Bad/Overly-Ambitious Game Ideas

[SalmonWine]

Let me tell you a story about my attempted first game, The Four

Fundamentally, if this game were to be made it would NOT be made in RMMV, but seeing as how it was the only program avaliable to me (on free trial, mind you) i tried to use it. It taught me a LOT of hard lessons about making games. Namely, don't over do it.

So, The Four was a game based around the idea of being a space traveler who crash lands on an alien planet. From there, you choose what tribe out of a group of, you guessed it, four. All of them were based around a specific trait or ability that made them powerful. The goal was to wipe out the other three tribes. To this day, this still seems like it could be a good idea to me.

But then I ran into every problem all of you experts are likely imagining I immediately ran into.

Balancing issues, the absolute pain in the ass that is creating all of the characters, trying to find an actual reason to fight these other groups, and the list goes on.

Yet, still, I look back fondly upon the idea. So that makes me wonder, any of you guys have any bad game ideas or games that were way too much to make that you still remember? And, do you think it could someday be brought to light and actually done?

 

[Cunechan]

I don't really have many bad ideas but badly realizeable game ideas. Best examples are a harvest moon type, animals crossing or skyrim like game. Damn i know how you feel ewe
My first real serious game was supposed to be a Harvest moon/animals crossing like game. It went well, then i got stuck with the graphics and where which character is and when. The worst problem was making a farming system like in Harvest moon ds. This was such a mess xD just like random items spawning on the floor.

Ahh actually I'd love to make this game again <3 (now i have the experience and know how to handle the scripts but I'm unsure if it's worth the time making it)

 

[hbn]

Let me tell you a story about my attempted first game, The Four

Fundamentally, if this game were to be made it would NOT be made in RMMV, but seeing as how it was the only program avaliable to me (on free trial, mind you) i tried to use it. It taught me a LOT of hard lessons about making games. Namely, don't over do it.

So, The Four was a game based around the idea of being a space traveler who crash lands on an alien planet. From there, you choose what tribe out of a group of, you guessed it, four. All of them were based around a specific trait or ability that made them powerful. The goal was to wipe out the other three tribes. To this day, this still seems like it could be a good idea to me.

But then I ran into every problem all of you experts are likely imagining I immediately ran into.

Balancing issues, the absolute pain in the ass that is creating all of the characters, trying to find an actual reason to fight these other groups, and the list goes on.

Yet, still, I look back fondly upon the idea. So that makes me wonder, any of you guys have any bad game ideas or games that were way too much to make that you still remember? And, do you think it could someday be brought to light and actually done?

Using variables and enough eventing, the concept sounds possible. Reason to fight? You'd have to think of backstory for that but then not all games apply logic.

------

My first attempt at creating was using RPG Maker XP, nooby first attempt, didn't think much about story, mechanics, etc. I've since lost the project and the demo, because it was uploaded to FileFront that then had a mass clearout. There wasn't any story logic there either, other than from what I recall, this guy ventured out of his house for no reason, moved down a map, saw another character being attacked by a monster, rescued her and added her to his party, she was going to the town because her father was sick, and then you had to go through a haunted forest. Most I recall was using Meridian Dance music for the boss theme, back when things used midis. To my delight though, that music looped perfectly though.

I scrapped that and moved onto an unrelated sequel of sorts, well... it borrowed the same title. The idea I had for that project morphed eventually into the project I'm currently working on. It would be unrecognisable, other than two character names now but that was also designed to be an RMXP project, but since then that gained to be too ambitious with what my skills and funds could do. I wanted to have skill learning system, I wanted to have some more customised maps, custom music, characters, then the full Minkov's Animated Battlers, custom menus, a custom targeting system, etc. So many things that I couldn't possibly implement and lacking so many things that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the finished outcome. Biggest stumbling block was the Minkov's Animated Battler system though. As fantastic as though they look, the amount of sprite movements required, made it impossible to do without a talented enough spritist.

I've since moved the project on to RMMV. The increased features mean it will be easier to port my project to a wider audience, JavaScript is more accessible than Ruby to learn, although it seems that way because it's also a web language and the base features allow you to do more without the need for custom scripts. That said I'm getting too ambitious again with the project. I want a custom menu, I want a custom augment system, a more customised battle system that animates enemies, and moves battlers in physical attacks, etc.

Perhaps I'll be able to learn JS and do it myself, perhaps I might be able to fund enough money to hire someone to create them for me, who knows... same would have to apply with creating enemies that you can battle, but between then I've just been more focussing on world creation stuff, backstory, layout, character design and development, theories. I've got the outline of the plot but not the full story and I'm also now wondering if the size of the world I'm after might end up slowing the story down too much. I've designed it to be somewhat open world without the use of an overmap but it might cause too much time to be taken up travelling, unless I manage to fill the story.

Whilst working on the backstory I did plan on creating a basic project using only the RTP and the message script for RMXP but that has kinda fallen by the wayside now.

 

[Phil]

Let me tell you a story about my attempted first game, The Four

Fundamentally, if this game were to be made it would NOT be made in RMMV, but seeing as how it was the only program avaliable to me (on free trial, mind you) i tried to use it. It taught me a LOT of hard lessons about making games. Namely, don't over do it.

So, The Four was a game based around the idea of being a space traveler who crash lands on an alien planet. From there, you choose what tribe out of a group of, you guessed it, four. All of them were based around a specific trait or ability that made them powerful. The goal was to wipe out the other three tribes. To this day, this still seems like it could be a good idea to me.

But then I ran into every problem all of you experts are likely imagining I immediately ran into.

Balancing issues, the absolute pain in the ass that is creating all of the characters, trying to find an actual reason to fight these other groups, and the list goes on.

Yet, still, I look back fondly upon the idea. So that makes me wonder, any of you guys have any bad game ideas or games that were way too much to make that you still remember? And, do you think it could someday be brought to light and actually done?

I think it is achievable

I don't really have many bad ideas but badly realizeable game ideas. Best examples are a harvest moon type, animals crossing or skyrim like game. Damn i know how you feel ewe
My first real serious game was supposed to be a Harvest moon/animals crossing like game. It went well, then i got stuck with the graphics and where which character is and when. The worst problem was making a farming system like in Harvest moon ds. This was such a mess xD just like random items spawning on the floor.

Ahh actually I'd love to make this game again <3 (now i have the experience and know how to handle the scripts but I'm unsure if it's worth the time making it)

It is worth the time if you enjoy doing it.

 

[Cunechan]

Yeah, you're right^^ It just feels like...life is too short and I have priorities on which games I want to get done. This sounds weird, lol

 

[Phil]

Yeah, you're right^^ It just feels like...life is too short and I have priorities on which games I want to get done. This sounds weird, lol

Life is short because the pain of death makes death feels long.

 

[Companion Wulf]

My overly ambitious project was The Gladiator Project, which was a plot-driven gladiatorial type game, which in turn was a variation on a simple hack-and-slash I did for RM2000 (just with an actual plot). It was first conceived as an idea for RMXP, but that was completely abandoned in favour of RMVX.

The problems weren't in creating the game itself, but in the amount of scripting that it would take to have a working - and workable - system. I literally bit off more than I could chew because my knowledge of RGSS was (and still is) very limited. This meant that I couldn't get things to work properly and needed to take even more time learning RGSS than actually developing the game.

Although I reached out for help (and was met with a lot of contention), eventually the project was abandoned. But, I certainly learned a lot in the process. And, maybe one day, I'll revisit development on this game for RMMV (since my knowledge of JS is better than RGSS).