Need for Speed: The Run, but good. Give me an uninterrupted race accoss the US (or any other continent), against 199 other drivers, with strategic decisions to make such as fuel stops, sleep breaks, multiple paths... Make it a rogue lite with unlockable vehicle classes, police chases, weather changes, racing through traffic... Bonus points for realistic physics and VR support.
Nfs the run was so disappointing. Even for a nfs game.
Some NFS game are straight up terrible (Undercover...), but at least the good ones with similar gameplay (NFSU2, Carbon) still exist. But The Run was worse than bad; it was disappointing. It could have been good, but wasn't, and they never tried to make another one with a similar premise.
The only good part of the game is the bonus mission in Carbon Canyon, in all its HD glory.
What about the avalanche mission? Did you find that too Micheal Bay movie-like?
I don't remember it. I don't think I played this game a lot.
Honestly I loved The Run. It was a jam packed unique short game experience. It was definitely too short for it's price, but you know at that time Blackbox was working on 3 separate games.
Cities: Skylines but ecosystem repair. Plant forests, regrade areas of mountains to mitigate landslide potential, reintroduce species and study their functional relationships with each other... Game progression comes in the form of additional research grants or new area assignments which present new challenges and unlock a new set of tools/procedures, but the successes from previous sites allow for migration of the reintroduced species into the new site.
I've only watched gameplay of Terra Nil, but it seems like it's just an environmentalism themed puzzle game. You could replace all the titles with colors, and all the buildings and what they do with arbitrary rules, and it seems like it wouldn't look anything like an ecosystem sim. It would be like taking the game Lights Out, changing dark spots to "growth", light spots to "wastelands" and saying the goal is to balance out the ecosystem.
I didn't see the late game though, so maybe I didn't see where it shines.
I was hoping this was the direction Dyson Sphere Program would go. I think it would be an interesting twist on the factory management genre if nature was working against you; not in a Factorio "aliens will attack you if they see your pollution" way, but a "you're producing pollution, this is creating more in-climate weather that is damaging your factories and changing the landscape dynamically" sort of way. I think this was the natural next step given that the game is already about climbing the Kardashev scale, producing more energy so that you can construct the means to produce exponentially more energy. Seemed like the natural next step would be exploring the balancing act that has to happen to achieve that energy production without also creating systemic issues for yourself that make it infeasible.
Instead their latest patch adds aliens that attack you 😕.
I guess this game just doesn’t exist, but remember that tweet of the guy who had a dream about an open world pirate exploration game with Waluigi in it?
That game.
Now I'm just imagining AC Black Flag, but Waluigi just replaces Edward whole cloth, just does all the voicelines and everything, everybody else just pretends he's a normal guy.
There is/was a fan made version of this in development! I don't know the status of it currently, and I heard that development was rocky for a while.. and they haven't posted on the blog since 2020. But take a look anyway!
If you go role play as Waluigi in Sea of Thieves, that's kinda the same thing.
Hmmm, quite hard to choose. I would say an anticapitalist game. Most of game focus on growing, gaining power and i never saw an game that has horizontal power hard coded to its bone.
For example : city skyline unlock new building based on population threesold. The city development is geared toward growing, expanding and creating new job. That's bad. We can't live in this kind of world anymore and yet we fail to imagime something different.
Can't we imagine a new economical system and set up new variable ? Or a game that go beyond the scope of heroes's story ? Why should we be special ?
Plenty of games are anti-capitalist (cookie clicker is the first one that came to mind!) but they are usually critiques of capitalism by demonstrating the issues with it, rather than demonstrating alternatives.
There’s a minecraft mod where villages will give you free resources if you’ve been helpful to them in the past, but it’s quite limited. I agree it would be interesting to play a game where alternative systems are clearly depicted. Would fit well with a sci-fi game.
Terra Nil is a great game. It's really chill and relaxing.
True as Sim City where the end result it a big city without nature., nor landscape. :)
You start with an area that was destroyed by humans (and capitalism), and have to basically revive the ecosystem, and then remove all your buildings and leave.
There are also games like Stranded: Alien Dawn (which is sort of a mashup of Kenshi and Rimworld) where you are not supposed to be growing, you are supposed to either reach an equilibrium and live there sustainably, or escape/ leave.
