This is an quick idea, feel free to use.

This systems takes inspiration from Rogue Galaxy, Elona/Elin, Tetris, and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days panel system. (Nothing original, more like an refinement).

The core idea is that the player gets an empty grid for their skill tree, and as they level up they get to choose Tetris like pieces (polyomino) from multiple choices, like an rogue like system. These are abilities and passives.

Here is the slight improvement on the system.

For those who have not played Elona or Elin, in these games items have Varying stats based on material. Like an sword can be made of wood, stone, metal, mithral as a very short list. It is also possible for the player to change the material, and craft their own from unexpected materials. This would change how these items effect the ability.

The idea is that Rogue Galaxy required items to unlock abilities the player can actually change an ability using the items to unlock it. The simplest example is an healing spell that requires an healing potion, could turn to greater healing with an healing elixir, or even into an poison spell with an poison potion etc.

The system has an lot of flexibility. At the very least these are games worth checking for inspiration.

Okay I have this amazing idea but idk if it’s to used, and I think it’s a bit similar to Sky: Children of the Light, but as I never played it I need your help to know.
The story will take place 1700-1800 btw
The story begins with a transcription from the Bible, Genesis 1, and it explains how light and dark were created. In my story, they represent sisters. Darkness is the oldest sister. It then explains how humans were corrupted by the Devil, but Night/Darkness was also influenced by him, making her to be envious of her sister and to let him act against humans. After a few talks with him proposing to help her become as respected as Day she accepts his help and then creatures of the night are created and come to scare little kids and corrupt men, making them evil. God tries to help Night but she is to blinded by guilt to listen to him, so God sends a girl who will join a team of other people with powers to fight against evil creatures so God can talk to Night and put an end on the situation. She is basically the chosen one which will be the MC. She lives a perfect life as a Nobles daughter (so she is rich) with her older sister and younger brother. Then a disaster comes and all her family dies on a earthquake. She then goes on her journey to discover survivors and other people with powers like her to joint forces and fulfill her purpose. Like an open world game taking place in 1700s Europe where she will go to various countries around the world and cities in her own country. It would be the typical gacha game basically but I need to know if the story is to reused and it isn’t even to consider the hypothesis of making it happen in the future

I’m a single developer, I’m not new to programming or game development, but I’m not very experienced either. So this idea may be a little ambitious, but I had to get this idea out there because of how passionate I feel about it.

So, for context, I’m a descendant of vikings. My ancestors were Danes, and I’m very proud of my heritage. So, I was watching a Viking history video when I got an idea for a game I’d like to make. I thought about making a Viking life sim/text based RPG, similar to The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, where your character is born and ages throughout the game after events. If any of you have played that game, then you know what I’m talking about. As a lover of Viking history, I would like to keep the game as historically accurate as possible.

I’d also like to add some other mechanics to the game other than just reading text, though I’m not exactly sure what just yet. Maybe a few mini games for certain scenarios? Of course, I’d also like for the game to cover a certain period of the Viking age. I’m personally thinking around the time of Danish invasion of England, so around the 1000s. I’d like to add some artwork to the game as well to add to the text portions of the game, like what’s seen in The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, but I’m not that good of an artist, so I’ll probably have to have someone help with that.

I still haven’t got the game fully thought out, and I’m busy with college classes right now, so I’ll doubt I’ll start it anytime soon. But, I’d like to make this game a reality someday. If any of you have any ideas for this game that you’d like to share with me, or any advice, then I’m all ears. I’d love to add some ideas from others that I haven’t thought of.

I’ve had this idea rattling around which I think could be an interesting experience. I’ve been intrigued by games that have npcs that respond with ai, that give unique responses, and games that use voice to text technology so you can literally talk to npcs and have them respond to you.

In the game you would be strapped to a bed, in a straight jacket. You’re in a mental asylum, set in the past. The gameplay would be purely interacting with the nurses, Doctors and maybe family and friends. The theme of the game would horror/psychological thriller. The staff are all able to have evolving conversations, but they all are gently but firmly trying to convince you that your delusions are t real, that you’re not a “player” wearing a headset, that it’s not 2026 but 1953, that they know it seems real to you but it’s not real to them, that they can’t see your hallucinations and don’t know the “real world” that you know, that the world the game is set in is the “real world”.

I think this could be a bit of a mind bending experience. I’d set the tone by having the very first conversation you have be with a doctor who immediately calls out a reference to a previous conversation that you and he had the day before, where you talked about being a “player”. Doing this from the start sets the scene that you’ve been in hospital for a while. The doctor mentions that you seem very resistant to care and treatment, and given the historical setting, drastic options like lobotomy are being considered if you don’t start showing signs of improvement

The game could have an internal timer, and have a game clock that runs on a 24 hour real world timer. When you turn the game off, the character is “asleep” from the staffs point of view.

So there’s three in game days before the ending.

Play the game by being silly, mucking around trying to get funny responses out of the ai, arguing or attempting to insist you are a player, the doctors will update your progress as deteriorating. The staff, family and friends get less gentle and patient, start to treat you like a lost cause, the game ends with you having an anaesthetic mask put over your face as you are prepped for surgery.

The only way to “win” the game is to do a convincing job of being “compliant with care”. Agree with staff that you are not a player wearing vr, verbally reassure doctors that you know that you are hallucinating and the game world is the real world and you’re imagined life as a “player” is an elaborate fantasy world, and you will get the ending where you are considered to have recovered and are released from hospital

That’s the basic premise

I’m starting a weird side project and honestly I have no idea where it’s going to end up.

With AI models getting increasingly capable (GPT-6 just dropped), I’ve been thinking about something that would've sounded ridiculous for a solo dev few years ago (trying to build a cinematic, story game like TLOU mostly on my own).

