Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky battles, have a sims game that simulates more than just sims needs, but whole economies, or a dystopian horror game set in a Minecraft style world. So I was wondering if anyone else had similar ideas for games or fantasies for possible games?
What’s your ideas for games that doesn’t really exist, or might not even really be possible to make?
I want Spore, but modern and better.
It’s called Stellaris, but it’s only the last stage of Spore.
I was watching The Spiffing Brit’s exploit video of Spore. It definitely made me wish for a modern Spore game. To be clear, the visuals don’t need to be much better just better lighting and it’d look modern enough. If they overhauled the gameplay systems then it could be a 10/10 game.
I had an idea of a game where you played as a photojournalist documenting the brutality of a near-future totalitarian regime. There would be elements of stealth because you’d have to evade the police to take your photos and you have pretty much no combat ability. You’d use your earnings from selling the photos to gradually upgrade your equipment, maybe starting off with a shitty cell phone camera and working your way up to professional quality full frame SLRs. I’d want it to simulate the workings of a real camera… f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, etc., so you’re challenged with getting good, usable photos in difficult conditions.
Beyond Good and Evil is this, but it’s almost 15 years old so not quite at that level of complexity.
This is more or less what I wish Beyond Good And Evil had been. The combat in that game wasn’t good but I liked the idea of having to photograph evidence and getting photos of wildlife on the side to earn some money. It wasn’t nearly as fleshed out as your idea though.
This is a really cool concept and I like it a lot.
You know, that sounds sick actually. Especially if it was more sandboxy than linear, and also had some kind of survival system (pay for food/rent) to add tension and encourage risk taking when snooping around.
A Spiderman game without the Spider part?
So, just a man game?
No gorls allowed
Something with environmentalist and sustainability goals and principles rather than forms of destruction. I don’t want to kill things or chop down trees or blow stuff up. The world is difficult and I am tired.
Just in case you haven’t seen it already, check out Terra Nil! It’s such a chill game, the perfect answer to “The world is difficult and I am tired”
This does sound very good. I’ll need something better than the weak laptop I’m using just now. Something to think about. Thanks for the suggestion.
It also has a mobile and tablet version available through a Netflix subscription if you have one.
Might try a month’s sub to Netflix for some Korean drama this winter. Will keep this in mind if I do. Thanks.
As someone else mentioned, Terra Nil is exactly this, another good one is Eco. You do chop down trees and mine and stuff but the goal is to be environmentally sustainable. The goal is to stop a meteor from blowing up your planet but you need to sustainably get there otherwise you’ll end up polluting the planet and making stuff worse in the process. Underrated but really good
Thank you for the suggestion. This is another reason to get a better computer :)
you should check out Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, it’s awesome and fits perfectly in your description
Thank you, I will give this a go :)
The anti-factorio
It’s loosely related. But at it’s core Death Stranding is about rebuilding a nation after a massive ecological disaster.
Community organizing, the game… Movement building, organizer training, etc… It could be something pretty low tech and still be interesting, thinking like Oregon Trail or a MUD.
Search and Rescue game. I’m not really a pacifist, I don’t have a problem with violence in games. But it would he nice to have an action game that didn’t involve slaughtering endless waves of mooks for a change.
There’s plenty of adrenaline, skill and gear porn to be had in the genre, so why don’t we see more of it?
Not sure if It’s what you’re looking for, but have you tried Stormworks: Build and Rescue?
I’ve picked it up at the last steam sale, but not gotten around to playing it yet.
It’s not search and rescue as such, but Snowrunner is a cool take on disaster recovery. The action comes from a weird place, too; driving slowly over difficult terrain. You need to react quickly and keep your wits about you all while doing 4mph. Crawling through mud in an eight-wheeled truck while desperately trying not to tip over.
It’s an odd mixture of relaxation, sheer frustration, and job satisfaction. Oh and there’s plenty of gear porn if you like ridiculously powerful machinery too.
I’ve not heard of it, but will check it out omfor sure!
I want Star Citizen… The Star Citizen that was promised in the Kickstarter… Still waiting.
Star Citizen, lmao
I would like a language learning video game which is set up as a MMO, and you “reverse” level. You start with massive equipment because you need it to be able to fight the learning monsters, but as you get more proficient you get hit less(fewer mistakes) and do more damage (faster language entry) so you can start dropping equipment. So the monk running around in a loin cloth is the goal. All sorts of multi-player interactions are possible around setting up conversations, handling larger readings, etc.
this sounds awesome. I don’t know if it’s on your radar but there’s a game coming out called Newcomer that looks like a half decent language learning video game.
