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My Game Design Ideas.

KuroArcadeKuroArcade Registered User regular
edited July 2010 in Games and Technology
Hello, this is my first post on the penny arcade forums. So hello everyone and I hope this isnt the normal sizzling pool of troll. It's my dream to become a VideoGame developer when I am older and I've had some ideas which i wanted to pass by, none of them are very good but I wanted to see some reactions.

1. A turn based combat game driven by music, you can time your moves to be at certain points at the song that add combos and multiplires based on the epicness of the song. For example, a slow beat beggining has normal attacks but the climax with electric guitars has a x2 multiplier with extra combo attacks if you press the combo button at the beats of the song.

2. Again sort of like final fantasy combat, but instead of attacks and magyk you find runes, which you inscribe with certain elements of attack, like..500 damage + burn damage. There is a limit on what you can do with each move but you could make some neat stuff. Also you can change the looks with a move editor, like, 1. Your character jumps in the air and levitates 2. The battleground goes black, 3. A fricking TRAIN drops on the guy for loads of damage and crush effects. 4. You delevitate and things turn back to normal.


I'm sorry if my posting wasnt very neat, I hope you have some idea what I'm talking about, thanks :D

KuroArcade on

Posts

  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Those are fine ideas.

    Now if you want to become a game designer, make em. Make those games you just described to us. Test and show people your designs because honestly game design that never makes it past the design document is fairly worthless (especially for getting a job).

    Learn Flash or XNA or something and just start making.

    Wassermelone on
  • Metal Gear Solid 2 DemoMetal Gear Solid 2 Demo Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    3. A fricking TRAIN drops on the guy for loads of damage and crush effects.

    heck yes I love trains

    Metal Gear Solid 2 Demo on
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  • KuroArcadeKuroArcade Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Thanks, I'm only a little kid so I can't really comprehend most proggramming languages, but I've been halfway studying Visual Basic for a while, once i learn that I'm planning to move onto a real language like Java or flash. :)

    KuroArcade on
  • KuroArcadeKuroArcade Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    o_OBump. Hoping for some feedback.

    KuroArcade on
  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    We don't really do bumps like that here. I think this is generally what would be considered a poll thread, where not a lot of discussion can really occur besides "I like it."

    Sorry, I don't mean to shoot you down or anything. If people are interested in a topic they will post in it, otherwise it'll fall off the page and you'll have to let it go.

    Your ideas are interesting enough, but ideas don't mean a lot without good execution to back it up. I've played some games where the basic concept would sound incredibly boring, but the combination of gameplay, graphics, sound and story just made it a great experience. The part that comes after the idea is what you should focus on!

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  • falling_stonefalling_stone Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    the designs are fine ideas.
    But they're just that, ideas.

    Wassermelone hit it on the head man, being a game designer is a lot like being a writer. You have to do it to get any better at it. You should be making stuff all the time, trying new things, learning new systems and giving your ideas form.
    Sure you want to carve a statue, but unless you get some rock in your hands and start working it, you'll never know how to get what you want out of it.

    and that "I'm a little kid, I don't understand programming languages" is bullshit. The younger you start learning this stuff, the better you're going to be at it.

    Go forth young man.

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  • kedinikkedinik Captain of Industry Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    To be fair, programming can be an extremely confusing thing to wrap your mind around when you're young and have no formal teaching.

    That being said, KuroArcade should find an intro to programming course and dig in.

    kedinik on
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  • LilnoobsLilnoobs Alpha Queue Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    I know how to program and now I got some ideas.

    C'est la vie
    just kidding man, goodluck

    Lilnoobs on
  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    As I said before, your ideas are ok.

    But EVERYONE has game ideas and EVERYONE wants to be the idea guy. I'm not saying don't stop thinking about em, but honestly? Ideas like these are a dime a dozen. Go to any indie game development board and you will find a thousand posts with ideas like yours "Looking for artists and programmers". Theres nothing really we can say about these that is going to help in any way. As I said, the way to go about giving yourself that practice with actual game design is to actually make games.

    You may be "a little kid" but you can still start figuring out XNA or Actionscript! Theres no 'too early' to start learning this stuff. Hell, make board games. Make tabletop rpgs. Just make make make.

    Wassermelone on
  • JurgJurg In a TeacupRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Good luck with learning programming.

    EVERYONE has ideas, but if you can actually put those ideas into practice, you'll be lightyears ahead of many others.

