Video game ideas that you're sure others would think are a good idea

OK, so a couple of you may have been over at that topic that asks you for video game ideas that you're sure only you think are a good idea. Well, what about those of us that think that others would like our ideas? Now let's see what bright ideas all of us can come up with.

Now my idea, is to make an RPG, and have the main character take up two character slots, one for their body, and one for their mind. Why just the main character? To prevent overloading the player with character slots, but there may be exceptions where other characters may get divided up this way. What to do with that? Well, first of all, the main character's body would be used for the typical RPG-type fighting. The mind version of them however...

• Is affected by attacks differently. Most attacks would have different values for the damage they deal to the body, and the damage they deal to the mind. Some attacks may deal damage the body, leaving the mind unharmed. Full out HannibalLectures would deal damage to the mind while leaving the body unharmed. It may even suffer damage when other characters get damaged (like the main character's Love Interest).
• The main character could equip memories that would affect his physical and mental states in various ways. Equipping a memory of a character would slightly alter the main character's stats (maybe a +/- 1,2 or 3 here and there) to be closer to those of the character as well as possibly giving a spell/ability (sort of a "What would X do?"). I haven't thought of a general effect for equipping the memories of places/objects yet. All of them however, would change the appearance of the sprite occupying the character slot of the main character's mental state. They would also affect the dialog that shows up in battle.
  • If there's going to be a fight where the other party members sit on the sidelines and cheer the main character on, you might consider the possibility of allowing the character to equip extra memories and have those equipped memories fill up the missing character slots. Of course they would default to the characters taken out of the party.
• Has completely different actions. Each of which gets accompanied by a bit of dialog when used. Each of them can be affected by an equipped memory in certain situations.
  • There'd be an "encourage" action that would be meant to be used on allies to provide small beneficial effects along the lines of temporarily raising stats or raising the Limit Break meter. When it's used on the main character, it also heals mind version of them by a small amount. Its use would be accompanied with messages along the lines of "I/you/we can do this", and general compliments. Having the memory of the targeted character equipped will generally make this action more powerful and always make the dialog to go with it more specific.
  • There'd be a "Remember" action that would change the equipped memory. It could have other effects when used in a boss battle, especially if the action is used as a way of responding to the boss' dialog.
    • If doing the party members cheering from the sidelines represented by their places being filled in with extra equipped memories of them, then you might want to disable the "Remember" action for those extra memories.
  • There'd be a special action associated with whatever memory is equipped. A few ideas for them would be...
    • Ignore would defend against mental damage.
    • Insult would either make the target more likely to use normal attacks, more likely to target the main character, or both.
    • Distract would increase the accuracy/power/critical hit chance of the next attack. The accompanying dialog would happen at the time of the attack.
    • Compliment would cause the next action used to be accompanied with a large buffing of whatever stats are associated with that action.
    • Stand up and Fight would work as a revival command for the mental state.
• If the mental state's HP bar empties, the main character will go into a Heroic BSoD and be unable to do anything. This would probably be limited to the physical self so that the main character could still get their mental state healed somehow, though it might prevent the main character's mental state from using certain actions.
  
  Now the main use for this is to mix dialog into the battles. The thing with having the hero take up two character slots in a battle means that you could choose the options for fighting and talking separately, which will encourage the player to make use of the option to talk during the battle. It can also make for an interesting take on Duel Boss battles where the party members sitting on the side lines actually do something that helps. It can also make for an interesting twist on Final-Exam Boss battles.

Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.

Sonic kickball.

I am completely, utterly, and thoroughly done with Sola Sonica and 2D

A mechanic where the enemies actually can have second thoughts, and run away (without just coming back later). i.e. you can do a ridiculously flashy move and intimidate them into just running, avoiding the battle completely.

^I kinda like that idea.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

I didn't read what you read, but I'm in the process of designing a game called The Adventures of Aramil. It incorporates elements from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy, and Rome: Total War. For the last one, it actually turns out to be a lot better than it sounds.

