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[i2amroy]

I think you'll find a fairly large amount of the first option at this forum, rpg's tend to cater a bit more towards the "permadeath" aspect of things (which is what would get my vote).

[scrdest]

The latter. Losing Your Stuff is a perfectly OK part of a game, what is irritating is it not being fair about it, or re-doing something unfun every time you die.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

It depends a lot on the atmosphere of the game, actually. Permadeath has a different weight depending on how easy it is to die and how hard it is to progress, and depending on how abstract the game mechanics are making resurrection too mundane can break immersion, if its not explained in a way that fits the game lore.
Too much abstraction turns me off a bit so I lean towards games where dying isn't frequent but is final, and the challenge is in progressing and not survival

[Mephansteras]

The latter, especially if regaining your stuff (or at least some of it) is possible. Does depend a lot on the way death happens in the game, though, and how often. If it is incredibly easy to die by, say, falling off of ledges, then losing your stuff becomes much more frustrating. If death happens because you were careless or took risks you didn't need to (either for fun or for a tangible reward) then it's not so bad.

Overall, I think it comes down to game focus. Since you mention the accumulation of knowledge being important, it sounds like the overall narrative is the important thing. I'd go with whatever makes that the most fun.

[scrdest]

You could go with a kind of 'succesion-survival', so when your character dies, but another one finds his journal or something, and takes up the mantle.

[infiniteseq]

Must have been when people were dumbasses too. I would have thought you'd need to have a basic level of intelligence to build a ship and sail it halfway across the world.

Last time i checked, people were still dumb-asses even tho we now fly into space ... Being pretty dumb is an inherent human quality ;-)

[Sappho]

OK thanks for the feedback guys. I will use the second option (permadeath, but you keep all knowledge gained). This will prevent people from stockpiling everything without facing the wider narrative of the game, which would kind of ruin the challenge of this game - it wouldn't be fun if it was too easy. Most of the time, death will be easily preventable with a little planning and awareness of yourself, but now and then something might surprise you. In any case, I totally agree that under no circumstances should the player be forced into repetitive tasks which aren't inherently fun. The narrative is the key in this game, and that will remain intact. It's about exploring and experimenting and figuring out how to do stuff, what things are, and discovering a deeper story underlying everything. So if you figure out how to, say, make a bandage, then even after you die, you'll still be able to do that. You just have to find some more things to make it with, which shouldn't be unpleasant or boring. I don't want to make a grindy game.

[Mesa]

A concept that I've been thinking about is, in short, a 2D sidescrolling team-based, multiplayer Nuclear Throne-type game - you run around in two teams of X players (probably around 3-4, and the maps would be relatively small) in a nuclear wasteland, killing each other with guns and stuff.


In more detail, you have 3 main "mutants"/classes (unmutated humans, frogs and birds), 3 weapon types (ranged, melee, explosive), each having 3 weapons in them (submachine gun, sniper rifle and shotgun; knife, sledgehammer and spear; grenade, cherry bombs and mines) that you can freely mix and match.

Each of the classes and weapons would be unique and distinct from each other (humans are all-arounders, with a double jump; frogs are slow, tanky and have a single, high jump; birds are fast but fragile and can fly) and would have their own stregnths and weaknesses (grenades do decent damage and explode on impact, cherry bombs do a lot of small damage chunks but don't explode on impact (rather after a set duration) and mines are powerful but have to be manually detonated/stepped over by enemies and have a small arming time so you can't "facemine" people). You can only change those before the game starts though, so you have to be wise about it. You could also pick an utility item, such as a portable teleporter or a health pack or a sentry gun, but not sure if that'd be necessary.

Apart from the equipment, you can also choose upgrades for the weapons that will be available for you in the shop in the game (you can select 3 out of X possible upgrades, so you have to choose wisely - upgrades would range from an extended magazine to extra fire rate to explosive bullets, and each weapon would have its own set of upgrades that you could unlock in the campaign mode/through online play) and you can also choose mutations (which are upgrades that affect your character and their effect is far bigger than the weapon upgrades) that you will be able to choose when you gain a level in-game when you kill enough enemies (there could be some neutral/team AI-controlled mutants/monsters). For instance, you could gain a mutation that lets you dash sideways to avoid damage, or gain health back from attacking enemies (lifesteal).

There would be some bog-standard gamemodes like TDM or CTF but also something akin to a MOBA gamemode, where you have to destroy the enemy base while protecting your own, with turrets and all that.


I had plenty of sketches for the characters and weapons in my notebooks (boring lessons are boring, plus I need to practice my art), and eventually I hope to make this game one day. Until then...