    Jurg on
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  • apotheosapotheos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2010
    We regularly have forum initiatives to make awesome games that pretty much go nowhere.

    Ideas are a dime a dozen - even the fucking fantastic ones. The magic of video games is the transformative process where a handful, or a large handful, or hundreds of people come together and make part of that idea a reality. Its hard, hugely long hours, and never comes out quite how you expected it to.

    Its also inscrutable and almost entirely impossible to talk about publicly.

    apotheos on


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  • WillethWilleth Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    The best advice I can give any budding designer is twofold. For one, learn to program or model/animate as soon as possible. You will need to know this. You don't just go into a job as a designer - you need to actually work on the games beforehand, and even after you become a designer you'll still be working actively on the game.

    Secondly, never ever post your ideas in a public forum like this. You're asking for someone who already knows how to make games to up and make it themselves.

    Willeth on
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  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    personally i have a journal that i write down any game idea that pops into my head, then i lengthen it out so when i look back at it several years later i will remember what i'm talking about. unfortunately i don't think any of them will ever get made :?

    TheKoolEagle on
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  • AlejandroDaJAlejandroDaJ Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    It's true, everyone wants to be the idea guy. I've worked on three Half-life and Half-Life 2 mod teams in the past, and you always get emails from people saying, "You guys should hire me. I can't program or do art but I have TONS of ideas!" This tends to be seen as obnoxious, because programmers and artists have ideas too. That's why they got into programming and art... they wanted to work on their own ideas, not others.

    That said, you're on the right path with learning Basic. Ask your parents to pick you up a C++ or C# book, you're not too young to learn. I was working in QBasic in elementary school and VBasic/C in middle school... this is the BEST time to learn.

    Also, although I think it's a bit beyond you at the moment, a bunch of us are working in XNA, which is C# based and does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Our thread is here: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=116540

    You're probably better off starting with something that gives you templates and wizards, though, like RPG Maker.

    AlejandroDaJ on
  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Willeth wrote: »
    Secondly, never ever post your ideas in a public forum like this. You're asking for someone who already knows how to make games to up and make it themselves.

    This is... off. Sure they could 'steal' your ideas, but likely they have their own ideas and just don't care about one more idea out of the millions already on the internet. Theres just no game designer that trolls about the internet looking for somebody's game design to pilfer.

    Wassermelone on
  • apotheosapotheos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2010
    I don't think idea stealing is a real problem.

    The problem is if we all just share ideas this thread becomes the intellectual version of a circle jerk: its horribly self involved, not that much fun, and at the end of it something has to happen with the toast and oh sweet jesus I hope its not me this time.

    apotheos on


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  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    apotheos wrote: »
    I don't think idea stealing is a real problem.

    The problem is if we all just share ideas this thread becomes the intellectual version of a circle jerk: its horribly self involved, not that much fun, and at the end of it something has to happen with the toast and oh sweet jesus I hope its not me this time.

    Its like dreams. Everyone has fucking crazy dreams. We get it people who like to talk about their dreams.

    Wassermelone on
  • eatmosushieatmosushi __BANNED USERS regular
    edited July 2010
    here's my game idea:

    the player is a dude that has an idea for a video game

    you then have to make the idea a reality


    you do this by rearring colored gems into rows of at least 3 matching colors.

    :winky:

    eatmosushi on
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  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Heh, last fall I took a Game Design course at a local community college just for fun (I work fulltime as a computer engineer for a R&D lab), and our final paper was to write a spec for a game. I got an A on it and the teacher wrote me a note saying "this is a great idea, lots of companies would want to make a game like this".

    My wife looked at it and said "you should try to sell this to a game making company" and I LOLed, but couldn't quite find the words to explain to her why that statement was wrong.

    Smrtnik on
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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Heh, last fall I took a Game Design course at a local community college just for fun (I work fulltime as a computer engineer for a R&D lab), and our final paper was to write a spec for a game. I got an A on it and the teacher wrote me a note saying "this is a great idea, lots of companies would want to make a game like this".

    My wife looked at it and said "you should try to sell this to a game making company" and I LOLed, but couldn't quite find the words to explain to her why that statement was wrong.

    I will paypal you $20 for this idea

    UncleSporky on
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  • psycojesterpsycojester Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Surely it should be.

    The player is a dude that has an idea for a video game.

    You then go on an epic quest to find somebody to do the hard work while you hang around being visionary.

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  • JurgJurg In a TeacupRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    What's really bad is an adamant idea guy with terrible and/or uninspired ideas.

