Now that 24 hours have passed we have our winner!
A huge thanks to @frezik@midwest.social for suggesting this awesome idea!
A survival crafting game where the tech tree goes backwards. You start in a prepper hole with working water filtration, food sources, etc, and everything is nice. Then something breaks and maybe you fix it. Something else breaks and maybe you fix that. Three things break at once, and at least one of them is going to stay broken. Have to do something more primitive and time consuming.
Eventually, enough things break that it’s no longer sustainable and you die. Game ranks you based on how long you last.
I would also like to thank every person in the comments for making their wonderful suggestions! I’ve read through every single one of them and all of them are really good!
You can view the game’s code at https://github.com/SamLeeway/project-196, which is currently empty at the time of writing this, but every day from now I will contribute code there.
The game currently does not have any name other than “Project 196”, so I will probably host a poll when we have at least something playable.
When the game would be playable? Making games ain’t easy so it’s pretty hard to estimate. I would say in around a week or so I should have a rough prototype if things go right.
Update
Didn’t really have much time to work on this this week, so my week estimate is going out of the window. I will not estimate anymore. But I am still working on things, so game will happen. :)
One thing I think is severely underutilized is acquisition of limited information as a game mechanic.
Like, having the information available to the player change depending on how they build a character or interact with the world. So like, rather than just having the player know what the health of enemies is, or know exactly where things are with a compass, or being able to pinpoint their location on the map.
I play a lot of strategy games and particularly in those I think having to manage how orders get to units and information on what they see getting from them to me would be really interesting as more of a focus.
Or like in management games the player often has perfect information on the state of the market or organization they’re running, what if like, you had to get that through Jerry from accounting? What if Jerry lied? What if having to figure out Jerry from accounting is under reporting something to skim off the top was a game mechanic?
Fuck Jerry, man
This game would frustrate the fuck out of me and I suspect others.
The challenge of the game shifts from the management of resources with complete information to I’m gambling about what information is coming in is reliable.
I don’t think this would be a fun gameplay experience.
The game play is as much about managing your information and access to it. Information becomes a resource that needs infrastructure and investment in. I’ve played some games that have elements of this, notably radio commander, and I found it very engaging but that’s because the game was designed around the concept rather than tacking it on to something without forethought.
An example of this in a management type game would be in CK3/2 where vassals and court members often have their own plans and motives that need to be accounted for, manipulated and planned around. Without this the game might be rather dull TBH.