The story: 5000 years ago, the Seven Gods created the Earth, the moon, the sun, the stars, magic, the elves, the humans, the dwarves, and the conflicts between them. Some of the gods are taken from Pagan philosophy, others are taken from Dungeons and Dragons. One is stolen from Death Note:

• Riannan, goddess of nature
• Corelon, god of the elves
• Aiden, god of the humans
• Ellonia, goddess of magic
• Alton, god of civilization
• Ryuk, god of death
• Kord, god of war/strength

Morenion is an evil wizard who takes over the kingdom of Derether. There are several kingdoms, most of them I don't have names for:

• Kingdom of Iyltonia
• Kingdom of Lania
• Kingdom N (not named yet)
• Kingdom Y (not named yet)
• Kingdom X (not named yet)
• Kingdom of Grecia
• Kingdom A (not named yet)
• Kingdom B (did I just break rule 1 and 2?)
• Kingdom L (not named yet)
• Kingdom R (not named yet)
• Derether

Derether's people, army, king, and senators are taken over by the evil sorcerer Morenion via mind control. There are two continents. Morenion has the king of Derether take over Kingdom A, L, and R which are adjacent to each other (they are also the three smallest kingdoms). This all happens before the game. Then Morenion wants to take over the world so he sends out a massive invasion (cough BLITZKRIEG cough). He attacks the Kingdom of Iyltonia (where Aramil lives) in the city of Aust. The player must defeat the battle, but it's pretty easy anyway. Then, you fight some privateers that Derether hired to help take control of the seas. You get word from the leader of the privateers after defeating them that the evil sorcerer Morenion is responsible for this, you get the story of the Seven Gods, etc. He also tells you that Morenion summoned packs of monsters each led by a boss hiding out in dungeons all across the world. You get clues (which are pretty obvious) and you must defeat the dungeon before the boss/horde of monsters can come out and attack the nearest city. Anyway, after you kill the privateers, you take control of their ship. You will defeat four dungeons in Iyltonia, and you will sail to a tropical island and defeat a dungeon there. Then you do a bunch of dungeons, and Rome: Total War-like army battles for all the other kingdoms except Derether. There are impassible mountains surrounding the coast of Derether, so to get into Derether you have to travel underwater (using a spell) and do a Water Temple-like dungeon to go under the country and surface in a river. This will be That One Level just for the fun of it. You go in to Derether and fight a battle in the first city you come to, titled Soveliss after the druid that founded it. So after the Battle of Soveliss is fought, you travel to the capital of Derether (called Deretheria) and fight the most epic battle EVER. (Crowning Moment of Awesome). Then you fight the king of Derether, then you fight Morenion's apprentice, then finally, you fight Morenion himself. But the game's not over yet. There are still the countries that need to be freed from Derether's reign, you haven't killed every troop yet. So you fight about 6 battles and 3 dungeons in the three kingdoms Derether captured, then fight any dungeon that gave extremely vague clues, or no clues at all. Yes, there will be dungeons with no clues at all, just to be a dick.

The controls will be similar to Ocarina of Time. The battles will be you fighting alongside other troops (see Spartan Total Warrior and there will be items. Items! You will get Naptha, similar to bombs in Legend of Zelda but I didn't want to rip them off. There's a bow and arrow, javelins, throwing axes, a grappling hook, and a two-handed sword that you can get in the Battle of Soveliss. You will also have spells that Aramil learns, and I'm taking MP from Final Fantasy. You also have a party with actual GOOD A.I. [gasp!] and they will be equipped similarly. Except you will be the balanced fighter will both spells, good items, and strength, there will also be a Cleric (IE white mage) a Sorcerer (IE black mage) and a monk. The party meets up in the city of Aust when they invade, caught by surprise and in panic, they fight along side each other in defense.

So, watcha think?

Feel free to vandalize me.

Well, to be honest, that sounds kinda like Golden Sun 2.

Never played it. What system is it for?

Feel free to vandalize me.

The Halo series introduced something similar; when you pulled out an Energy Sword, grunts would start running away instantly. However, they actually came back.

In addition to that sort of thing, I want enemy commanders to execute their own troops on the spot for cowardice if they see them run away and are not otherwise preoccupied. Something similar to Warhammer 40k's commissars.

edited 13th Mar '11 5:54:30 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

So, would the fleeing soldiers be more likely to hold ranks if their commander was there?