Yeah, those game are great. Stranded, will look that. There is also Eco. And i would add getting over it :)
Another economical system ? Let's say universal income, bank of time ? Libre currency ? An anarchy system with several democraty system and quadratic vote ? A shared decision along other mayors (players) ? I'm willing to explore those ideas where the idea of grow is simply erased along infinite ressource. Basnished is somewhat close to it as resources are limited.
Something that follow GIEC's recommendation where building the biggest city will result a game over and economic collapse.
Horizontality skill system. Veloren try to do that but it's not what i'm seeking. Maybe soul game are closer as you learn how to be better instead of using skill, weapon, armor ? It would erase the experience point in rpg system. There is no grow. You are just a human with the same set as everyone. No better armor, no new skills. So you can be killed by a new player.
Collaborative game instead competitive one . There are lot ideas to explore as relationship. :)
Back in the day I playtested this game concept under an NDA, but since it expired I can talk about it.
An FPS game in an open map with buildings, has 12 players playing but when someone dies, they respawn right there but swap to the opposite team. The last person to get shot gets eliminated and then the teams split again. This goes on until 6 players are remaining, who are declared the winning team.
It was really fun to play, and I quite miss it.
Doesn't that mean that the last man standing is the first to lose?
So if your team is loosing you try to get shot deliberately to not be the last?
You could mitigate that by coms only being proximity and no indication of how many players each team has. Thst would also make offensive playstyles preferable.
What was that called?
That does sound like a lot of fun.
So, if I die first in every round, I win?
Reminds me of zombie panic
Eve Offline, with all other players being NPCs.
I have a mental hangup with the very real dread of when hosted multiplayer games die, that all the time and effort I have spent, and all the things I've built, will just suddenly disappear. It's why I run a private G17 Mabinogi server on my pc, rather than playing online.
This what got me into the original .hack on PS2.
Saw this trailer the other day that might interest you, it's an offline type mmo where all the other players are simulated. Erenshor Offline MMO Trailer
It used to exist, but not so much anymore. I miss heavily community based FPS multiplayer games. With custom servers and so on. I played Counter-Strike: Source last night, what a breath of fresh air!
Same, I played some Day Of Defeat: Source also a while back. I got onto a server, people were talking about random things and seemed to know each other, there was a sense of community, it felt like a local bar.
It's 3am and I'm chilling and talking with strangers while surfing on CS:S. God, I miss this.
I miss that in newer games. It's all matchmaking, all competitive and in many ways, modern games like this feels "no fun allowed".
I really miss these days where games were more than just the game itself.
I also feel that newer games only focus on the competitive aspect.
Pretty much. It's always competitive. Always on the grind. You can't just play for fun, no. You have to be at your best every time, because now, there is this skill-based matchmaking algorithm watching your every move in game and so on.
I feel like I'm starting to get old when I say this, but every time I go back to play one of those old games, I get reinforced in this idea... so many games feel like jobs nowadays. It's just like the real world, it's all so competitive. No fun allowed. You can't ever be goofing around, you have your rank to worry about... every shooter now keeps on getting updated, the meta keeps on changing, and you have to keep up with it constantly otherwise you'll get left behind.
I can't put it into words exactly, so excuse me if what I'm going to say sounds odd... But I feel like most of the modern entertainment available to me is really stressful and I can't explain it. To be honest, it's the first time I'm voicing this feeling, but I find it really distressing...
I think that I fully understand how you feel. It's pretty much why I stopped playing online games. I want to be able to not think about being good or absolutly winning every single game. Most of the time, I would rather prefer trying out "dumb" stuff in the game or simply having random conversations while having fun.
Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.
A turn-based, tactical, squad-centered action title where a collective of vicious aliens invade the planet and you as the leader of a group of brave if vulnerable heroes have to save the world from the strange new threat. Except this time the world the aliens have picked to invade is a fantasy realm.
Guiding mages, warriors and rogues against the threat from outer space, combining XCOMesque battles with traditional fantasy game combat and levelling mechanics. Advance through the map taking regions back in control rather than zigzagging around the globe. Both the dwarven and elven capitals are under attack, which one do you go to rescue first and gain the help a new race to pick your pool of heroes from? Manage your kingdom and choose which deities you build a temple for, determining whether you unlock paladins or warlocks as a sub-class. Beat the aliens to reach the dragon before its captured and converted to their side. And as you encounter more armoured enemies, let your blacksmiths experiment with slapping together scavenged items from the battlefield to form high -tier magitech armour of your own.