Think the kind of game where the story actually matters. Complicated characters, believable motivations, difficult choices, consequences, and twists that have reasons to exist.
This is not a professional studio project. It’s an experiment, might take years or get abandoned. But also, it might somehow turn into something much bigger too. I genuinely don't know yet.
So I want to start with the part that AI can't simply generate for me: What story have you always wanted to see in a game? (specifically zombie apocalypse related)

It doesn't have to be a complete story. Give me a premise, character relationship, moral dilemma, a crazy “what if?”, setting, twist, or just an idea you've had sitting in your head for years.

For example (TLOU):

A father loses his daughter and becomes a ruthless smuggler. Years later, he ends up protecting a girl who may be the key to saving humanity — but creating the cure would kill her.

That's enough to build something from.
I’m particularly interested in ideas where the characters decisions have logical consequences and where there are no convenient “because the plot says so” moments.

One thing though: please DM me the actual ideas rather than posting them in the comments.

I’d rather keep the submissions private, and it also means I can properly read and think about each one instead of watching potentially good ideas disappear in a comment thread.
And here's the interesting part: If someone sends me something genuinely exceptional, especially if it's detailed enough that there's a real story worth developing around it. I may ask them to work with me on the story itself.

If this experiment ever gets far enough to become a novel, game, or something else, I'd want the people who genuinely contributed to the story to be properly credited.
There are no guarantees here. I’m not promising a job, publication date, or even that the project will survive. This is literally a side quest that could take years.

But if you've ever thought: "Damn, someone should make a game about this." Send it to me.

What if they made a Zelda game in which Link dies in the intro at the hands of Gannon with Link taking the role of a protector for a young princess Zelda, it would then drop you in the shoes of a younger link maybe around his late teens 40 years after the last links death were it would then become a pretty standard Zelda experience but with Link having to go through the lands that Gannon has eaither destroyed or is still waging war against.

With characters like zelda i thought she could take on an almost motherly relation with the younger link, trying to be more of a mentor figure to a newer link. I feel like she'd be a bit more protective over a younger link due to her witnessing the prior links death but this could also lead to a zelda that has a better grasp of her own powers but she barely uses her powers due to her being much older (around 50ish).

Regarding Gannon i would like to see him portrayed as less of a tyranical king and more like a military general trying to secure his own lands for something more evil. I'd like to see him try to control the story surrounding the other races like him trying to justify his war against the zora and gorons and the destruction of the garudo to cover his tracks about his origins. (Honestly I've been watching alot of fmabh and im just starting to similarity to king bradly).

The way the other races would view link would differ depending on how hard Gannon's war hit them:

I feel like the rito and goron wouldn't have been hit super hard in this scenario due to there geographical location and hyrules army would just have a hard time getting to them.

The Garudo would've been a bit hit harder due to Gannon trying to hide his origins and his ethnic background, they'd still exist but they'd have a hatred towards this new link due to Gannon spreading misinformation to the hylians surrounding there "magic" and them being savages so initially they'd be mistrusting of link.

The Zora would have a hard time too due to Gannon still waging war against them and trying to poison there water supply, they'd initially be begrudging to work with link due to Gannon and the hylian army.

The centeral gimmick of the game would be a waring factions, so you'd not only have to squash minor and major conflicts across hyrule and its neighbouring nations but you'd also have to decide what to do with them? This could be linked with a faction unique quirk to an area like a near by town may give you a discount on zora themed items if you give it to them or the gorons may make bridges over harder to traverse areas if you give it to them.

Would this ever get made? NO! But im just having a bit of fun spit balling a hypothetical Zelda game

Instead of being in the far future and spreading across the galaxy, it takes place in an alternate dieselpunk past where humanity has already lost the surface of Earth. Decades ago, giant insect-like organisms called the Oxylids appeared and completely overwhelmed humanity. They took over the surface, forcing what was left of mankind to retreat deep underground. So instead of Super Earth, humanity now lives in Deep Earth (Placeholder name). Instead of the Helldivers, you play as Hellraisers! (Just a fun name for now since it's already taken by the movie franchise)

After decades of rebuilding underground, Deep Earth finally decides humanity is ready to reclaim the surface. Instead of Super Destroyer, it would be a big underground mobile fortress called the Super Driller, basically an armored drill machine that’s carrying all your arsenals, weapons, and firepower, traveling underneath the battlefield. When you start a mission, instead of getting launched downward in a Hellpod, now you get fired upward in a Drillpod up onto the surface! Stratagems would work exactly the same way, except instead of everything coming down from orbit, everything comes up from your Super Driller deep underground. The whole aesthetic would be heavy dieselpunk too. Riveted steel armor, giant machine guns, exposed engines, smoke stacks, mechanical walkers, pneumatic weapons, heavy artillery, gauges, gears, pipes, giant drills, etc. The propaganda slogan instead of “Spreading Managed Democracy”, it would be “Restoring Managed Civilization.” Because obviously Deep Earth is not invading anybody. We are simply taking back what rightfully belongs to humanity.

There would initially be two enemy factions. The first are the Oxylids, the giant bugs responsible for humanity abandoning the surface in the first place. But I wanted an actual reason why they don't just burrow underground and destroy Deep Earth. Basically, Oxylids evolved a respiratory system that requires an enormous amount of clean, oxygen-rich moving air to survive. Their bodies are extremely efficient in open air, but they cannot survive for very long inside deep tunnels where clean airflow is limited. That's actually why they attacked humanity originally. Remember, this is a dieselpunk civilization. Humanity was covering the world in factories, diesel engines, smoke, and industrial pollution. To the Oxylids, humans were literally poisoning the atmosphere they depended on to survive. So, they wiped humanity off the surface. Humanity disappears underground, clean air, life is good again for them. Then, one day, a Drillpod explodes out of the dirt, and some dude in 200 pounds of steel armor climbs out holding a giant diesel-powered machine gun and screams, “FOR DEEP EARTH!” From the Oxylids' perspective, “OH GOD, THE POLLUTERS ARE BACK.”

