Your Game

We as commited (note: people that know their games) gamers are the harshest critics. We bitch on about any aspect that we think sucks. Although it's been years since we played a game that we felt deserved five starts, we know what makes a good game. We know the generic conventions of most gaming genres.

Some gamers who make complaints about games usually come up with another way of approaching the game.

What if they were put in charge?
...That was a rhetorical question.

What would you do if you were a game designer? What would your game be about? What kinds of gameplay mechanics would the game have? What specific console would you develop for and why? Or would you go multiplatform?

What would the main focus/essense of the game be? What audience is intended? Why would you think it will be successful?

Hopefully, with this thread, an overall idea of what gamers want from their games can be identified. And hopefully some random guy working for a publisher will pick this thread up. Or maybe not (seeing as what happened to Sonic and all).

Anyway, discuss.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

This looks like it has the promise to be a great thread. I know for "My Game" I'm not sure of the setting I would use. I love fantasy-based games, but they seem to be overdone, or it could be that I have yet to see a truly engrossing one? I also love either post-apocalyptic as well as sci-fi...all hold possibilities, and the sci-fi genre is probably deserving of a good game.

I basically figured out what games I truly enjoyed and conglomerated them. Gameplay would be like Samurai Warriors or God of War; fast-paced finger intensive play, but it lets you get the feeling of being important, ie. you're cleaving through tons of enemies that mean nothing. When it comes to a more important fight, I would have it "shift" to be more like Soul Calibur III, an intensive fighting game, maybe in a wide "arena" type thing as that crappy Marvel fighting game (Rise of the Imperfects) - at least something neat came out of that...

I would want character creation, as in-depth as the Wrestling Smackdown titles, so that you can create the perfect "you" character. As well, having growth through RPG-like elements, ala skills and spells and stats, that you would learn on level-up.

I would want a branching storyline/dialogue options with multiple outcomes based on how you acted throughout the game, but more than just the "good-evil" basics. I want to give people a reason to play through it again. I would also want the story to be more "adult" oriented, and same overall look. I don't want cartoony graphics or characters, but realistic models and actions. I would have some wry, ironic humor in the game, but I want it to be a more serious, a more immersive game experience.

Having contact with the internet is something I'm not completely sold on yet. I like the idea of being able to play with multiple people and such, but I think the experience as a single-player game would be best.

I know that I don't want to have tons of mini-games, because I think that the main game is what people should be wanting to play, the whole immersive attitude. If I did have mini-games, then I would want them done in such a way that they blended with the gameplay, rather than taking you out of it into something different.

As far as platform, I'm guessing either Playstation or XBox (or whatever number they are at when "My Game" were to come out) would be best, or else the computer. The Nintendo systems are known for their "kid-based" play and target audience, so I would rather a system that is targeted at an older generation. A computer would give the option of being moddable, which die-hard fans of games would appreciate.

Overall, it would be a fast-paced RPG, which I think that RPGs are going to evolve into in the future. I think it would sell well (if it were done right, of course), since there aren't many good ones out there (yet). It takes the best of every world and puts it into one game...what isn't to love?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

My game would be inspired by the likes of Ico, Zelda and Myst. My setting would be in a jungle or forest, where the main character wakes up and starts off with nothing, remembers nothing and can only walk and jump. The place is set on Earth, although supernatural elements would appear in the game.

The genre would be adventure with a context sensitive button to explore, observe, open doors and etc. As you progress, skills would be added to your repitoire but instead of being mapped out like Zelda they would be commands found in fighting games just as Street Fighter (Down, down-right, right + punch for fireball etc... only this game won't have fireballs). The rest of the controller apart from the context sensitive button will act as part the character's list of moves.

The character's moves would be somewhat primitive, given that he is just an ordinary boy without any training in martial arts or whatsoever. This also applies to the weapons available, which would be the interactive environment (sticks from trees, rocks as projectiles etc.). Although, as he progresses through the game, he will gain more skills to be able to explore more places, which will be as vast as Zelda TP's field, yet somehow important in the overall structure of the world.

It won't be realistic to the point where every 20 minutes or so you have to feed the character. It'll just be that if you need health or stamina, you kill an animal or get a drink of water.

The aim of the game is to find out what exactly is going on, find clues about your apparent past and find a way to reach contact with another human. The type of ending you get, though, would be entirely up to what you do during the game. For example, if you walk through the jungle wrecklessly and still manage to survive you'll have a different ending to that of when you stay in the jungle and try to gather enough resources to create a fire signal. The longest way to reach an ending would, if I could make this game, be around 40 hours. The shortest way, around 10.

Some endings would involve being found by a search party, actually finding a way out, going the other way (away from the previous ending mentioned) and making it through a desert, and actually finding out the real reason the character ends up there (conspiracies, groups conducting experiments etc.).

You would also need to know your enemies. You can kill the ones you can defeat and use them as food. On the other hand, if you run into "unnatural" enemies (somewhat similar to the mysterious monster on the TV show, Lost) as well as ghosts etc., you run. Well, that until you find the right way or method to defeat them.

Basically, if you want to take the easy way out and ignore clues that lead to the ultimate ending, you'll get little of what the game offers. Put in a lot to find out what really happened with the character, and you'll be rewarded with a rich an deep storyline.

As my intention would be to create an experience, this game would only be for one player. Because of wanting this game to be an experience, the music would be orchestrated and the graphics would be dreamy-like, like in Ico.

The character wouldn't really speak... maybe a few lines now and then talking to himself but that's about it. As for mini-games, I wouldn't like to create mini-games for it as it would detract from "experiencing" the game. Maybe a fishing mini-game. Maybe.

Although it'll fit any console I would rather it be on the Revolution, or any other unorthodoxed console available in the future. Sure, to be able to program all these ideas into a game would require a powerful console, but the interface of the Revolution would involve the player more, which would fulfill what I intended to create in this game.

Long read. Sorry guys.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.