It's a fever dream combination of effectively XCOM and Majesty that's been in my head for years because I love quirky mashups like this. Not necessarily anything new under the sun but I feel like with some work put into it, you could really forge something unique by embracing the combination of styles and genre conventions.
That sounds amazing honestly.
Truly open-world Star Wars. Like a Breath of the Wild game except with multiple planets and all the Star Wars stuff.
We had something close to it with SW: Galaxies, but... RIP SW: Galaxies.
I want a game that's somewhere between Animal Crossing and Dwarf Fortress - something with the extensive world gen of DF, but with cute goofy animals, and maybe a little less grisly. So less sudden death by wildlife/zombies/collapsing ceilings, and more adorable wagon travel, trade and founding of settlements - which you then get to live in!
That sounds like a great idea. I'm picture something with the world and artwork of Root, but yeah, gameplay like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld.
So when you say "less sudden death", would there still be death? Or would it have the potential as a kid-friendly intro to the simulation genre?
Omg yeah I had the style of Root in mind too!
I go back and forth on how much of the dwarf fortress vibes to let in. Probably it'd be a bit distressing to see your adorable villager friends just straight up die. On the other hand, it would be kind of interesting to experience them getting old and passing away, plus racking up memories, hangups, traumas and complicated social connections like the dwarves do.
Me and my SO had this idea (based on where we live lol) for a game that's like Animal Crossing where it's all cute and you build houses and a town for cute animal characters, except they're all shitty crackheads so like you build a park and the next day there's shit on the floor and all the streetlights are broken, you have to fish in the river to get old bikes and shopping carts out and so on.
Modern AAA matrix game
Science-based dragon MMO
Someone should take this project on as their first foray into game dev. Bonus points if it's a middle-aged woman.
I want to play a game like Fallout, with perhaps a light plot, but a much heavier settlement building mechanic.
Like, you found a settlement, and it’s filled with trash, debris, and burnt-out structures. As you scavenge and collect things, and attract people to your cause, the place slowly becomes cleaner and more structured. You can have settlers scavenge for themselves and fix up structures, farm for food, treat wounded, lead small armies against mutants and generally secure an area of a map, and really be able to treat the settlement as a home base.
Playing Fallout 4, I was bothered by how I could build out all these settlements, place structures and whatnot, help these people, and still no one had the sense to pick up a broom and sweep up the pile of trash in the street.
Sounds a bit like State of Decay. Or maybe Surviving The Aftermath
The WoW raiding experience, but without the MMO, and possibly the addition of rogue lite elements (each raid is a run with its own progression, but wiping would be allowed and embraced).
The format of DRG or Gunfire Reborn is pretty close, but 1) I prefer the high fantasy setting of warcraft to the gunplay, 2) I'm not interested in procedural levels, and 3) I want the focus to be on polished boss mechanics.
Dungeon Defenders is also close, but 1) you're defending instead of delving, and 2) it is also focused on killing waves of trash mobs rather than boss mechanics.
Destiny bosses are sometimes well designed, but 1) don't care for the gunplay, 2) classes hardly matter, 3) it's a max of 6 people, and I think closer to 10 is the sweet spot.
Gauntlet from a few years back was probably the closest, but still far from the mark. It could have used more mechanic heavy bosses, more meaningful gear, and a larger party size.
A few things come up for me.
An rpg based on wheel or time or storm light archives
Open world top down skyrim-like with combat more akin to ghost of tsushima than traditional 2d zeldas. (As in focus on bad guys, dodge roll, fluid combat)
Modern single player carpg, similar to original forza horizon
Storm light could work, but I think it's more about the politics than the power sets. Idk maybe it's gets more fantastic. I'm only on book 2.
Mist born would also be a great universe and the powers are really adaptable into a game, IMO.
There are definitely adventures. But even the concept of the powers aligns well to a game. Wouldn't need to follow thr narrative, but I dont think it would be bad if it did. Would have some cool cut scenes and missions
1: An open world exploration game that doesn't have combat ... like Breath of the Wild but without all the fighting and with lots of short stories and puzzles.
Basically I want to be able to go wandering off and uncover ancient ruins etc without having to fight for my life.
2: Snowrunner, but with a good narrative story mode and gearboxes that actually work.
There's so much potential to have engaging stories in that game, which could be tied into improved game structure (namely restricting truck / tire choice to make some tasks challenging in an interesting way).
Give Outer Wilds a go.