    "Imagine GTA, but IN SPACE!" or "It's like Oblivion, but with MORE CUSTOMIZATION!"

    Jurg on
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  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    if your game idea ever lists another game, you are doing it wrong.

    i fucking hate it when people say they have an awesome idea and then it turns into XCOM BUT WITH GOOD GRAPHICS!

    TheKoolEagle on
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  • Drunk_caterpillarDrunk_caterpillar Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    As long as it doesn't turn into A Gang of Daggers I'm sure you'll do well for yourself.

    Drunk_caterpillar on
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Jurg wrote: »
    "Imagine GTA, but IN SPACE!"

    Hands up. Who else would totally play the hell out of this?

    (Also: X3.)

    (E: Also also: X-COM BUT WITH GOOD GRAPHICS is a fucking brilliant idea.)

    Elvenshae on
  • Drunk_caterpillarDrunk_caterpillar Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    if your game idea ever lists another game, you are doing it wrong.

    So when Warren Spector included Half-Life as an influence on the "Shooter" (now Deus Ex) proposal documents he was wrong, eh?

    Drunk_caterpillar on
  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    if your game idea ever lists another game, you are doing it wrong.

    i fucking hate it when people say they have an awesome idea and then it turns into XCOM BUT WITH GOOD GRAPHICS!

    I agree on the broad spectrum but I don't think there's anything wrong with designing smaller elements on the basis of another game. If you're making a GTA or WoW clone, I don't think you have to say "a circular minimap in the corner that rotates as the field of view rotates and has icons all over it representing different objectives." You can just say, a GTA-style minimap. Because good ideas are good ideas, and sometimes it's ok to copy.

    UncleSporky on
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  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    i agree as a visual point to get the idea across of a minimap or a type of ui, but i am mostly hating on people who take game a, and just change the setting. nothing else.

    that is one of my biggest pet peeves

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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Yeah.

    It's like Tetris mixed with Guitar Hero with the races from World of Warcraft and the job system from Final Fantasy Tactics!!! It will be so tite

    UncleSporky on
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  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Anyone have any recommendations for a really solid (and current) programming book? Maybe one that's specifically tailored to helping people learn game design?

    Lucascraft on
  • ApollohApolloh Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    I remember talking about the idea for Homefront with my friends back in San Francisco like three years ago.

    "Whoa dude what if like, San Francisco was occupied by North Koreans? San Francisco would make an awesome cityscape for a shooter. Highly differing terrain in a small space of land, so its also easily traversable! Oblivion made a continent, you could totally make this city detail by detail."

    Unless you do something with your ideas, they'll eventually be made by someone else! So get crackin. Oh and im not really claiming i wouldve done something with the idea, i think its awesome that theyre doing something like it.

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  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Anyone have any recommendations for a really solid (and current) programming book? Maybe one that's specifically tailored to helping people learn game design?

    I would recommend picking up a book on unreal, the engine is free and starting out by modding really makes the transition easier, unfortunately I don't have any recommendations for specific books, when I was doing this stuff I was using unreal tournament 2004. but doing youtube tutorials got me a lot of basic knowledge about it.

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  • JurgJurg In a TeacupRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Jurg wrote: »
    "Imagine GTA, but IN SPACE!"

    Hands up. Who else would totally play the hell out of this?

    (Also: X3.)

    (E: Also also: X-COM BUT WITH GOOD GRAPHICS is a fucking brilliant idea.)

    I would play the hell out of it, but it's not a brilliant idea- it's more like a fact.

    Like, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could cure cancer?"

    Jurg on
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  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    edited July 2010
    if your game idea ever lists another game, you are doing it wrong.

    i fucking hate it when people say they have an awesome idea and then it turns into XCOM BUT WITH GOOD GRAPHICS!

    I don't know if I agree with this - other games can provide a good frame of reference. I mean, can you describe Cave Story without saying Metroid (or vania)? You probably can, but if you're describing a non-linear, exploration based platformer with a variety of weapons and upgrades that allow you to reach new areas, any gamer you talk to is going to say "Oh, kinda like Metroid?" and you can either say "Yeah, like that" or sperg out about how it isn't.

    The real problem is when that's all the idea is, or if the idea is "like Game X with elements of Game Y" with no ensuing substance.

    Delzhand on
  • apotheosapotheos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2010
    Gang of Daggers has been invoked.

    I have no choice now.

    apotheos on


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