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[Dutchling]

A fun version of Mirror's Edge would be pretty dank too.

[RAM]

You might be able to procedurally generate it using some sort of hub-based system. Generate the world, select a bunch of hub locations and ensure that you there was a path between each one. There would probably be a decent risk of going off the track and getting stuck, but navigating to avoid these thing would be part of the challenge. It could probably incorporate a map and perhaps some sort of predictive view to give the player advanced opportunities to avoid dead-ends.

[Tsuchigumo550]

What happens if you take Mass Effect, X-COM Enemy Unknown/Within, Counter Strike, Far Cry 3, and... something involving co-op?

Oh, and Spec Ops: The Line. Because that's the closest thing to what's coming, and I'll explain that. At some point.

The first thing you need to understand is that we're taking X-COM character creation with a grain of salt, adding Mass Effect character permadeath, optionality, importance, etc, simplifying equipment down to Counter Strike levels and retaining the money system, Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops... for story reasons. Because it's -meant- to be a wild as fuck ride from the beginning.

The game starts off pretty simply, you get four characters to muck around with, just not with any substantial meaning. Yet. These four lucky souls are going to be the first slew of Plot Important Characters, the first of which is the Main Character.
You aren't playing as the Main Character. You're more like a cameraman, but a ghost camera man. BACK ON TOPIC.

The training mission shows you a few things: one, you're controlling everyone indirectly, two, you can jump into any player you control and play the game as an FPS, or issue commands and play it as an RTS. Note that it's not always the best thing to jump in and go a' killin' dudes, as certain skills and level-ups will improve facets of the AI. Like aiming. You start competent and get deadly accurate.

Upon completing the training mission, you get to hand-pick the class that each soldier gets to be. The best part about this is you're allowed to choose things you won't have access to for regular grunt characters yet, mostly so that you can build the team to whatever tactics you want.

From there the game is pretty simple- every mission has a limit on how many units can be spent (two limits- size and weight. You can't send hundreds of grunts because they won't all fit in the helicopters, but you also can't send in a bunch of mechs because they're too heavy). Each unit has customization options that change how certain things act, and is extremely helpful for jumping into someone's skin, as they'll have a gun you picked for them, etc.

You'll have a money limit on gear, too, but that's mostly through "you've got to buy it" and not "You get x money per mission."

Eventually, those plot-important characters become plot-important. You meet and sometimes gain new plot-important characters. Of your starting three that aren't the PC, randomly generated roles are given to them, and that determines mission list. So yes, you won't always get the same thing happening, just in a different skin.

As far as what happens to those characters, well, it's more a question what -dosen't-. Everything ties in and this thing isn't fond of pulling punches. If you happen to have a Tech Specialist archetype on your team, two missions lead up to them getting captured, and bad things happen depending on what they know. One mission offers the chance to spy on your own military (in a way that's kinda moral/accidental) and one that lets you gather enemy intel if you manage to not fuck up a somewhat difficult objective.

Three outcomes happen: That character is dead, undergoes heavy changes, or returns unscathed. To get "Unscathed", you need to trust your own forces and gather enemy intel, which is essentially the hardest path. If you know both sides or only know your own intel, you're treated to "heavy changes", involving the loss of an eye as the most tame thing. In a Dead Space 3 "Fuck Up DIY Surgery" kinda way. If you completely chicken out and go in knowing nothing, that character is toast.

That's just part of a chain-of-events, as every decision affects missions in some way and eventual story path. That tech specialist getting injured is going to put them at a disadvantage and give them some mental scarring, sure, but even then they're still on your crew. If they're DEAD, that's going to make the game a lot harder to complete and that's if you even can get an ending that isn't premature failure.

----

Okay, while I'm on the topic of horrible things happening to characters, Let's combine a horror-comedy-horror series with a Vocaloid Alice In Wonderland spinoff where people die horribly, if I'm not mistaken in some way, and use it to inspire things. Because science.

Let's just put it this way. Far Cry 3 had some great acid-trips but I'm looking for something that takes that alternate world concept and builds a world around it. Like those crazy as fuck Counter Strike Source maps, the ones with the teleport doors and BDSM room and beating heart and car smashing hallway and floating tree islands and... fuck, that's the kinda thing you either know what is, or don't.