This fits OP's description perfectly. Great game. It's on PS+ if you play on Playstation 4 or 5.
For your #1 point, have you heard of Palia? It got released last month and it is a chill have where you gather and build your house. Additionally you can explore ruins to uncover your origins.
Wobbly life is like that. It's targeted more towards children, but my kids absolutely love it.
I'll tell you what I want... Katamari Damaci online multi player. Imagine the final level where you roll up the world but with the mechanics of the multiplayer mode that was already in place. It'll be like agar.io where you get bigger and you absorb other people as you get bigger or you get absorbed because you weren't quick enough at growing. They could update the levels to be themed and add new items and Easter eggs for you to discover and pick up. I want this soooooo bad! I want to play with my friends and strangers. I want different play modes where you get the biggest in the time, pick up the most of a specific thing, capture the flag, use your katamari to play golf but it gets harder if you pick up weird shaped stuff that throws off your balance, Easter egg hunt, racing, team games where you absorb the enemy!!!!!!!! I want it alllllll!!!!
Oh my god, this would be so chaotic, I would play the absolute hell out of an online multiplayer Katamari! I love this idea.
I will start.
I want to see a game that mashes factory building with either FPS or RTS, where one or more players create a supply chain inside a zone/factory and the other one or more players utilise the ammo, weapons, vehicle etc.
I was also thinking that. Long term battles simulated to the point of working on supply chain
Thank you for your suggestion. I've looked at this and it is really very close to what I was thinking.
I bought it and I will play it this weekend.
Factorio can be that if you play pvp with a mod that allows you to build and control units like an rts
Wasnt there a starship troopers game that was pretty close to this? Swear I saw a jackfrags video on a game like this.
I think I've seen Orbital Potato on YouTube cover a few games that might come close to that idea
Oh, a Diablo or Borderlands like game where the items (loot) and their effects are AI generated.
I don't think we're at a point where this is possible yet. But I'd love to see the kind of random stuff the AI could come up with.
That would also mean: no more meta builds. You'd have to come up with your own build based on the unique items you got.
How would that be better than procedural generation? AI wouldn't be able to invent new game elements, since they still need to be coded in
I love playing Diablo solo self-found, and ignoring metas as much as possible. But every new game that's released makes it more and more difficult, because they are generally designed with the most powerful builds in mind. I.e. if you don't follow one of a few cookie cutter builds, you're in for a hard time and unlikely to finish the game.
Having completely random items (as opposed to RNG'd items) means the focus would shift to experimenting. Which I enjoy more.
I don't see why they would need to be "coded in". If we can train AIs on language (including programming languages) and media, I don't see why we would not reach a point where actual game content and mechanics are AI generated.
This is nothing for AI now:
_In a post apocalyptic roleplaying setting, I am in an abandoned electronics store. Invent a completely new, ludicrous weapon made of items I can find in the shop. Describe briefly how it is built and its effects.
You craft a "Jolt-O-Matic," a makeshift weapon from the items found in the abandoned electronics store. To build it, you combine a car battery, several copper wires, a broken microwave's magnetron, and an old CRT TV screen. Here's how it works:
Construction: First, you attach the copper wires to the car battery, creating a makeshift power source. Then, you connect the other ends of the wires to the magnetron, which you've salvaged from the microwave. This forms the core of your weapon.
Amplification: You carefully remove the CRT TV screen and use it as a reflector to focus the microwave energy emitted by the magnetron.
Effects: When activated, the Jolt-O-Matic releases a powerful burst of concentrated microwave radiation. It can incapacitate or severely damage electronic devices and even cause minor explosions in nearby metallic objects. However, it has a limited range and may drain the car battery quickly, making it a high-risk, high-reward weapon in your post-apocalyptic adventure_.
IMHO, it's realistic to think that we'll soon be able to generate all the resources and code necessary to implement an AOE weapon that makes metal explode.
Or:
_In a darkmedieval fantasy roleplaying setting, I am in a cemetery. Invent a completely new, ludicrous weapon made of items I can find nearby. Describe briefly how it is built and it's effects.
In the eerie cemetery, you stumble upon a makeshift weapon known as the "Soulshiver Spire." It's constructed from a weathered tombstone, a twisted iron gate, and an ethereal, glowing wisp captured within a lantern.
The tombstone serves as the hilt, providing a solid grip, while the iron gate forms the blade, jagged and menacing. The lantern, containing the captured wisp, is attached to the pommel.
