I'm building a portfolio so I can try to get a job doing environment art. I have a little bit of an idea how the art-end of game dev works. However I can't help but to think about what games I would make if I was a project director or lead designer. What are your game ideas? They can be as unrealistic or realistic as you like. Big or small.
Mine:
I want to do an immersive sim with retro graphics and homage Deus Ex, Systemshock, and even VTMB (in terms of atmosphere). A grungy cyberpunk game where it's night all the time. I want to bring in TrueAnon type conspiracy stuff to replace the more reactionary elements of DE. Large semi-open world environments set in various locations. The PNW or NoCal for rural forested areas inhabited by militias. Suburban areas with a retrofuturistic 90s vibe. Large high-tech dirty cities. The good gameplay qualites of Deus Ex but updated and with QoL improvements. Though I would probably get rid of the squeenix quest marker and hand-holdy stuff. Make the player have to talk to NPCs and look around to figure things out. I would keep the graphical fidelity comparable, but ramp up the size and amount of stuff in the game. Environments would be full of vignettes and minigames. Make it so that not playing the story is rewarding and fulfilling too.
Another one is a spiritual sequel to San Andreas. Set it in CA, NV, OR, and WA. Set in the mid 90s instead of early 90s. A single open-world. Absolute tons of mini games and side-shit to do. Bring in skateboarding and the real BMX gameplay that never made it into SA. Improve the gang recruitment and territory system. Create real factions between the police, gangs, and feds. Increase dating mechanics. Tons of weapons. More B&E mini-games. Drug selling sim that you can actually scale up and make a business out of. Probably simulate some kind of economy in the game. Deep character customization. Tons of vehicles. Heists. Casinos. Casino management. Street racing. Car customization. Improved tagging. Just tons of content. Again, I would keep the graphics roughly the same, just include more stuff.
I need a city sim/logistics sim game but set in world with a centrally planned economy. The city sim stuff would focus on urbanization and good city planning. The logistics stuff would supplement that and lend restrictions to what you can or can't do. Like cash would in a traditional city sim. Not only would you be responsible for your sims and their city, but you need to create and operate supply lines as well. Like a mix of Factorio, Skylines, and Railway Empire. I have more specific ideas on how this would work, but I've already wrote enough for one post.
I believe a large part of the lack of building items problem lies in inventory limitations. Having 10 different types of sloping dark oak planks would be really great for building and creative, but it would be a war crime to hassle with the current inventory system.
I was thinking of an inventory system that deals with raw materials, and automatically crafts certain items within an unlocked crafting tree (which essentially allows for making everything that you've gotten the resources for). Instead of crafting individual sloping slab types and trims and whatnot, a player could select a trim or item to place through a creative menu and it would automatically expend whatever resources go into that craft, and digging it up doesn't give you the trim and instead gives back whatever wood was used for that item. With such a system there wouldn't be room for things like Silk Touch, but it wouldn't matter if every single block in the game was craftable. It really is tragic that players have the need to put buttons on blocks for extra build depth.
I'm somewhat skeptical of the uses for automation, especially with how it scales for low-powered computers and servers (which is a part of why I wanted automatons to be the big baddies lol). Concerning basic common materials, I think the world should be rewarding enough by exploring and slashing away. Since there wouldn't be an inventory cap problem, there shouldn't be a reason for something like a spider to drop only 3 strings. I also think periodically replenishing loot chests could solve many procurement problems (so there is a reliable supply of certain items, and so there would be a reason to go back to places that have been raided before, and the really good chests could be valuable info to share, and there would be that much more of a reason to go out and try to find the best loot dungeons). The cycle for replenishment would have to be fairly long (and probably semi-randomly determined) so it wouldn't be gamed as much.
Concering Minecraft though, Mojang has been adamant about how there won't be a Minecraft 2. Everything is going into their main game, for better or worse. That's why something different from someone else would be necessary to have a more fleshed-out game.
That's a good point about the inventory. I was thinking too, i tend to focus a lot on building stuff when I play. Having a blueprints feature like factorio would be nice. I hate building a complex thing and then having to keep doing it over and over. It would be nice to build your own prefabs and then be able to place them in the world if you have the materials for it.
I would find it funny if someone littered the world with their copy/pasted dirt hut in the most random places one could imagine