Following recent discussions by abookofcreatures, I suddenly find myself in dire need of a Pokemon fangame where the dex is written like a medieval bestiary.
Stuff I've always wanted: An MMO with no NPCs, no stats, no levels, no XP, no quests, no safe towns, no significant loot. Just players and an overarching goal, such as an underground railroad through enemy territory. Your winningness is based on a function of how far you've got and how many you've helped on their way. Persistent environment, with reinforcements eventually getting sent down the line to retake cleared/conquered areas. If a pass needs to be taken, a supply convoy raided or a bastion stormed, someone needs to organize that. You'd need scouts to actually scout and report movements, troop numbers, etc. You'd need *actual* leadership skills to plan missions, collate intelligence, organize troops, hire assassins, etc. You could totally sell people out to the enemy as well - and so have a rep system to keep track of competence / trustworthiness levels. Dwarf-fallout-rimworld-banished: loot and reboot. Colony-management game in a very-suddenly-depopulated earth. Maybe a hundred random survivors of some rapture-like event in a big city. Set up a base, organize looting expeditions to gather food, supplies, survivors. Organize labour. work out critical skillsets, critical paths, etc. All the fuel in all the cars is slowly turning to varnish, so you'll need to be done with major transport requirements within six months. Does anyone here know how to grow potatoes? What books do we need to save from libraries? Did anyone rescue any livestock from farms before it all starved? What are they feeding them? What skills do we need to preserve? When should people need to start having children (and how many unproductive mouths can we feed, how many resources can we spend on looking after them?) How many calories a day can we grow or loot. and how many calories will it take to gather them? Has anyone organized supplies by shelf-life and nutritional content? How the hell do you restart the supply chain when you need a supply chain to have a supply chain? Is our only mechanic on latrine duty again?
are there any games with a Truman Show plot? something that starts out as a normal RPG and you gradually learn that the npcs are all aware that they’re playing characters designed specifically to entertain you. could be on a meta level, where they know they’re literally fictional characters, or something more like the Truman Show where the PC is being bamboozled into thinking they’re the leader of an epic quest for some reason. I know there are a lot of games with meta themes but I can’t think of something that fits this exact bill. if it does exist I would love to know!!! and if it doesn’t exist, *points at thread title* something that’s always fascinated me about vidyagames is how the worlds can feel very real, but they’re always filled with characters who don’t act like actual people, at least when they’re interacting with the PC. they say and do things no one would say or do because in order to keep the player invested, the whole world needs to revolve around them, be open to them. not just the main quest but the details of anyone’s life who they care to butt into! the only refuge is in irrelevance, to be so devoid of personality that all you do is repeat the same four sentences over and over again. Bethesda games and the Dragon Age series are the culprits standing out the most to me atm but I know that like every RPG does this. I’m very tired and maybe not explaining this well but I would really enjoy a game that digs into this dissonance.
I haven't investigated for myself yet but apparently this is the underlying framework of Okage: Shadow King https://vastderp.tumblr.com/post/178235657441/okage-shadow-king-is-such-a-great-little-game Spoiler In short, characters are given official "classifications" that define their narrative role, and are then magically compelled to conform to that role. This includes things like 'comic relief' and 'Evil King'.
Just gonna quote this over from Fic That Needs To Exist because Ace Attorney fangames that need to exist count as both:
Not sure if I actually want this to exist, but a third-person shooter in a curved space. Like, if it were a first-person shooter then when you fire straight ahead it looks like you're firing in a straight line, but in third-person, you're off-center and so it looks like all your shots curve. Also movement would be similarly wonky. I'm expecting a lot of dizziness, vertigo and nausea. [EDIT] LOL, I made a similar suggestion years ago, here, except with a lower speed of light rather than curvature.
the sims series, but as made by competent programmers with competent and non-evil management and not...ea
AU where, rather than being based on Berserk, Dark Souls was instead based on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
you know what'd be cool in a hypothetical Spore But Better? in addition to being more like what was shown in the 2008 demo, and having sensible flying instead of sad Glide, imagine if the space stage had you like...be able to place scientific outposts and actually get something out of t0 planets etc
Okay okay I've got it. I've hit paydirt: a visual novel game RPG with the same basic premise of Persona 3/4/5 (teenagers go to an alternate brain dimension to fight demons and also The Man) but you are not playing as those teenagers, you're playing as the equivalent of Sojiro. So you're watching some kid for next year as a favour and all you know is that Mystery Child (MC for short :V) never talk about any friends they left behind, never phones their parents, and is up to some Weird Shit. How did they get half a million yen? Why are they friends exclusively with the wackiest teens in the city? Edit: posted early by accident, more to follow
Anyway your early goal in the game is to get MC to trust you enough to just tell you WTF is going on, so you gotta be supportive without being overbearing. Make sure to give them space without leaving them hanging in the wind. Maybe slip some snacks in the backpack, the weird teen gang they're in probably appreciates extra food. The next act of the game is mostly just meeting the rest of the team and figuring out the actual story, as you have the plot being explained by seven teenager who definitely don't actually understand what's happening. MC says they're summoning part of their soul to fight demons in another dimension and you just gotta take their word for it. Act 3 would be like a dating sim, but instead of dating you're trying to low-key adopt all of these teenagers who clearly need an attentive parent figure in their lives, especially if you're the only who managed to notice that they're fighting evil on evenings and weekends.
a game i wish existed: signs of the sojourner but improved significantly (the deck size, forced deck changes, and the way fatigue is implemented are all so punishing that after the really early game your player character is forced to get worse at the thing that the story claims they're getting better at)
Pardon formatting, most of this is pulled from a discord convo Stealth horror game, in the vein of the Amnesia games, Soma, certain parts of Observer except the game lies to you. It tells you there's a monster, it teaches you to run/hide from the monster and has chase sequences that feel like there's a monster but the monster can never catch you and, in fact, is never even seen. There'll be chase sequences where there's a roar and the screen does the thing some stealth horror games do that tells you Now Is The Time To Run, and as you cross checkpoints there'll be crashes and scenery destruction behind you that prevents you from going back/makes you think it's on your heels but there is never a monster you might see creatures the player is led to believe is the monster, off in the distance or in inaccessible places, where it's implied to be looking for you but those never chase the player, are never in a position to chase the player I'm imagining... not quite hints but implications, if the player really thinks about it. Like the monster is implied to be something incredibly powerful with another problem going on concurrent to the main character's flailing for survival And people go "oh yes absolutely it's chasing me and wants to kill me" because that's how it goes in these kinds of stories But- why does the monster care? It's got [some idiot wizard trying to bind it/another entity encroaching on its territory/the assbastard that created it to destroy] But every 'chase' scene the main character does have reason to believe they're being hunted, and the chase scenes are designed in such a way that instinct kicks in for players- the game says 'run, you're going to die' and they run so they don't die
a build-explore-survive game along the lines of minecraft or valheim or 7 days to die, but like. beatrix potter meets redwall. you are a smol aminal and you can make, just, the *cosiest* den. and food. and also it has seasons that change the landscape and the plants and other animals around.
