30 days of game concept brainstorms: the aftermath

[Sparren]

Background

Some time ago on VPL (shortly before the most recent downtime started) I posted a topic challenging myself to brainstorm and share a new game concept every day for a month with the hope of better developing my creativity.

I managed to keep up with it pretty well at first (although I admit I was often a bit tardy when it came to the sharing part), but unfortunately once the forum went down I started to lose motivation and abandoned the challenge altogether. I do hope to try again at some point though.

Despite the failure I still wanted to share the 14 concepts I got through with you all. I don’t claim any of them are brilliant or super original, but I had fun dreaming them up anyway. Feel free to let me know what you think or what could be improved. (Please forgive the concept names though  I didn't try very hard with them. They're just there for the sake of having something to reference each concept by.)

Note: All of these concepts are free to use. If you do develop one I’d love to hear about it though (most of them are games I’d probably love to play).

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I use a notebook for my brainstorming so most of the concepts still need to be typed up. I'll get to that over the next few days (ideally...no promises). In the meantime here are the...

Concepts I had posted to VPL before the downtime:

Supply train – You’re in charge of a supply caravan/supply camp tasked with keeping your kingdom’s army fed and supplied. A strategy/resource management game.

How well or poorly you do will impact the army’s performance in battle and the skills/abilities/units available to you in battle. You get to play through the battles but all stats, army composition, skills, upgrades, ect. depend upon your performance and decisions in supplying the troops. You win the game when your army has successfully pushed into the enemies’ territory and taken their castle. You lose by either allowing your entire army to be wiped out (this can happen outside of battle via desertion, starvation, disease, or in-fighting or inside of battle by losing all of your units and having no reserve forces) or by getting pushed all the way back to your castle and failing its defense.

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Campaign Break – You’re the general (or quartermaster? who would be in charge of an encampment?) of a medieval military encampment. The campaign season has come to an end and now stuck far from home you’re tasked with keeping your troops alive through the long harsh winter months.

In this rouge-lite strategy/resource management game you’ll need to build, upgrade, and fortify an encampment to ensure your men’s safety from both the elements and beasts/bandits in the surrounding forests as well as manage your troops supplies, health, training, and morale to ensure they’re ready to jump back into action when the ice thaws in the spring. How well or poorly you do this and how many men remain once the ice begins to thaw will determine your ending. Succeed and your kingdom might just have a chance at fending off the enemy come Spring. Fail and the kingdom is surely doomed.

Perhaps include the new campaign’s decisive battle as the last task in the game… how many have survived, their supplies, and their morale will all impact how difficult the battle is/resources, units, & skills available/if it is even possible to succeed. Win or lose this battle and the game will end. It’s result will determine the game’s overall ending.

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Siege – Your castle is under siege. Try to survive by upgrading, repairing, and supplying your troops, citizens, and castle until reinforcements arrive. But they aren’t guaranteed… You’ll need to negotiate with the king and nearby lords/estates for relief. How well you do at this will determine the number, strength, and speed of the reinforcements you receive, but they’ll all come at a cost. Can you save your estate? And if so just how much of it will remain?

It should be possible but incredibly difficult to win the game without reinforcements or with just the standard guaranteed reinforcements from the king (whose strength/effectiveness will vary based on your diplomatic choices).

Twist:

Spoiler

 

Perhaps create a version of this game that does not outwardly seem to be about breaking/surviving a siege. Instead make it appear like some kind of castle builder game where you play as a lord and try to rule over your estate and rake in as much wealth and power as possible with the goal of eventually overthrowing the king and taking the throne yourself. Include a whole bunch of choices, castle building, and diplomacy options during this portion of the game which (little does the player know) will have a big impact on their success and preparedness once the siege portion of the game begins. The real objective of the game is simply to survive the siege as successfully as possible, but players shouldn’t know that on their first play through.

Your estate happens to be based on one of the vulnerable fringes of your kingdom, only you didn’t realize that at the time. Either some monsters begin to invade near you or a former ally of the kingdom turns traitor and you’re the closest/first in the line of fire. Subtly hint of trouble during the beginning of the game. After a good number of ‘turns’ in the estate builder portion of the game suddenly switch things up as the castle comes under attack. From that point forward all objectives turn to survival and seeking aid as your lands are invaded and held under siege.

Second Twist:

Perhaps to throw players off even more the first portion of the game should be fully fleshed and entirely playable. Perhaps the first play through of the game is zany and casual. Whether or not the game will take the sudden shift to siege mode will be randomized or secretly unlocked on the second play through.

 

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Badvisor - Congratulations! You’ve been selected as one of the kings new advisors. You’re also a filthy traitor! Choose one of several nefarious motivations and get to work running his kingdom into the ground.

Lie, cheat, bribe, and manipulate your way into the kings confidences in this game of betrayal and political intrigue. Win by killing off the royal family or by causing the kingdom to devolve into anarchy.

Computer or tabletop game? Potential for either. If tabletop maybe multiplayer where 1 plays as the king a few play as loyalists and others play as traitors.

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World Reborn - An archaeology/conservation themed sim/pet site focused around the discovery, care, and revival of extinct animals and plants.

Many years ago some kind of disaster struck causing mass extinctions. Now the balance of nature has been thrown off and the planet is struggling to support life. Your task is to help revitalize the planet’s ecosystems by reviving and reintroducing its long lost species to help restore the balance and a new hope for human civilization.

Players must explore and research to gather the genetic clues and materials which will allow them to restore new species to the world. Along the way some of their revived pets will have to help them. What’s left of the world is a harsh place, and the plants and animals who remain are fearsome.

Enabling a revived species to really thrive in this world’s harsh environs will take special preparation and consideration. Make the wrong choices and your revived creatures might not be off the extinction list for long.

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Mythic Preserve - A sim/pet game where the player is charged with running a wildlife refuge for dangerous and/or endangered mythical creatures or monsters. It is their job to hunt, capture, relocate, rehabilitate and contain these creatures for the protection of the species as well as that of the vulnerable public.

In this game there are pets and ‘residents’. Pets are loyal companions who aid and protect you while performing your job. Residents are creatures who have been relocated to your preserve and must be protected and cared for. Residents are sometimes (but not always) malicious and must be carefully managed so that they remain healthy and do not escape back into the wider world where they can harm or be harmed by others.

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I'll add the remainder of the concepts in future posts

Edited April 18, 2017 by Sparren

[Digital]

On 4/18/2017 at 0:37 AM, Sparren said:

Badvisor - Congratulations! You’ve been selected as one of the kings new advisors. You’re also a filthy traitor! Choose one of several nefarious motivations and get to work running his kingdom into the ground.

Haha, the plot of this one had me laughing out loud!

 

[Tmra]

I really love the badvisor concept.

I also like World Reborn, it reminds me of Jurassic Park..

[Sparren]

@Tmra @Digital

Thanks! 'Badvisor' was one of my favorites.

I'm glad you posted, I've been busy lately and had totally forgotten about this. I still have a handful in a notebooks somewhere I've never shown. I'll try to get them posted when I get home this weekend.

[Digital]

1 hour ago, Sparren said:

I'm glad you posted, I've been busy lately and had totally forgotten about this. I still have a handful in a notebooks somewhere I've never shown. I'll try to get them posted when I get home this weekend.

I know I personally would love to hear more of these, they are all really well written ideas and possible game concepts!