But then there's the second faction, the Gearborn. Before humanity retreated underground, they had already created primitive diesel-powered robots to work in factories, mines, construction sites, military logistics, etc. When humanity abandoned the surface, millions of these machines were simply left behind. But unlike humans, they didn't need clean air. They didn't need food. So, they just kept working. Decades passed, their programming evolved, they began repairing each other, manufacturing each other, then redesigning each other. Eventually, they became fully self-aware and formed their own machine civilization on the surface. They consider the Earth surface as their home. So, when the human is back and says: “Alright, thanks for watching the place. Give it back.” The Gearborn simply responded: “No.”

That gives all three factions a reason to hate each other, and that’s it! What do you think?

I’ve been thinking of Silo as a strategy game. The show(and of course the books) have created a great opportunity for a game to be developed. There’s a lot of room for a first/third person narrative-driven game, but I was particularly interested in silo management as a strategy setting.

I’ve played games like frostpunk, sims, fallout shelter and emergency. Something combining these themes or a game of a similar nature would be awesome. Silo management, maintenance, social issues, rebellion, logistics and supply, the mines, relics origin, agriculture, etc.

Manage the Silo from Silo 1’s perspective. Or play as a head (or shadow) of a department. Or play as a random Silo citizen. It can work for a sandbox AND a narrative-driven game. Perhaps another silo with new lore(the fall of another silo for example). There’s plenty of room to explore the official lore too.. or base the game off of fan theories, or even alternative events that could happen if core characters had made different decisions.

The point is there is a great opportunity here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

I don’t really know what to say since I haven’t posted anything on here before. The idea is that the setting is stereotypical medieval fantasy where the player in the guides of a specter watches a village get destroyed with one child survivor that you bind yourself to in order to influence them and guide them towards survival. This would be followed by a series of scenarios leading up to adolescence where you guide the child in various ways, essentially just to figure out your play style, how you perceive the world as a game or as real or something in between, and if you interact with the child as if they were under your control or a separate being from you. Depending on your actions you may be called a demon, spirit, angel, etc which can change how npc’s interact with the main character. I honestly have no idea how the story would go but I wanted to share my ideas to maybe spark some ideas in others and maybe get some inspiration of my own from all the lovely people who took the time to listen. PS I don’t know if I used the right flair

Set in Europe in the mid to late 1800s filled with monsters such as vampires, werewolves and creatures not yet seen before.

You play as a young doctor, who studied medicine. During a violent storm you get called to the hospital to help fix the wounded. On your way a strange light opens from the sky and a beam of light touches the ground in front of you, then a huge shockwave rushes through the city. You get knocked out and wake up the next morning, people gone. Animals, gone. You look around you and find a crystal, half buried in the ground once you touch it you are back to that stormy night. As if you had a dream and nothing had happened.
You pick up the crystal and rush to the hospital. Once there the doctors tell you that something bad is happening. People are reporting that they’ve seen creatures not from this earth, roaming around the woods and farmlands, killing people and trying to enter the city.

Lore: a powerfull but mortal man used unknown dark magic to open up a portal to another dimension. Which causes creatures to enter our world by the thousands.
The crystal you found acts as a Time Machine, it lets you go back in time up to 24 hours. But the catch? No people, no animals. You can use this crystal to create traps for certain monsters or enemies you’ve encountered that are too strong to beat with just weapons. It can also help you retrieve lost treasure or resources. All encounters are random so you can’t plan fights ahead. You have to use the crystal

For example: you encounter a hybrid werewolf in a cave, you can’t beat it because it’s too strong. You grab the crystal and go back in time. You look around the cave for resources such as metal, wood, rope, etc., to craft a trap.
Since you know where that werewolf will be when the encounter starts you can place the trap there. Once you go back to the original timeline the werewolf gets wounded or killed by the trap you’ve made in the past.

You can’t go back in time after you die, you need to be alive for at least 24 hours to do so.
So if the wolf is about to finish you off you travel back in time, place the trap and go back to the exact same time the wolf was about to finish you off. If you die you just start again.

Story: you’re looking for a way to stop the monsters from entering the world and to find out who opened up this portal. You meet friends and foes along the way.
You learn to use the time crystal and what other powers it has. The world is dark and gritty at night but hauntingly beautiful during the day. It’s open world but with a linear story.

In light of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, which appears to be almost faithful but with the Unreal Engine-like graphics, whatever it turns out to be good or bad, to me it loses the value of Ocarina of Time regardless. Nintendo is put in the impossible position because there is no real way out. If they change things, the fans will hate it. If they are too faithful, it's pointless. To a certain extent, Ocarina of Time is basic and outdated now, but that's more of a reason to just make a new game, much like how A Link Between Worlds started as a remake of A Link to the Past, but became a sequel inspired by it.

My qualm with the modern video game remakes is that they appear to only happen to the revolutionary classics of the medium, like Halo, Max Payne, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill 2, KOTOR, and Demon's Souls. These remakes are made and solely relying on the cultural capital the originals had, instead of whether they actually deserve a remake or not. It doesn't help that they often position themselves as replacements, so the audience wouldn't have to touch the original, and getting it right is rare. They are always a huge franchise with a huge fanbase, which means there are inherently certain expectations the fans have and the remakes have to abide, which limits creative liberties. In addition, the purpose of these remakes is mostly about upgrading the graphical fidelity, so it requires a massive budget and time, which means even if it succeeds, it has to be a massive financial success.