When swung, the Soulshiver Spire emits an unsettling, bone-chilling wail that can paralyze foes with fear. Its blade can phase through solid objects momentarily, allowing you to strike from unexpected angles. But its most sinister power lies in the lantern: when shattered, the wisp bursts forth, sapping the life force from anyone nearby and channeling it into the wielder, granting temporary invulnerability. However, using such dark magic comes at a price, as it corrupts the wielder's soul over time._
It's bonkers. Afaik, you can't procedurally-generate every item in a way that is so random and unexpected.
You clearly misunderstand both how language models work, and how procedural generation works. Procedural generation is as "random and unexpected" as you want to make it.
My bad, I used the wrong term because indeed, it's not my area of expertise.
I don't really care what powers it. I just want to see that kind of game.
Oo, something like stable diffusion for loot generation. Brilliant!
A modern dungeon keeper.
I was going to suggest War for the Overworld but at eight years old perhaps that doesn't qualify.
I'd love to play a fighting game, with 0 executional difficulty. I'm not talking a simplified fighting game, no. I love the fighting game culture, and discussion and analysis of fighting game tech is super interesting. But before I get to have any fun I have to grind and memeorize for hours the structures and matchups. I can't just pick up guilty gear, do a quick match and have fun.
I want a full fat, meaty fighting game where its turn based. Every frame, or at least every frame where I could have an input, I can look at the scene and make a choice. 0 hidden information, 0 mystery on why I got bodied. The depth of a real fighting game, but now its all understanding of the mechanics and not practicing dragon punches.
If this game existed I'd be so jazzed. I would like for it to have CPU matches as well, maybe not as fleshed out as a full story mode but something I can casually play with even when the community inevitabily dies.
I was going to suggest Toribash, but that looks way cooler. Toribash is pretty ancient at this point and has a pretty tough learning curve.
This looks incredible. It doesn't look like it has a VS CPU option though? I'll definitely look at this for sure. How insane that I've imagined this concept for a game, and bam it actually exists.
Two player retro JRPG (a la Chrono Trigger, etc) where each player can play independently in the same world, but the story lines intersect and must work together in many parts of the story. Would work great if the story filled in gaps when you replayed as the other player.
Would both people always have to be playing at the same time? Or would it be possible for one person to play and progress while the other person isn't playing?
I think the idea of an open world RPG with more than one player, not necessarily competitive or coop, but each with their own quests and motives, is interesting. I'm often hanging out in discord with friends, and we're all just chatting while playing different games. We might as well be playing in the same world, and occasionally influence each other.
You'd have to somehow make it clear to the players that the goal is not to party up and just walk around doing everyone's quests together, though. Ooo what if it was the world of the last airbender, and each person started as a different bender in a different part of the world? And maybe one person is secretly the avatar, but they don't know until they've progressed. Ok, I'll stop intruding on your idea lol.
Would both people always have to be playing at the same time? Or would it be possible for one person to play and progress while the other person isn’t playing?
I think you could go either way. If you want to be able to play without the other person also playing, you'd need a server or someone/something hosting the "game" where you connect in. If you were really clever as a programmer, you may be able to sync actions after both people are online without having a server, but that would be a challenge.
The other option is something like couch multiplayer, where you're both playing on the same device. If one person isn't there to move around, then no biggie.
I think the idea of an open world RPG with more than one player, not necessarily competitive or coop, but each with their own quests and motives, is interesting. I’m often hanging out in discord with friends, and we’re all just chatting while playing different games. We might as well be playing in the same world, and occasionally influence each other.
Me too! One thing I'm looking at trying out soon is the multiplayer mod to Elden Ring. It's enables a mechanic that's very similar to this goal, but not entirely.
In an open world where just a few people are playing their own game, together, you could have very fun friend interactions like trading and helping with quests or missions.
You’d have to somehow make it clear to the players that the goal is not to party up and just walk around doing everyone’s quests together, though. Ooo what if it was the world of the last airbender, and each person started as a different bender in a different part of the world? And maybe one person is secretly the avatar, but they don’t know until they’ve progressed. Ok, I’ll stop intruding on your idea lol.
Right -- I imagine when you both start the game you both get a very different intro, and are clearly starting in different parts of the world. I don't know much Airbender lore, but that sounds like a great theme for a game like this.
