territory QW, or Battlefield) there could be a meta game that concets the capture points by a power beam or so and you have to make a connection through the enemies area, or block of areas like in these 2D tron like games, etc. This power grid could also power some in game props like turrets etc, which fight on your side if you supply them with a connection etc.

[Julius]

Not exactly game-play, but rather visual style:

A slightly abstract FPS could be only monocrom backgrounds, with everything moving in color, but desaturated according to its movement speed. E.g. if you stay still you blend into the monocrom background, but the faster you move the more does your color "pop out".
Preferably with some sort of nuclear winter scenario, to make the monocrom-ness not seem so much out of place. Could include a nice colorfull ionized radiation sky-beam in the center of the map, to give it back some color

I think in general these slightly abstract artstyles should be explored more... right now most games are slightly abstract but totally without intention. So why not make a art out of the technical limitations

[qubodup]

1. "Street CTF" Like street basketball in the sense that you plaz with only one flag and one goal, used by both teams, and the color of the flag changes if you go outside the core area, or when you hold the flag for a longer time. Advantage over regular CTF. Faster gameplay, smaller and non symetric maps, and probably playable with less people. Perfect for LAN-parties I presume.

I love this one!

I shared some of my ideas via blog posts:
http://qubodup.wordpress.com/2011/04/01 ... -old-ones/
http://qubodup.wordpress.com/2010/12/14 ... -the-open/
http://iwan.tumblr.com/post/87813669/ze ... ame-design

I also have to share this link again and again: http://www.squidi.net/three/

[Julius]

I was wondering if this would stay a monolog

Anyways... another one, sort of edutainment:

Manage a cell and prevent attacking viruses from taking over your cellular machinery.
All inside the cell, with realistic cell organelles and systems based on real methods of the cell to prevent virus entry, dna/rna replication etc.
Having a real cell cycle as an kind of day night cycle where different things happen, and the DNA might me more vulnerable etc would be cool too.

Could also be played as a massive multiplayer game, where everyone place a single cell in a tissue, and you can support each other, but also manage the cellular defense to kill of your neighbor since he hasn't got the virus production under control and thus threatens you etc.

Could be extended into a game where you have to fight against a cancerous tissue invading "your" tissue, or a bacterial infection. but that would probably make things too complex and not only inside one cell.

Side effect: you learn all about cell cycle, dna/rna replication, virus cell infection etc. and if done well it wouldn't be boring at all.

[Julius]

Another not really well thought out one:

Why are flight simulators so boring... someone should take a bit of mechwarrior, a bit of freespace 2, a bit of arena FPS (CFF game modes etc), a bit of low flying acrobatics/air races, and some cool WW2 airplaines or so and mix it all together into an awesome multiplayer airplane shooter.

AND it should definitely include web-cam head tracking for cool cockpit effects and to look for that guy hiding in front of the sun

[farcodev]

Cool for your cell game idea, i had a similar one some years ago w/ micro-nano-electromechanical systems.
But since i started again FARC i've no time for this, maybe one day after FARC is completed...

[Julius]

I am currently thinking this could probably be a nice HTML5 game... if there was only a good game creation kit for that I would do it myself (not qualified enough in programming to do it all from scratch). There are even some nice graphics for it already on OGA: http://opengameart.org/content/eukaryotic-organelles
It would probably be a little bit like a tower defense game mixed with a 4X game:
You would have different line of defenses: cell wall, cell interior, wall of nucleus, and nucleus interior and could extend and produce different kind of defenses.
Then the different organelles are like "planets" in 4X games: you can adjust their production parameters etc, but also enter them (and the nucleus) and have specific fights inside of them to for example prevent certain viruses to take over the mitochondria etc.

(Ahh the joys of having a totally useless higher university degree in cell biology )

If it was a HTML game then there could be an endless mode where the viruses are just coming endlessly (and becoming more advanced) with a scoreboard where you can compete with other players for the time you managed cell survival.

[Skorpio]

1. "Street CTF" Like street basketball in the sense that you plaz with only one flag and one goal, used by both teams, and the color of the flag changes if you go outside the core area, or when you hold the flag for a longer time. Advantage over regular CTF. Faster gameplay, smaller and non symetric maps, and probably playable with less people. Perfect for LAN-parties I presume.

There's a CTF mode with only one flag in ETF (the Enemy Territory Teamfortress mod). But in this mode only one team is attacking, the other team is defending and they swap after a game IIRC (I only watched this once, there are only a few ETF players).

[Julius]

Yes I know I have played that... it's too static though... and kind of like those assault maps from Unreal Tournament. I think making it dynamic would give it a completely different twist, but of course one would have to carefully balance it so that it isn't like: "yeah we are scoring.... wait, WTF... the enemy has scored???"

[Julius]

A mix of Tribes2 like game-play with some ideas from DOTA (attack lanes, towers and CPU controlled tanks) could be a cool game type.
Most of it is already in Xonotic (DOTA mod, vehicles and jetpack etc) so that could be a fun little project to do.

[bokononist]

loving the riot simulator idea. how would you go about balancing the RTS aspect of one faction vs the FPS aspect of the other? the way i pictured it while reading the first line is more like Frozen Synapse, Commandos or Fallout Tactics...

[Julius]

Asymetric games are always hard to balance, but that's not impossible. But I actually thought about this idea some more a while back, and it would probably easier to not go the FPS route, but rather have one team that controls more like DOTA (also isometric, but zoomed closer and you only control one character), while the other team plays more like Dungeon Keeper, e.g. no or limited control over units, but rather work with attractors etc.
In fact both teams could be like that, e.g. you control a police commander as a single unit and you can control your "troops" only via attractors or similar means V.S. a riot leader that can influence the demonstrators though similar means. That way you would also solve a lot of balancing issues.

[Julius]

Less a game-play and more of a style idea:

A agile mech combat game with small robots that are part super fast submarines (move fast under water and can do super high jumps out of the water etc.) and then the entire game plays in partially flooded skyscraper cities of the 23nd century after climate change has resulted in a ocean level rise of 50 meters due to rapidly melting glaciers at the poles.

[bokononist]

oh that's just lovely, a riot simulator MOBA... delicious! but one character per person means you'd need plenty of players to play out a map... a 5man riot isn't much of a riot Dungeon keeper-type control seems better suited... or, you could have squads and direct control for the police, and more of a base-building approach and automated rioter responses for the rioters, then have levels/missions in occupied squares, houses, prisons.... that turns the game into a 1v1 from an Xv1 tho