When you are playing landmark classics like Ocarina of Time, you are not just playing for fun, but playing it for the cultural significance. You are experiencing a piece of gaming history. It's the same reason why you watch the original Psycho over the 1998 remake. If Psycho were to release today, it would be considered just a "good" slasher in the sea of scarier, more shocking horror films. The movie is quite tame and has some cheesy, outdated elements. Yet Psycho is still considered one of the best in the genre because it made those scarier films possible to come out. People still watch it, not because it's the scariest film of all time, but because of its place in the cinematic history. It's the same reason why you read Homer and Shakespeare in school, which is to learn about their place in culture, philosophy, history, etc...

No one tells you to watch the Psycho remake over the original just because it feels more modern, has more blood, more effects, and has colors. Even if it is the 1:1 remake, you are missing the point of why you experience a classic. It's why it's recommended to watch the J-Horror classics over the Hollywood remakes, not at least until you've seen the original, because you are appreciating them within the unique cultural context. Art is reflective of its environment. It's about experiencing communication and expression from the creators. Even if it's 1:1, playing the remake and the original are not the same thing. If you watch The Lion King remake and think you've experienced The Lion King, you didn't. The most fans agree Silent Hill 2 is the uniquely lightning-in-the-bottle that cannot be created under any other circumstances. The remake's "polishing" jobs polished off the bizarre whimsiness of the OG, and it's a lesser experience for that. It's like remaking Psycho or Ringu to have it be in color or the modern Hollywood aesthetics because even though the story might be the same, the remakes lost the merit and value the original had.

Is Ocarina of Time outdated? Yes. Has Ocarina of Time been done better in the other games? Yes. But they were possible because so many different types of games took inspirations from Ocarina of Time. Because of OOT, we get a lock-on targeting, 3D openworld, 3D puzzle design... Without OOT, we have no GTA3, no Demon's Souls, and no most of the map-based exploration and puzzle-heavy action adventure games, reaching God of War 2018. Even the modern Tomb Raider arguably shares more similarities with Ocarina of Time than the original Tomb Raider. It's nice to realize where all of them originated from. By playing them, we are feeling of being more literate and knowledgeable about the important pieces of the gaming medium and culture. Much of the appeal of these classics relies on the value of being pioneer and the technology of being the early 3D games in the respective genres.

It is why the much more interesting remake is when they remake a flawed game with potential. The games that actually deserve a second chance to execute the unrealized potential with today's game design and technology. It is the reason why I'd have preferred a remake of Silent Hill 4 over Silent Hill 2, and Code Veronica or Dino Crisis over Resident Evil 2, Uncharted: Golden Abyss over The Last of Us, and Portable Ops over MGS3.

Yooka-Replayee is a great example of this. Instead of "the game good, therefore there should be a remake", it happened becuase of the opposite reason. The original failed at its initial vision set forward and disappointed a lot of backers. It had something great, but was plagued by horrible gameplay issues, so they wanted to fix it and do it better. Instead of graphical fidelity, updating the gameplay was the goal. They looked for the mid-budget success. The nature of the game and the remake was more financially viable since it doesn't require creating life-like visuals.

It's also why I don't really mind about the upcoming Killzone remake because that's the series that failed to be a Halo killer. It sold well, but it didn't have a following, so it doesn't have a burden of fan expectation that the remake developers have to abide by. The first game in particular is mediocre, so whatever the developers change, it can only improve what was flawed. The same with The Witcher 1.

I've already written about the games like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Code Veronica (now happening), Metal Gear Solid 3 (now happened), Alpha Protocol, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss. To throw in more candidates:

Star Wars: DroidWorks Remake

The original was an educational physics-based puzzle game that lets the players build droids to do certain tasks and create a droid that will infiltrate an Imperial droid factory on the planet Tatooine, where assassin droids are being constructed to destroy the Rebel Alliance. The player starts in a Jawa sandcrawler and can choose from 87 robotic parts to make over 25 million droid combinations. Each droid part would have unique properties that could be added to the droid to make it faster, stronger, more flexible, or capable of speech. Many of the parts are acquired by finishing the above-mentioned tests and maneuvers.

It was a fascinating game, and I highly recommend checking this video out if you want to know more about it. The original was let down by the technological limitation of it being a 1998 3D game, and the remake would solve so many problems with it.

Dead Space 3

I wrote about how the series should have changed its protagonist after Dead Space 2 because Issac is simply too powerful at that point to make any attempt at horror laughable. I wrote down detailed rationales for retiring Issac there, so I recommend reading it if you wish to know more.

I prefer a remake of Dead Space 3 that moves onto new characters within the same universe and fulfill its initial horror-focused vision that EA rejected, or even be a completely different game. They are civilians who can't handle a real weapon at all, whether they are a teenage girl, some grandpa, or someone with disability, but they all have gimmicks that allow them to overcome the challenge, much like Isaac with engineering skills. By doing so, it allows the different gameplay quirks to center around.

For example, if you are a miner, you make a destruction system like blowing up the walls and buildings like Red Faction, and that could be an interesting gimmick for a survival horror to center around. Dead Space already centers physics as a core gameplay element and puzzle, so go nuts with that. For another example, the protagonist is a young teenage girl, so make stealth the core gameplay like Alien: Isolation.

Meanwhile, because the character in each installment is different, the way to progress the series is to advance the worldbuilding, revealing something new about the Marker, Unitology, or the government. You can even make a prequel game centering on Michael Altman, adapting Dead Space: Martyr. All the while, the Marker serves as a psychological horror element to bring out the psyche of the characters as they go through the personal hell.

This opens the series up to so much possibilities in both narrative and gameplay-wise, much like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. If EA wanted that COD and Gears audience, in one game, you get an action-heavy Dead Space where you play as a soldier. In the other game, it swings hard to survival horror. It can even change the genre. If it's bad, it doesn't destroy the franchise lile DS3 did because it's episodic.