Also, candle-chef. I need more murder things like this, that are stopped really easily but you aren't going to be able to do that while they're TRYING TO MURDER YOU. Give an enemy a really simple but situation weakness and you get a really nice horror situation. A gust will blow out the candle and end the horror, but can you really plot ahead while running for your life?

[Parsely]

How about SRW but with space ships instead.

[Sirus]

The first thing you need to understand is that we're taking X-COM character creation with a grain of salt, adding Mass Effect character permadeath, optionality, importance, etc, simplifying equipment down to Counter Strike levels and retaining the money system, Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops... for story reasons. Because it's -meant- to be a wild as fuck ride from the beginning.

Did...did you get those two mixed up?

[Sergarr]

A Fallen Enchantress with multiplayer.

[Robosaur]

A game where the only playable female characters are female. The devs were gonna add playable male characters, but it would have taken too much time 

[lijacote]

A game where the only playable female characters are female. The devs were gonna add playable male characters, but it would have taken too much time 

Not to mention how hard male characters are to animate. Not so hard as to avoid having a few male characters stand in as trophies and victims.

[Natti]

I want Crusader Kings 2 and Medieval 2: Total War to make a baby.

[MaximumZero]

A game where the only playable female characters are female. The devs were gonna add playable male characters, but it would have taken too much time 

Touhou?

[Retropunch]

A game where the only playable female characters are female. The devs were gonna add playable male characters, but it would have taken too much time 

Touhou?

Bayonetta, WET, Mirrors Edge, Tomb Raider...

[Sirus]

A game where the only playable female characters are female. The devs were gonna add playable male characters, but it would have taken too much time 

As opposed to playable female characters that are male...?

Bayonetta, WET, Mirrors Edge, Tomb Raider...

Metroid, Aquaria, Beyond Good and Evil, Fortune Summoners...

[Reelya]

You know, it's arguable that a lot of dual-gender games started life as a female-only game and they added the male character later to boost sales potential, and to increase how much the company was willing to throw into marketing. Based on gender-research:

Dual gender games get about 80% of the marketing budget as male-only games, and female-only games get about 50% of the budget of male-only games (based on a study of almost 700 7th generation console titles). Total sales are in line with this spending. Therefore, if you add a female option to a male-only game, you risk getting your budget cut, whereas if you add a male character to a female-only game you stand to net a 60% budget increase, on average.

When looked at in terms of how it's likely to affect your budget, it sort of casts doubt on the idea that the male character is always the default / starting point in dual-gender games, and might explain why so few games have female-only (4% of games). if you're pitching a female-only game, you can expect to get around 60% more project budget by throwing a random dude in. While there is no evidence of any economic benefit to adding a female-option to a game with a male protagonist.

This is working off the premise that the developer team tries to maximize the budget they're allocated, and that management prioritizes budgets based on whatever management does. Not indicating support for managements decisions per se, but the developers work around the system.

[Retropunch]

You know, it's arguable that a lot of dual-gender games started life as a female-only game and they added the male character later to boost sales potential, and to increase how much the company was willing to throw into marketing. Based on gender-research:

Dual gender games get about 80% of the marketing budget as male-only games, and female-only games get about 50% of the budget of male-only games (based on a study of almost 700 7th generation console titles). Total sales are in line with this spending. Therefore, if you add a female option to a male-only game, you risk getting your budget cut, whereas if you add a male character to a female-only game you stand to net a 60% budget increase, on average.

When looked at in terms of how it's likely to affect your budget, it sort of casts doubt on the idea that the male character is always the default / starting point in dual-gender games, and might explain why so few games have female-only (4% of games). if you're pitching a female-only game, you can expect to get around 60% more project budget by throwing a random dude in. While there is no evidence of any economic benefit to adding a female-option to a game with a male protagonist.

This is working off the premise that the developer team tries to maximize the budget they're allocated, and that management prioritizes budgets based on whatever management does. Not indicating support for managements decisions per se, but the developers work around the system.

Source? (not meant in a questioning-of-credibility way, just that I would be interested in reading more).

[BlindKitty]

--snip--

Yeah, I would like to read more about why it is though about as causation, not correlation, and why this way, not the other way around. Also, with one of three options at 4%, and only about 30 in absolute numbers, it isn't what I would call a very good set.