That’s the one I was trying to remember, I’d heard about it back when it was just starting out! Unfortunately, it still doesn’t support türkçe, and I’m not exactly in the position as a learner to help add it or I’d be all over that :(
That sounds great. I think there should definitely be more educational games for grown ups along this line
Something like RDR2 but focused on the life sim part. Instead of narrative driven game where your main action in the world is violence, go all in on the simulation part with actually working economics, job choices etc.
I want to be a lumberjack hauling wood to the local mill via the river, not a bandit robbing every passer by. Also, I should be able to buy high heels from the big city store.
I take it you’re okay?
There are roleplay servers for modded RDR2 online (RedM) where you can actually do this. I just started playing on one with some mates and it’s a player driven economy, so if people need wood they either have to chop it themselves or someone has to do it for them. I haven’t tried it personally but you start with an axe and there seem to be areas where you can chop wood. I just like wandering about picking flowers and saying yeehaw to people.
Makes me think of Shenmue but with different theming.
A lighthearted and colorful Soulslike RPG with actual multiplayer. I want to run around in a BotW/TotK style world and go adventuring with friends, while still feeling like the combat is challenging. I want to be able to head into a dangerous dungeon with friends and not be sure we’ll make it out, while having a more storybook fantasy vibe. Too many game opt for gritty apocalypse worlds. The recent Zeldas show that you don’t need to go grimdark to have a compelling fantasy world, while still retaining a save the world vibe.
Im super bummed at the lack of real co op these days. I see people cry that not every game needs to be multiplayer when people ask for co op. but all we want is to be able to play a cool open world with a decent story with 1 or 2 friends :'(. Im so bummed dragons dogma 2 is still singleplayer
Especially since it already has party mechanics built in. Why can’t they just swap out pawns for your friends? I get it wouldn’t really fit the story, but that can be handwaved.
Outward meets this pretty well. It might not be quite storybook but it’s far from grimdark. Soulslike, full coop - definitely has the “might not make it back from a dangerous dungeon”. Only thing you might not like is some light survival mechanics (ie food and water).
- Sealed room murder mystery, with no quirky characters. And with puzzles that require you to wiki stuff.
- RPG that takes place outside of western European / American / Japanese setting. I wanna see games that take place in Korea, India, Africa
- RPG that takes place in a small city where you can interact with most people, a small open world like Kamurocho (maybe larger), but allows interaction with most people, instead of just handful of quest givers.
- Igavania but with modern sci-fi settings. Shadow Complex exists, but that’s more metroidvania (no leveling up or equipment drops from enemies)
- Flight simulator but for road trip. Truck simulator but with real world map data
- Flight simulator but for underwater exploration, with real world data.
- PS3 Africa, but expanded to more regions, more animals.
- God of War, but other mythologies, e.g. Egyptian, Chinese, South East Asians, Africans, Polynesians, etc.
Sealed room murder mystery, with no quirky characters. And with puzzles that require you to wiki stuff.
It’s not exactly that, but have you played Return of the Obra Dinn?
Yes, I love that game.
Also Lucas Pope surprised me when he used Minnan / Hokkien / Formosan language in that game, it’s very close to my native tongue.
But of course
spoiler
the game is less of a sealed murder mystery, more of a supernatural mystery. While I would love to see a realistic whodunnit, that requires you to research on physics / chemistry / actual real life tools, etc.
Yeah, like I said it’s not an exact match, but if you hadn’t tried it I thought perhaps it would scratch that same deduction itch. Plus it has that Wiki element since a fair bit of clues are based around cultural and nautical history as well as languages and dialects.
Not so much physics and chemistry, though.
Polynesian for the original source of mana as a loan word would be cool. I also find stuff like Aztec would work really well for an RPG.
If I had a wish though, it would probably be to make a scaled down world that samples most of the historical cultures of each continent. Then do something where quests need you to do a bit of syncretism to solve them.
For ETS2 and ATS there’s Promods, which I believe mostly emulate the real world. I don’t know how accurate they are, though.
ETS2 and ATS work both really well as road trip games, though they’re both in 1:19 scale afaik. Promods don’t change the scale, just add massive amounts of new content to it.
I regularly play multi-player convoy with my friends, where we just set up a spotify playlist that we sync through discord and cruise around.
Ahh, I haven’t used Promods (missing one dlc lol) so didn’t know about the scale thing. The games are definitely very chill to drive in though.
One limitation that games like Civ suffer from is that diplomacy is ultimately pretty shallow because there can only be one winner, so even when you’re building alliances or trading relationships it is generally to gain some temporary benefit until you are in a position to defeat your partner later on (whether militarily, scientifically, etc).