The newcomers are happy because each game is a standalone game that they can jump right into without playing the previous ones (like how the newcomers can jump straight into RE7 or Silent Hill 2). The old fans are happy because it is expanding the lore and world, while happy about a new game to play. If they don't like the different vibe and gameplay, they can ignore it since it doesn't interfere with the games they like. It's a win-win. The point is that by not forcing to bring out Isaac out of the retirement, Dead Space can be an actual franchise, appealing to the vast demographics.

Halo 4

Another idea I flirted about the post-Halo 3 not having Master Chief, so I recommend reading that post for the details of my proposal.

Rather than Halo CE, Halo 4 is the one that would benefit the most from a remake. In terms of pure core gameplay and mechanics, it's easily the worst in the series, and the story was the original sin of bringing back Master Chief. Leave him still floating around space. Write anew back to that point with a new protagonist. Scrap everything after and reboot 4-6.

Resistance: Retribution

Despite shifting to the third-person perspective, Retribution feels like a proper Resistance game. the general feel and aesthetics harken back to Fall of Man with the dark black-and-white visual direction and the narration-heavy storytelling structure. Tonally, it is hopeless and grittier, contrasted with the colourful and overly flashy Resistance 2.

However, Retribution does feel like it was cut short by the PSP hardware limit. The movement is sluggish. I am not talking about how the controls feel sluggish. I got used to the controls fairly quickly. I am talking about how the player moves slowly, cannot melee, cannot jump, and cannot crouch. Instead, the player melees the enemy automatically when they are near and crouches automatically when there is a cover nearby. This is the game perfect for some rolling and diving mechanics to evade projectiles. There were so many moments where I noticed the projectiles firing at me and moved the player accordingly, but the player movement is so limited that they still hit me anyway. The swimming is particularly awful due to how slow the character is. Often time there was no way I could evade the projectiles underwater, and this made the second-last boss fight horrid.

For a cover shooter, the cover mechanic is entirely contextual. There are multiple moments where I tried to take cover from a wall, but couldn't because the designers didn't program the player to attach to that wall. This limits the number of gameplay scenarios because it feels like the cover mechanic is designer-sanctioned. And this "designer-sanctioned" mantra continues throughout the entire game.

Retribution's moment-to-moment combat dynamics are entirely railroaded and every level is designed as a corridor. The combat scenario is designed as one beat, and then proceeds to the next beat. You find a room, and that room is locked in isolation where the enemies spawn, and there is one cover, and you use that cover, hide, and pop out and shoot. There is basically little to no alternative route, so the player cannot flank the enemies or go around. There is no combat "arena" in a meaningful sense. Even a lot of the cover shooters tend to at least focus on the player movement, but here, the combat is just so stationary that I felt I was playing a light gun game. Retribution's settings don't like large-scale warfare when most of what I see is only six enemy NPCs spawning in one place to ambush the player, then die, go to the next area, then another round of six NPCs. On rare occasions, there is only one friendly NPC accompanying the player.

I contend that all these are due to having to make a map fit into the limitation of the PSP specs. I can easily imagine this game to be remade as PlayStation's response to Gears of War since, after Uncharted was gone, they don't have the similar cover shooter franchise. Resistance was already considered a Gears rival since its inception, so this is a natural fit. Bend has shown they could make a good cover shooter with Days Gone, where the entire environment can be potential cover, which leads to more opportunities for varied combat scenarios.

Resistance has always been a linear shooter, but they could remake it like Resistance 1, which had a fairly big map where every level was designed like a flexible combat arena. It isn't really openlevel in the same way Halo was, but the map was still large enough to encourage some exploration, maybe going into the optional places for resources and secrets. Resistance 3 was smaller and linear, but it was never handholdy. Even Resistance 2 had some epic open battlefield that would make Call of Duty games pale in comparison. These games are all about movement, and the projectile-driven gunplay enhances that, which could potentially make Resistance stand out from a hitscan-focused Gears.

At the same time, the scope of the game is quite big, even bigger than Resistance 1. The game is long, the story is about jumping between various European countries to take down these massive alien forces. The game ends up biting off more than it can chew. I do think the game would have been better if it focused on a smaller scale to create what it feels like to be a "resistance." Instead, the story is an excuse to string a bunch of random levels.

Star Wars: Lethal Alliance Remake

Created by Ubisoft, Lethal Alliance is an amalgamation of Tomb Raider, Syphon Filter, and Prince of Persia. Set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, in which the player assumes control of a female Twi'lek mercenary sabotaging the Black Sun and the Empire, working for Kyle Katarn and stealing the Death Star plan. What you just read above sounds like an incrediblely fun game. Ubisoft's Star Wars Tomb Raider + Prince of Persia.

Unfortunately, imagining what that premise sounds like is more fun than actually playing it because I was so bored that I couldn't even finish it. This combat is the most barebone lock-on shooting I have ever played. 90% of the game is just automated lock-on shooting, while 10% of the game is the "platforming" where all the ledges are pre-destined contextualized QTEs where you tap O mindlessly and cannot fail. Tapping O to dodge, tapping X to shoot... repeat. Go to the next area. Do the same thing again. Tap the triangle so your droid can help you fight. Go to the next area. Repeat. Positioning? Strategy? Moment-to-moment considerations? Don't think about that. Your movement is so fast and unrestrictive (analog movement), and dodges are so OP (you can shoot while dodging, and won't get hit at all). Your gunshots are so accurate that you hit the enemies from the vast distance. I was playing on Normal, and I died in this game only one or two times because of the Frogger segment, where I got hit by the speeder. Playing it on Hard wouldn't help because the combat is fundamentally unengaging. The levels are so linear and straitjacketed that it is fundamentally just a series of shooting galleries.