^^Gameboy Advance

edited 13th Mar '11 6:30:32 PM by IndigoDingo

And as for the mechanic being in Halo, true, but even then you still had to kill them. I sorta mean an example where you could avoid killing them completely - a means of pacifism through intimidation, so to speak, avoiding killing your enemies through a means other than hiding from them.

The thing with enemies running away was in Assasin's Creed 2 (haven't played the first one). Basically, if you performed a high profile kill on a guard and you haven't taken damage, the other guards would get scared and run away.

Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.

@Scardoll: I think a good solution would be a mix between the Commissar and the Officer from Iron Grip: Warlord: He gives Morale to his troops, his troops are less likely to run away and those that do are shot on-sight to boost Morale. If he's killed, however, troops lose Morale and are more likely to run.

Hell, while we're at it, let's throw in the Confessor from Command And Conquer 3 and allow the hypothetical Commissar-Officer hybrid to give an additional passive buff to troops within a certain radius of him.

edited 13th Mar '11 7:04:23 PM by RocketDude

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

A Tails Virtual Paper Doll.

Oh, and a Darker and Edgier reboot of Nicktoons Unite, after the Franchise Killer Globs of Doom. It will be 2D. The plot will be that Plankton has conquered all of the Nicktoons worlds. It's not pretty.

Playable Characters:

• Sponge Bob
• Patrick
• Rango
• Sandy
• Squidward
• Danny Phantom
• Technus
• Skulker
• Ember
• XJ-9
• Snap
• Dudley Puppy
• Aang
• Toph
• Zuko
• Katara
• Mr. Krabs
• Kitty Kattswell
• Timmy Turner
• Ickis
• Mermaid Man
• Mrs. Puff

And many more

edited 13th Mar '11 7:34:45 PM by miru

I am completely, utterly, and thoroughly done with Sola Sonica and 2D

@Indigo Dingo: You could perform a stickup on enemies in the SWAT series, even armed ones, even at range, if you got the drop on them.

Eric,

A 3D Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up. Bonus points if it is NOT a space shooter type.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

I remember doing that, but even then the AI left them attacking you anyway. And that wasn't a skill thing so much as getting the drop on them.

It could (unless you cuffed them first) send them off running around the level, that only allowed them to become a problem because the main requirement for level completion in SWAT was the neutralization of all foes. If a similar mechanic was in a game that allowed you to proceed regardless of enemy presence, I think it would fit that pretty well.

For instance, another game with a similar feature was Chicago 1930, though the game sucked otherwise, you could hold up gunmen at range, get the rest of your team past the paralyzed enemies, and then the guy you had covering the enemy could edge to a corner and run for it before they had a chance to plug him.

Eric,

I'm talking more about doing something that would otherwise be Awesome, but Impractical. I'm picuring more a God of War situation here - while they're charging towards you, you pull off an awesome combo that doesn't hit anyone, but looks incredibl deadly, and they all just turn around and run.

An RPG that expects and encourages you to rely heavily upon status effects might be nice. Maybe give it a wider variety of status effects than the average RPG. Avert the usual Contractual Boss Immunity to status effects. Make it so that the player will value remedies over mega elixirs. It could be fun.

Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.

^ Etrian Odyssey came pretty close. Statuses can be crippling to bosses. Especially bosses that require you to kill them while statused to gain unlock their drops.

edited 13th Mar '11 10:41:17 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

More Psychonauts.

I'm pretty sure everyone else thinks that woul;d be a good idea.

I would enjoy that, but I don't think they're going to risk another commercial failure.

Except me, I didint really liked it :(

I just find it funny how I bought it without knowing it was underrated.

Althougt I guess it was a good game for everyone else, so I guess it should come...

edited 14th Mar '11 3:06:22 AM by NONAMEGIVEN

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death itself may die."

@Indigo Dingo: Ah, then a typical WRPG fear effect (sometimes spells, sometimes something more mundane like &ldquo:Frightful Presence”) would fit the bill. Use it, watch everybody who fails their willpower check instantly curl into the fetal position or run for the exit grid, if that's everyone on the map you win by default. That would be pretty awesome in an action game.

@Marker Mage: From what I've read, combat in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise is basically all about abusing status effects.

Eric,

More games that center around a "restoring the world" sort of mechanic. Soul Blazer, Terranigma, and Okami, for example.

Stargate SG-1 Let's Watch. Because my ZHP thing failed.