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[itisnotlogical]

I wish there were a game where you played as a necromancer. Not an all-powerful Diablo-style necromancer, you're just a dabbling novice in reanimation, and you must start from grave robbing with your own two hands until you have armies of undead monstrosities to do your bidding.

[Niveras]

There's a series of flash games kind of around that concept. I think it's Necronator or something? A top down kind of shoot'em'up, except instead of shooting you spawn various forms of undead who then infect or kill the population in an area, then move on to the next area. Usual flash-game upgrade things between maps.

You didn't start as a novice per se in it, but I was fairly excited for Nekro. Unfortunately, that project is not likely to see the light of day anymore.

[Kot]

Infectonator, there is an fantasy Necromancy version indeed called Necronator. Pretty fun.

[Metalax]

And then if you don't kill the friendly ones at the end IT WAS ALL A RUSE and they eat the world.

Oddly enough, I don't think I've ever seem this idea actually played out in a game where you could make an actual choice rather than have it forced on you via cutscene magic. It seems like the kind of this that should be present at least sometimes in games with multiple endings, yet I've never seen it.

[Egan_BW]

I guess game writers don't like the idea of trust causing the world to end? Don't know why.

[Metalax]

I guess game writers don't like the idea of trust causing the world to end? Don't know why.

Yeah, although you see it a few time with the sudden-yet-inevitable-betrayal to set up the final missions of some games, but only when it has been forced on you, not due to choices you made.

I suppose it's for much the same reason that most 'free choice' games still have a very linear actual plot with your choices being mostly cosmetic differences, being that genuine choice results in large amounts of game that many players will never see, as most purchasers of games don't actually replay many games to see all content. So from a bean-counters point of view, that's wasted effort that was paid for during the games design.

[EnigmaticHat]

The best way to make a truly branching story would be to make a game where new levels and plot components take very little dev time.  So, no voice acting, minimal art assets, and simple level design built out of reusable components.

...basically, Fire Emblem.  Sacred Stones is the only game I can think of off the top of my head that did a truly branching story.  It came back to an identical story at the end, but the entire middle section of the game was different based on a choice you made.  Fates doesn't count since the branches are different games.

[JoshuaFH]

The best way to make a truly branching story would be to make a game where new levels and plot components take very little dev time.  So, no voice acting, minimal art assets, and simple level design built out of reusable components.

...basically, Fire Emblem.  Sacred Stones is the only game I can think of off the top of my head that did a truly branching story.  It came back to an identical story at the end, but the entire middle section of the game was different based on a choice you made.  Fates doesn't count since the branches are different games.

I thought the two branches were really similar in Sacred Stones, to the point where the choice was irrelevant :O

[NRDL]

I want a criminal profiler video game.  Criminal Minds on crack, with an almost X-com type of overworld, where you fly over from your headquarters to various parts of the country ( or globe, depending on how international your fictional criminal investigation agency ) based on attacks in cities, regions, etc. 

You approach cases from various angles, and the serial killers/terrorists/absolute monsters all have their own fleshed out personality traits which you can dissect based on their actions, and which gives you a basis on which to predict their actions and plan their capture.  Play games of wits, use all the resources at your disposal ( with the caveat of having to deal with obstructive boots on the ground and uncomprehending bureaucrats ), and have members of your team personally go to ground, with all the opportunity and danger that implies. 

Could make for some good, randomly generated, horror fun.   

[Urist McScoopbeard]

The Silence of The Lambs: The Game

[JoshuaFH]

I've been playing Pokemon X again, to get some pokemon for a friend to help complete his collection, and I was struck again by a complaint of the series that I've actually harbored for a long time: that the RPG Leveling mechanics make the game intensely boring.

Basically, you can get a team of pokemon that 'work', and then as they level they scale to the (very very low) difficult of the game. While a player might change their pokemon team for any number of reasons, the game doesn't incentivize it as then you have to begin leveling a whole new pokemon that probably isn't up to snuff as your old ones, both in terms of level and the carefully sculpted movesets that the ones you've been dedicating your time to have.

So I've thought about it, and I think it'd be cool to have a pokemon-style game where your monsters don't level up. They just have flat strengths and weakness, set abilities, territorial bonuses, type advantages, things like that to differentiate them, so that progressing through the game isn't a matter of picking up your Charizard and smashing him into every obstacle the game throws at you, but rather a puzzle that requires careful thought and planning about your team composition versus enemies plus territory. Obviously the balancing and pacing of the game would have to be WAY WAY WAY different from pokemon, but that's the gist of it.

[PTTG??]

Yeah, RPG mechanics in general have been over-polished to the point that games that implement them have no traction.

[Twinwolf]

The Shin Megami Tensei games might be similar to what you're looking for. Most of the beings you use to fight- Demons in most of the games-, while they *do* level, do not evolve and will be outpaced by the demons you are fighting and you'll have to either fuse your existing demons together to get new ones with a combination of the skills of the old ones and usually much better stats, or negotiate enemy demons into your team. It's also considered really, really difficult. Much more so than Pokémon. I'd say to look into it.

Do not get this confused with Persona, a spinoff of this series.

[JoshuaFH]

The Shin Megami Tensei games might be similar to what you're looking for. Most of the beings you use to fight- Demons in most of the games-, while they *do* level, do not evolve and will be outpaced by the demons you are fighting and you'll have to either fuse your existing demons together to get new ones with a combination of the skills of the old ones and usually much better stats, or negotiate enemy demons into your team. It's also considered really, really difficult. Much more so than Pokémon.

Do not get this confused with Persona, a spinoff of this series.

Well, I actually played and beat SMT 4 twice, don't know much about the other SMT's, but I'm gonna go ahead and be a huge hypocrite here: I disliked SMT 4 because it wasn't MORE like pokemon and actively discouraged holding onto a steady team. No matter how much you liked your team of archdemons, cat generals, and child-eating nightmare women, they all had very short relevant growth curves and no more than a small handful of unique skills to learn to themselves, as compared to Pokemon's very long relevant growth curves and dozen or more skills to learn per pokemon. The game forced change even when you didn't want to.

While yeah, SMT 4 was a difficult game that encouraged strategy, you know what was the greatest strat? Getting big numbers on your team. And you did that by getting the passive skill that lets you fuse creatures that are substantially higher level than you, cause they have the bigger numbers and the bigger numbers win, no amount of leveling, grinding, or training your existing monsters could get them to match their starting stats. It was something I felt drained the game of it's lore, because now I can't appreciate how badass my world-birthing goddess monster is, I have to treat them as JPG's with numbers attached.

I loved the hell out of Persona though, even though it had the same problem, but that's probably because it had a lovable roster of characters to make up for it.

[itisnotlogical]

I wish there were a sci-fi ARMA game. A military simulation with a silly amount of detail and realism, set in the distant future with laser guns and hovertanks and that sort of thing. I know there's already ARMA mods for Star Wars, Halo, WH40k and so on, but ARMA in particular has some flaws that really kill it for me.