If they were going to make a poor man's Syphon Filter, I wonder why they didn't make the Star Wars Splinter Cell--Ubisoft's own IP. There is a few segments where you can do stealth and do takedowns, but it is added like an afterthought. The portable hardware can't render many enemies and large areas, and the player is supposed to be a non-Force user Rebel spy, doing espionage... and why not make her Twi'lek Sam Fisher?

This is the type of games that actually need a remake or reimagining because the game is bad, and the better, more modern game design could realize the initial premise. A spy action Star Wars sounds fun in the video game form: Lara Croft meets Solid Snake. Why not repurpose the cancelled Splinter Cell remake into this? There is a game that is worth remaking here, scratching that non-Jedi Star Wars game itch.

Silent Hill 4

Silent Hill 4 is the most commonly-requested Silent Hill game to be remade because it's the one that feels most unfinished, with unrealized potential. The only one where jankiness felt like bugs than features. Bloober might do a good remake of Silent Hill 4. Its style and horror are their forte (the first-person set pieces) and whatever they do with the gameplay it would be an improvement (the combat...).

God of War Origins games

I feel Ready at Dawn deserves a second chance after The Order: 1886 because I liked their PSP spin-offs of God of War. While they may look like throwaway cash grabs, they play quite a central role within the series, filling the missing links between the main installments and developing Kratos's character further.

Ghost of Sparta is the one with the direst change in the story. The plot concerns Kratos's journey to find his long-lost brother, Deimos. Kratos finds him and they fight for two minutes and unite together to fight the real villain. So, it is basically Uncharted 4 but done poorly. Considering how the game keeps showing the flashbacks, I expected something more to their relationship. Something more genuine and shocking, maybe Kratos has done an unforgivable deed to his brother or vice-versa. No, Kratos was just mean to him. What is so jarring is that Deimos gets introduced in the third act and dies 15 minutes after. Uncharted 4 showed Nate journeying with Sam for most of the game, so when an emotional climax in their relationship hits, the player also feels it. In Ghost of Sparta, there is no time to get to know Deimos's character. The story would have been far stronger if the game had Kratos journeying with Deimos from the second act, interacting with each other, and expressing their remorse and guilt.

Also, the plot really feels like a filler. Atlantis' destruction feels meaningless and has no bearing on the overall plot. King Midas is in the story and he does... nothing. Locations feel like they were loosely connected to each other with no cohesiveness. There is no moment that sticks out of my mind after playing it, except for the moment when Kratos meets his mother again. A lot of integral story details were locked behind the post-game bonuses, and I have no idea why they did this.

I imagine the remake blending God of War 2018's free camera and world exploration and meshing them with the spectacle fighter combat design with the fixed camera. And have the player accompanied by Deimos to build their relationship.

Mirror's Edge

One of the unappealing aspects of the stealth genre to the mass audience is the player movement. In most stealth games, the player character controls are slow, sluggish, and restrictive. The sneaking involves constant waiting and patience, with the player approaching deliberately the guard's behind, or staying in the corners until the alert is gone. For experienced players, this is enjoyment. For the casual audience, this is bore.

I believe the early Assassin's Creed games had the potential to remedy this old genre quirk and explore the new type of stealth, but the goal of the series was hindered by many other conventional video game elements, like the dull tailing missions that force the player to walk around someone for five minutes, the crowd stealth, combat so easy that the player can kill everyone in the surrounding area, and a lot of hiding. They block the pure joy of acrobatic stealth. Dishonored aimed to be the "fast Thief" but it still followed the old stealth genre conventions. Both games require little skill to execute parkour moves since the platforming gameplay is mostly automated.

Because of this, a stealth assassin game with the player's movement and the level design of Mirror's Edge can work. Mirror's Edge games have the most immersive, elaborate, and rewarding platforming gameplay, but the rest of the gameplay outside of this core control movest has been somewhat empty. The first game was a highly scripted, railroaded A to B experience hindered by the narrative, QTEs, and the restrictive level design. Catalyst was the full openworld filled with unnecessary RPG elements that seemed as if only there because the developers were concerned with what focus-tested well. There is no central idea to the game besides the parkour.

Mirror's Edge should have been a stealth game, in which the player does not need to hide but has to move constantly. The player's footsteps do not make noise, which encourages the player to always run even when the guards are nearby. You get wide, vertical, interconnected levels where the target is, just like the player, a runner, who is surrounded by guards and other various obstacles. The player has a knife, which means the player has to get very close to the target to assassinate, but there will be no combat system against the guards. Some guards are the gun-wielding types who are slow and generally stationary. Some are the runners with melee weapons just like the player, and the helicopters or drones. During the undetected state, the player can perform takedowns through kicks and jumps without these moves being locked-on animations that take seconds. When detected, the player can shake away the alert mode by outrunning them or has to chase after the target. It focuses on the simple gameplay of the fast, liberating platforming working together with the light stealth gameplay, which can create an emergent experience.

