Ideas dump thread

[Orangy Tang]

Go on then, I don't need (yet another) side project but I need to get back to 2d for a change. Dump your 16k game ideas in here for other people to steal implement!

(ps. must be your ideas. No reposting ones from Peter Molydeux )

[pitbuller]

I never have time to do this my self so I can dumb this.
Labyrinth game where player is evil map maker that try to prevent robot with AI for escaping from maze. So it's puzzle game. Map could be basic grid where you can put obstacles and robot have some time/battery limit.
I just want to play this game.

[Fokusas]

I never have time to do this my self so I can dumb this.
Labyrinth game where player is evil map maker that try to prevent robot with AI for escaping from maze. So it's puzzle game. Map could be basic grid where you can put obstacles and robot have some time/battery limit.
I just want to play this game.

I think there is something like that made in flash
try to look in Kong or else

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[princec]

I was just going to do some old 8-bit games, basically. The sort of stuff my wee library should be good at. So Pacman, Defender, Asteroids, that sort of thing. Though asteroids I might do differently.

Cas

[Damocles]

How about an AI player/party trying to fight evil minios, wich you essentially control. (you can only select the critters close to the party)
Like a reverse Diablo.

[Eli Delventhal]

I'd really like to make an anti-hero game where you're trying to keep adventurers out of your evil lair. Like Dungeon Keeper, but different gameplay.

Lawl wow. I have never played the game, just heard the concept, and I just Googled it to find that it's by Molyneux. Ironic. To be honest, I thought of / ripped off the idea while playing a board game called Dungeon Lords, and someone told me later that Dungeon Keeper is basically the same idea.

Still, reading about the gameplay, I'd do something way different. Probably it would be third person and you would actually be the dungeon lord or monster or whatever. I might even make it more like an RPG-ish, where you start out as a minor creature and as you go around sacking villages and whatnot you gain power and notoriety. Eventually you get stronger heroes and you also will be leveling up and getting stronger yourself.

[Damocles]

ha, first

Actually Populus hat lots of these Ideas back then.
Where you play a God, penalising peons.

[StephR]

ha, first

Actually Populus hat lots of these Ideas back then.
Where you play a God, penalising peons.

More recently, the game Babel Rising was very good at putting the player into the shoes of a punishing god. And as a crossing between Dungeon Keeper and Dig Dug, the game Holy invasion of privacy, Badman ! did a good job.

And here are some other ideas for you :
- a vector graphics shoot 'em up in the vein of PixelJunk SideScroller or the venerable Space Fury and Star Castle ;
- a remake of the arcade/tactical game Wargame on the old Colecovision, letting you control the missile defense system of your country against some nuclear attack. Imagine Missile Command with a top-down perspective and not a side one ;
- change an old shoot 'em up into a tactical game, like R-Type Command ;
- a fantasy tactical RPG game like Fire Emblem, where you may play the bad guy ;
- some remake of Hero 30, which is a part of Half-Minute Hero, but with procedurally generated content, like maps and quests ;
- a card game, of poker, and with a girl... I mean Strip Poker 16K ! The challenge would be to get good enough graphics of your partner. Well, you wanted some ideas...

[pitbuller]

Strip poker would be better suited for java4k. Image those filthy 32x32 8-bit color images.

[StephR]

Strip poker would be better suited for java4k. Image those filthy 32x32 8-bit color images.

Actually, there were quite a few strip poker games on 8 bit computers, the Samantha Fox one being the most renowned of them for its impressive graphics. I'm sure it could fit well in the 16K format with the awesome compression tools at our disposal today. But would I give it a try ? No, this was just an idea for Orangy Tang !

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[Alan_W]

I've been wondering whether to do another lwjgl16k, or whether to put together a 4k entry first.  OpenGL does 3D very nicely, so I'm tempted to do a 3D space game, perhaps Elite like.  However I really wanted to land on the planets on Elite, so I might look at how to transition from space flight to conventional flight.  Anyone remember Blakes7? On the 3rd series (IIRC) there were some very nice Head Up Display graphics that changed as the Scorpio changed from Space to Conventional flight.

Another possibility is an underwater exploration game.  dive to the seabed and find wrecks and recover stuff.  I think OpenGL Fog can be repurposed to give that underwater look.  There would be quite a bit of code use from SharpShooter, so fairly easy for me.  Maybe I should watch some of Jerry Anderson's Stingray? - Gameplay would be finding and plundering ever more difficult wrecks.   Maybe success buys equipment upgrades.  Could I do ports, navigation.  Ideas are coming pretty quick on this now.  I might actually make this one.

On a more technical note, I'd like to turn something in that uses shaders.  I've had a look at cel-shading, both in a book and the NeHe tutorial.  Also been looking at procedural foliage.  I'd like to get a look like Higoshigehttp://www.hiroshige.org.uk/, which is pretty much flat shaded, with outlines, but make it 3D.  No gameplay as yet, so this is probably pre-failed, but I'd enjoy a bash at doing the shader.  Maybe I should look at water effects instead and put something together for the aforementioned underwater game.

Free time is my main problem.  I have the week before christmas off, so either a 4k or 16k will be on the cards.

[princec]

Elite would be an excellent choice of game, the entire original game should easily fit in 16kb and then some.

Cas

[Roquen]

Star Control.

[Eli Delventhal]

ha, first

Actually Populus hat lots of these Ideas back then.
Where you play a God, penalising peons.

Maybe I explained wrong - but that's not what I'm talking about at all. I have played Populous, and it's very far from what I'm thinking. Not that I need to explain, really. :-P

But the idea is more that you're in third person (camera following a character) and you're a monster. You do evil / mischievous things to level up, but the more evil stuff you do the more heroes and townsfolk come after you. As you do all this, you can start building a dungeon where you live and make it bigger and give it larger traps - as your character won't be strong enough to beat the stuff coming after you. Instead, you need to hire minions and sort of tower defense your dungeon.

[sproingie]

The dungeon keeper mini-genre has been done a few times, though I'm not aware of any that start you off on the ground floor, or shall we say above ground, as a minion or mere monster.  I like the concept.

I had an idea for a spoof on dungeon crawls where you would run the town on the surface, including keeping the various rival adventurer's guilds in line, getting a steady stream of adventurers, charging admission for the nearby dungeons, dealing with the monster incursions from dungeons, restocking them when adventurers slaughter everything in there, etc.  I have ideas aplenty, motivation is what I lack.

[theagentd]

Deferred shading. It's easily doable.

[Eli Delventhal]

I have ideas aplenty, motivation is what I lack.

Yeah, I'm currently actively working on... 3 major games. Not much time for anything else. And Skyrim. And Zelda. And Minecraft 1.0. And the Game of Thrones books. Egad!

[Alan_W]

Elite would be an excellent choice of game, the entire original game should easily fit in 16kb and then some.

Cas

I roughed up a demo with planets, ships and HUD.  The planets look quite nice, with land and sea.  Planet drawing currently at two resolutions, which is not quite enough for landing.  Looks worth doing properly