[Urist McScoopbeard]

There would be some bog-standard gamemodes like TDM or CTF but also something akin to a MOBA gamemode, where you have to destroy the enemy base while protecting your own, with turrets and all that.

Damnit man, hasn't DOTA and LoL ruined the internet enough?

EDIT: although, I must say interesting concept. You should show your sketches!

[Mesa]

Well, it'd be less of a Dota and LoL-type MOBA and more inclided towards fast-paced action of Awesomenauts.
And I may scan and possibly re-draw them with my tablet later on, so who knows!

Do note that I'm having trouble finding a good design for the bird people (also everyone is limbless, so this is basically Rayman meets Nuclear Throne as far as the aesthetic goes - I can't draw limbs that aren't basically toothpicks, so might as well not have them ), so they may look worse than the humans and frogs. Also those sketches are tiny, after all I had to have some space to write on... *shrug*

[AndClayton]

A game with the same game mechanics and gameplay as Mount and Blade (managing your own parties, character, army, towns, ect.) but with an awesome, realistic shooter engine made for tactical engagements and top it off with an unprecedented weapon modifying/repairing system. It would be highly realistic with emphasis on picking your fights. A single shot to the leg can immobilize you and if untreated you can bleed out or it can get infected. It'd be a hardcore game with only one life, and a system in place that prevents any kind of save scumming.

The game would take place in 2020-240 on Earth that had systemically fallen apart due to war, loss of natural resources, ect. that crippled the world. Major governments like the US and Russia took their top people and a select military and went into hiding. The rest of the people in the world either killed each other over resources or created their own "factions", towns, ect.

No zombies or mutants in this game. Your biggest enemy is going to be other humans (not multi-player) and how you interact with them. Want to track a caravan and ambush them? Do it. Want to walk right up to them and see what they're doing? Do it, but make sure you have your weapon holstered and aren't coming off as threatening.

Also, it will retain the same "kingdom management" idea from Mount in Blade: if you want to, you can collect people together and stake an area as your own. Starting off small and building different things like farms and renewable sources of energy. Eventually you're town could grow, you'll be "mayor" of it and have to employ guards and defenses because other factions are coming to get what you have.

OR you could get an army together and march into an already established town. Do you kill all the leaders and guards and force the civilians to comply? Or do you go in total war style and murder everyone? Or do you sneak in with a select few, kidnap the mayor and execute him publicly to instill fear into the populace? Your choice.

You would move around on an overhead map much like M&B, the map would be of different continents. So you could go to major places like North America, Europe, Japan, ect. but not very many different continents.

And yup, that's my dream game.

Also, food, water, sleep, ect. basic necessities would be required to live for you AND party members/soldiers/population, so no just marching around a map all the time. They need rest to be effective.

[Draxis]

A DM/CTF arena shooter in the style of the more modern Quakelikes, only where instead of having lots of killy weapons, most of the weapons are focused on movement effects you can only carry one, and to defeat other players you must use environmental hazards/impact damage/shooting them a whole lot until the low damage of the weapons takes effect. The focus would be on movement, the maps being very hard to get around even with strong bunnyhopping and rampjumping leading to weapon choice being very important because of how each one would enable different movement possibilities. 

For example, there would be a slackless grappling hook which can do some damage and pin two players together, but also let you swing around; a velocity-inheriting but slow rocket-style weapon which allows rocket jumping and would probably be the most killy gun, a device which pulls you towards or away from walls and other players, maybe a portal gun of some sort - things like that.

The health pool could be regenerating and also be used as energy for doing things like boosting jumps, walljumping, or maybe even jetpacking, but that would be hard to get a balance between everyone being too tanky and the energy pools being to small to use safely.

[Mesa]

So here are the sketches for the game I talked about earlier (temporary name Wasteland Kings, but won't stay like that because that was Nuclear Throne's previous name that had to be changed because Wasteland exists).

The 4th one also has other random doodles (and was made in the English notebook, hence the English text).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Scanner ate some of the color though (although they were all done with either a blue or black pen, so no big deal).

[WillowLuman]

(Just gotta say, the art style looks like what might be called Rayman: Apocalypse)

[Mesa]

Frankly the Rayman influences were high, and chances are Ubisoft would happily sue my ass if I made this game.
I mean what, you're going to be telling me that they have copyrights for limblessness now? (although IIRC Rayman (and possibly one other side character) was the only one to have his head, hands and feet floating freely away from the body, whereas here it applies to everyone, so...)