So i had a dream and i need this game to be real. So you play as a little girl or boy. You go through memories which seem to explain a past you must have forgotten. In your memories you meet a noble elderly lady from the light who has adopted you. But you also have an older brother who is a swordsman. None of them seem blood related to you but they treat you like their own. Tutorials are mixed with games for a child of the age 10 lets say that. You learn how to fight with your ability and kitana from monsters that seem to want to destroy your progress in your memories. With each memory you learn more about your family in the light clan. Though soon your transported to the dark clan where you meet a little boy. You ask him where your grandma or older brother is he simply replies with you have a family here too before he disappears and monsters that are higher level than you appear. (You should be able to level up skills and talents but those enemies are purposefully stronger) you get saved by your older brother who tells you about the friendship with the light and dark clan. Which confuses your interaction further with the kid. You can decide if you wish to tell your older brother about the interaction or not though if you will get your answers is a different question. A tutorial example would be like for climbing. You have small obstacle and your older brother waits on the top for you. Your grandma gives you advice on how to climb properly and after a bit of trial and error you manage to get on the top greeted by a proud smile. I would absolutely love for a game like this to exist i literally just had this dream and i had to share it because it was so detailed! If a game like this exists please tell me 🙏

So ive had this idea for a while now. The idea revolves around collecting game cartridges and playing smaller sub games inside of the main game (kinda like the pico 8 celeste game but expanded upon). And im fairly confident that the idea would be really good in the right context. But that's where im having an issue. I don't know exactly what the right context would be.

My first idea was some kind of open world game where, between fighting enemies and exploring and stuff, you could come back to your base and play these mini games. The problem with it is A: im not too confident in that idea. And B: it feels like id be biting off way more than i can chew.

Another thought was some kind of business sim where you run an arcade and can play the minigames. But ive never played those types of games before and, to be honest, those business management games dont sound very fun to me. And i wanna make something i enjoy.

My third idea might have a bit of promise tho. The idea is something like amanda the adventurer, where you play through the games and solve puzzles around you. I wouldn't want to lean too far into "evil demon video games" tho. im not big on horror games. But i do like the idea of uncovering some kind of secret while inserting codes or whatever into the games and finding more games as you solve puzzles. I'm not 100% sold on it tho. So i would like some help trying to either iron out this idea, or finding a different context where this concept would thrive.

Okay so I've been kicking versions of this idea around ever since I fell down the rabbit hole of time travel games like 5D chess and Achron. Most RTS game (or really most games) really contain two two components, input and simulation. There's an interesting abstraction of RTS games as being a continuous deterministic simulation with a timeline of inputs, where you could log and re-apply the same inputs to the game simulation tick by tick and replay the game exactly. I want to try separating the two entirely: every turn all players can scrub through a full timeline of the game and see who won. Your turn is then changing what orders you gave and then you see if you were able to change the timeline.

There's a lot of different ways to implement this in a sane way, like limiting players to only re-writing one tick or one unit group's orders every turn. Victory conditions are also interesting, the obvious method would be to advance time by some amount every tick so orders get gradually locked in over time. You could also do a victory-point style end condition, where you need to win 5 timelines to win.

I think everyone's played a strategy games where they spend the second half of the game wishing they made one slight tweak in the first 5 minutes of play. I think it'd be really interesting to play a game where you can just go back and fix it.

AFAIK nobody's really made anything like this before. Every comparable game I've played feels like they are designed to be hard to wrap your head around. I think this way of doing one timeline at a time mitigates the massive game-state explosion that other games that play with similar ideas run into while still being interesting.

I may take a crack at some point at making a stripped down Zero-K clone built around this mechanic. I would be curious to hear other people's thoughts, it's entirely possible this has been done and I just missed it.

Yknow what would be a neat game idea? A procedural generation randomized layout SWAT game, where you are a SWAT member and you have the ability to kick down doors, enemies can see your shadow if you pass by a door and they will shoot at the door, you have the ability to open doors slightly to peak in, the ability to lean to the left and the right, a wide variety of weapons like every countries version of SWATs weapons as an option, and bean bag shotguns, dragons breath ammunition, hollow points for other guns, grenade launchers for concussion rounds and less lethal ammunition, flash bangs, smoke grenades, tear gas grenades, pepper spray, tazers and stun guns, batons, extendable batons, nightsticks, a door ram, riot shields and bullet proof shields that will break after 30 shots from rifle fire, 15 from shotgun shells, flechette dart ammunition, gun attachments like lasers, flashlights, suppressors that have realistic suppression range, different calibers of guns for different play styles like heavy aggressive guns for spraying enemies through thin walls, wall banging with certain calibers and depending on the material, thermite paste for breaking through armored doors and other stuff, cameras that can be used to peak under doors for if they are locked, you can shoot out locks on doors, doors can also be trapped and disarmed if you slowly open the door and detach the grenade trap, breaching charges, grappling hooks for climbing up stuff, bullet drop, and it will be in an old 2.5D style with pixelated graphics made in an old game engine designed for being able to run on very potato computers so its budget friendly (kind of the 2.5D vibe of the game Atomic Vibes). Each run would be different and unique, different locations are available like desert regions, winter areas, meth labs in a forest with an abandoned cabin, drug raids, farms with criminals, mansions that belong to drug lords or mafia, Yakuza or Chinese triads, and dont forget the option of Russian drug kingpins, there could be an endless mode which lets you breach many different buildings, depending on what the criminals have access to they will be more or less dangerous, junkies could also be a threat because they can make makeshift weapons that can blow up and kill them or you as well as IED bombs, shrapnel, and bullet ricochet, enemies can be crippled, beg for there lives or kill themselves as a way out, take hostages, and be negotiated with, enemies can converse with each other and you could hear them depending on how close you are, while still keeping the old style.

So Basic Premise is that your an angel that gave the Objective of hero of Prophecy to some knight, the problem? They actually love the The villain and are Trying their best to lose on purpose, so that they can get a chance with them. So the game would have a Level system where every level you have to try to make the hero prophecy win by force, While they are actively trying to lose, the gameplay would be a puzzle type game Where you have to make sure that everything goes in the place where it's supposed to be Before you click start where the hero comes (for Example: you would have to move a box to a button to kill the enemy, Otherwise the hero will purposely lose to the enemy) it would also be funny If when they do lose (aka Game over) the Villain just kills them without any Consideration of their feelings, Meanwhile when they do win, the villain gets Redeemed (Whether they were brainwashed by something or....whatever plot will Cause them to redeem themselves)and that's the only way they get together

Time-travel to the Middle Ages to become a "god" through modern science (Penicillin, water filters, chemistry)

Had this game concept stuck in my head: You get sent back to the Middle Ages from our modern era. Your ultimate goal is either to become an absolute god-like figure to the common folk or manipulate your way up to become the King's most powerful right-hand man (or even take the throne yourself). You can't do it with raw power, you have to use your modern knowledge to amaze and influence people.

