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.
My idea for a game is opening Unity, opening up a beginner tutorial to look at for 10 minutes, then closing Unity and feeling sad
no but seriously I have a load of little ideas, I have very few specific ones. Lately I've been thinking about a class-based multiplayer FPS similar to Team Fortress 2 that's been mostly fueled by me thinking of mildly interesting weapon ideas and trying to theorycraft how to make a sniper interesting and engaging to fight against as as a non-sniper (I get headshot a lot in every video game and I am 100% mad). Most of my ideas are very vague like this.
A more concrete idea I had a while ago that I'm kind of fond of was a cyberpunk RPG, the initial idea was it was mission based with odd jobs and that typical sort of Shadowrun corporate mercenary stuff, but that could easily be changed into a different format and I'm not too attached to it. The other side of the game is that you have your actual regular life in your shitty apartment, and it's sort of a very light life sim with affording rent, buying food, paying the electric bill, furnishing the apartment, etc. alongside buying any sort of "player character gear" like ammunition and medicine and this is at its core really just managing money. However, you also have a Stress mechanic which acts as a sort of a lump sum of psychological needs; various things in the "regular" part of gameplay, like combat, can increase it, and high levels of Stress have direct negative effects, whether that's shaky aim or stat debuffs. Various comforts decrease Stress, and that can be nicer food, a nicer electronic thing, drugs, buying and caring for a pet, and all of that obviously costs more money. From a narrative perspective it's a good way of keeping in mind that the player character is still a human being who's not going to enjoy getting in a gunfight then sitting in an empty dark room eating exactly 2000 calories of nutrient paste, and from a gameplay perspective it gives two conflicting goals that prevent the player from just getting the cheapest possible options to keep their character alive.
That one is about as detailed as my ideas get, I don't think I can focus on something like this any further without being able to actualize it. Sorry if this post is kinda all over the place I'm a little sleep deprived.
The best sniper tools I've seen in games are projectiles like (cross)bows, telegraphed charge beams like the Spartan Laser, and some really esoteric things like the Smoker from L4D. You need interaction to make things interesting, instant invisible death is boring
That's a really good idea, it shows exactly where and when the shot is going to be so you can react to it, instead of just showing the sniper's presence like the TF2 dot or Battlefield scope glint.
I should find an online game with easy modding tools, I want to rapid prototype this sort of stuff