What I would love to see is a multiplayer game like Civ but where each player has independent win conditions (so that a game could have multiple winners, or no winners). The condition could even just be to attain a certain level of happiness or wealth. And if you achieve that then you win even if other nations are bigger or stronger, and conversely if you don’t achieve it you lose even if you are the last nation standing. So decisions to go to war, or focus on technological development, or build alliances or trading relationships, etc, are driven by the wants and needs of your own people and not just a need to dominate others.
even when you’re building alliances or trading relationships it is generally to gain some temporary benefit until you are in a position to defeat your partner later on (whether militarily, scientifically, etc).
This is exactly what made me gravitate away from Civ games and more towards Paradox strategy, where the AI actually behaves more like a real country would do instead of a player trying to win a game.
It’s been decades since I last played a civ game, and never played multiplayer, but I thought they had a version of this?
I was much younger then and only interested in battles and spectacle, so never tried them, but I do remember other victory conditions beyond kill everyone else.
There are multiple victory conditions in civ like science, culture, war, and so on. But only one player can win still, no matter what condition they use, which is the main point OP was trying to make
There are definitely other win conditions, but it’s still winner-takes-all. So say if an ally is really strong scientifically or culturally it inevitably becomes in your interest to destroy them.
I think I’d like that if there was a single winner as well. Something like to win you need to complete two objectives, one public and one secret. So other players can still work against you but they dont know what you’re trying to do.
I’d love for something like a watchmaker simulator to exist. You’d get broken watches, and you’d be tasked to take them apart, clean them and fix them up. Basically, something very similar to those almost ASMR videos on youtube where someone restores those completely broken things into a pristine state.
That’s actually both very doable and marketable.
I just want a high quality horse game. Is that so much to ask? :( Apparently so.
And I mean, specifically focused on the horses, not an adventure game with unusually well done “horses as cars” like RDR2 or Zelda BOTW. A “girly” horse game, like one where you take care of and breed horses and participate in horse jumping or whatever, or one where you ride a horse around a forest and it has an actual personality and acts like an animal and not just a mode of transportation (Shadow of the Colossus is the one game I can remember feeling anywhere close to this, and even that was very minimal).
It’s maddening because the minute someone makes one it’ll sell like hotcakes - there are so many horse enthusiasts dismayed by the lack of quality horse games just waiting in the wings - aaaaand yet here we are. Sigh.
Have you seen https://www.themanequest.com/? It’s aimed at people like you trying to find a high-quality horse game. Tons of reviews of horse games on that site. I’m not even into horses but the website captivated me anyways.
I’m not sure if you’re bringing this up because of the new Sims 4 expansion, but I thought Sims 3 Pets did a pretty good job with the horses and comes close to what you’re describing, but I’m guessing you want something more in line with a traditional RPG.
I want a historically accurate trading simulation set in the early modern period: I want a multitude of ever-changing regional hard, soft and bookkeeping currencies, also bills of exchange, individual units of measurement for each product, paying in kind, putting sth. on the cuff, installments, various per item or volume based taxations, tolls, tithes, tenure, social privileges, staple rights, scheduled trade fairs, regulated fixed prices, lot sales, return freight, regulated transportational services, craft and trading legislation, significance of saint days, city level legislation, guilds and other corporations, the very relevant concepts of honor, contemporary obligations of social responsibility, familial structures and needs for a network of professional connections, monasteries as large economical entities, etc. pp.
All tycoons I have played just reproduce a shallow version of our current concepts of money and trade and skin it with historical images without even trying to research the historical setting they’re in. They add complexity in many other ways that don’t focus on trade (i.e. combat).
No fighting. No leveling. No building. Just trade.
That does sound fun. Would be difficult to make and play, but sounds fun.
It’s not historical, but you can play Eve and get all this. The economy is almost entirely player driven, and is tied into industry and logistics - also all entirely player driven. Prices and demand shift, and of course you can also scam people out of everything if you want.
You can be one of the most successful players and not ever fire a shot.
Thanks for the suggestion! Eve is a nice trading simulation, from all I have heard. Many friends have suggested it to me, but I have not yet played it. The required time investment and grind of MMOs is what‘s scaring me off. The older I get, the more I enjoy offline games that I can pause at any time.
However, I don’t believe (from my outside perspective) that trading in Eve is a good simulation of trade in the early modern period.
@Tarte Saving your comment to help me research international trade.
I want a Persona game but with the characters in college instead of highschool.
Maybe Shin Megami Tensei has older characters? But the problem is the vibe is so different. A lot of anime/manga with older characters go for a completely different tone. The friendship and family theme heart of the Persona games, and the hopefulness, is essential to me. I just want some of that hope for but targeted at adults for once.
Imo “adult” aimed media often has a real problem with conflating maturity with misery and sex. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way because it’s gotta be part of why so many adults still read YA books and play games with precocious teenage protagonists.