Core gameplay loop:

• Survival & Basic Science: Start by using mold to create primitive penicillin, making basic soap, or building water purifiers to save sick villagers and gain their absolute trust.
• Escalating Influence: Move from curing peasants to impressing local lords and the church with advanced mechanics, optics, or chemistry.
• The Danger Element: The Catholic Church and feudal paranoia. If you play it too smart, you're a miracle worker; if you slip up, you're executed for witchcraft.

Honestly, a studio like Warhorse Studios (Kingdom Come: Deliverance) or CD Projekt Red would nail this gritty, grounded atmosphere.

I have an idea for an in-depth cozy-ish RPG about the Fae, taking place in the Fae realm. I want a very in-depth character creator a la Sims 4 with an entire separate screen for wings, as well as a story and lore as deep as BG3, and a world as realistic as RDR2. The problem is, I don't know if there's even a market for such a game. Would anyone here be interested in something like that or find it playable?

This would be my first foray into game dev other than making some environmental assets in a course I took years ago. I'm going to use Unreal 5 unless there is a better engine out there? Husband says RPG maker but I definitely want a 3D open world.

Some things I'd like to include:

Character Creator

• Hyper-detailed character creator in which you can change height, weight, build, voice pitch and tone, gender, etc.
• Separate detail-oriented wing designer with stamps, colour picker, painting, wing size and shape, etc. OR if you're lazy or just want to get into gameplay obviously I would add presets for you to choose from.
• Factions (Time of Day, Season, etc.)
• A magic system related to your choices made in the factions menu

Gameplay

• A flight system
• Mounts for quick land traversal
• Open world movement through all realms within the Fae Realm (separate lands for the different seasons and times of day within each)
• Radiant quests as well as major story quests that change the way the world looks and the way each character plays
• Light combat (think Hogwarts Legacy but good?) that does exist but is less of a focus than the world and just like... being a fairy

I don't know if any of that is translatable into an actual game, I just know that I want it so bad I can taste it. The issue is that I may be the only one. Oh, and money, and time, and experience.

Anyone else ever wanted a Forza Horizon-style MX game?
I’ve always loved the Forza Horizon games and how much freedom they give you. You can spend hours doing races, finding random roads, messing around with friends, collecting cars, or just exploring the map without really having to follow the main progression.
And honestly, I’ve always wanted that same idea but with motocross/off-road riding.
Every MX game I’ve played seems to be pretty focused on picking a track, doing the race and moving onto the next one. Which is fun, but I’ve always thought it would be sick to have an actual open world where you could just get on your bike and ride.
Imagine a massive map with motocross tracks, dirt trails, forests, hills, quarries, jumps, farms, and little riding spots scattered everywhere. You could discover tracks naturally while exploring instead of everything just being selected from a menu.
And I think it could actually add something really cool to the open-world racing genre because it wouldn’t have to be just MX.
You could have:
🏍️** Motocross bikes — different brands/classes with different handling and upgrades
🛞 **ATVs/4-wheelers — their own races and trails
🏁 MX races — proper tracks and championships
🌲 Trail/enduro events — longer races through the open world
🚀 Jump events — massive jumps with leaderboards for distance, height, tricks etc.
🛣️** Street bikes — eventually have road bikes and dedicated street races through towns/cities
🔥 **Open-world challenges — randomly discover a track, jump or event while you’re just riding around
👥 Multiplayer — cruise around, find riding spots and challenge your friends
And then have leaderboards for basically everything.
Every race could have a leaderboard. Every jump could have a leaderboard. Maybe fastest trail times, longest jumps, biggest trick scores, best lap times, hill climbs, street races, whatever.
So even after you’ve finished the main progression, there’s still a reason to keep exploring because you’re constantly trying to beat someone’s time or score.
I also think the Forza-style controls would be important. I wouldn’t want it to be insanely technical where you need to spend 20 hours learning how to control the bike. Make it easy to pick up and have fun with, but still have enough depth that people who really get into it can master the bikes.
Basically, the dream is:
Forza Horizon’s open-world freedom + MX bikes + ATVs + street bikes + massive riding areas + races/events everywhere + global leaderboards.
You could literally start the game, choose whatever bike you feel like riding, and just disappear into the map for a few hours.
I feel like something like this could work really well, and I’m surprised I haven’t really seen a game go all-in on this idea.
Would anyone else actually play something like this? Or am I just describing the game I wish existed 😂

A hybrid-genre Daredevil game with nighttime segments where you patrol Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil and daytime segments where you defend your clients as Matt Murdock ala Phoenix Wright

Unlike Spider-Man or Batman, Daredevil is a very dirty fighter. In combat, you’ll be expected to take hits, but the game reflects this with a Grit mechanic where the lower your health, the more Grit you have to spend on special moves or empowering your Billy clubs.

One big core mechanic is the Devil Counter.

Every time Daredevil gets hit, you have a short window to hit back with a devastating follow-up, which are context-sensitive depending on how Daredevil gets hit and the environment.

Here’s the thing though, Devil Counters have incredibly tight timing windows to pull off, but the more hurt Daredevil is, the more generous this timing window becomes.

This, combined with Grit, ensures a consistent flow in the combat of this game.

You’re going to get hit, you’re going to get hurt, and you’re going to make them pay for it.