One feature I'd like to see is the two players' stories intertwine in such a way that you absolutely do have to help/meet to beat the game. Like, one player is arrested in jail and the other has to help them break out, because the one in jail is the one that can get the one not in jail access to the dungeon/castle/area that he wants to go to. Ultimately, I think it'd be important to kill the final boss/end the game together.
A modern version of black and white
Imagine if Rockstar did a superhero game.
With their satire style on it. Like The Boys style.
Open world, some destructive environment, a deep character creator.
That's basically Saints Row 4.
Everything being in a simulation killed it for me, though.
The visually glitching-out NPCs ruined the fun of being a completely unhinged maniac with/without superpowers. Which is kinda what the games are about.
And the constant black skybox became depressing fast.
SR3 does it better, imo. It constantly rides the edge of "How much is movie set? And how much is not?"
Not a new concept or idea, but:
HL 3 and Portal 3 in Source 2
My new pet theory is that CS:2 came out so that Valve had all their IP sitting at 2. So then at some point, when their audience is too old to play games anymore, and the youth don't even know that Valve ever made games, they'll release a 3-box with HL3, Portal 3, LFD 3, CS:3, TF3, and DOTA 3.
The sequel is a lie. It's so delicious and moist.
Subnautica in space. "Breathedge" came close, but it just didn't quite get the sandbox element right.
"Subnautica in space" as in "outer space" or "on an alien planet"? Because outer space is kinda empty. Probably wouldn't make for as lively a backdrop as under an ocean
The way Breathedge got around it initially is the starting area is a ship crash, so you collect broken bits of the ship(s) (which includes water and food).
But space is vast. Why couldn't there be space fauna? Or a way to travel to nearby system planets? Its fiction, after all. We don't need to be constrained by reality.
If you get a spaceship and can just go wherever, that sounds to me exactly like NMS. I think part of what makes Subnautica what it is is the constrained resources of the environment, and that feeling of being stranded. NMS lets you just bum around space forever, which is fun, but you don't really feel that need for survival like you do in Subnautica.
NMS is survival in space, insomuch as planets are in space and you can fly around in a ship, but you start on a planet. I was thinking more like having to survive in space by building the ship in space, building a station in space, etc. Space would be your primary sandbox, rather than planets (at least initially).
The normal NMS experience isn't quite what I'm envisioning. Maybe if you started on one of those abandoned freighters, though...
Any game where the AI cores of modern GPUs are used for actual AI and not graphics.
It's not as simple as that. Those cores are specialised in handling graphics. Game devs have 0 control over it
The AI cores? I'm pretty sure they're for AI right?
They are for providing special hardware for Neural Network inference (most likely convolutional). Meaning they provide a bunch of matrix multiplication capabilities and other operations that are required for executing a neural network.
They can be leveraged for generative AI needs. And I bet that's how Nvidia provides the feature of automatic upscaling - it's not the game that does it, it's literally the graphic cards that does it. Leveraging AI of video games (like using the core to generate text like ChatGPT) is another matter - you want to have a game that works on all platforms even those that do not have such cores. Having code that says "if it has such cores execute that code on them. Otherwise execute it on CPU" is possible but imo that is more the domain of the computational libraries or the game engine - not the game developer (unless that developer develops its own engine)
But my point is that it's not as simple as "just have each core implement an AI for my game". These cores are just accelerators of matrix multiplication operations. Which are themselves used in generative AI. They need to be leveraged within the game dev software ecosystem before the game dev can use those features.
it’s not the game that does it, it’s literally the graphic cards that does it
The game is just software. It will execute on the GPU and CPU. DLSS (proprietary) and XeSS (OSS) are both libraries to run the AI bits of the cards for upscaling, because they weren't really being used for anything. Gamedevs have the skills to use them just like regular AI devs do.
By AI here I mean what is traditionally meant by "game AI", pathfinding, decisionmaking, co-ordination, etc. There is a counterstrike bot which uses neural nets (CPU), and it's been around for decades now. It is trained like normal bots are trained. You can train an AI in a game and then have the AI as NPCs, enemies, etc.
We should use the AI cores to do AI.
You could imagine training one AI for each game AI problem like pathfinding but what is see the benefit over just using classical algorithms?
Can DLSS and XeSS be used for something else than upscaling?
what is the benefit over just using classical algorithms
Utilisation. A CPU isn't really built for deep AI code, so it can't really do realistic AI given the frame budget of doing other things. This is famously why games have bad AI. Training AI via AI algorithms could make the NPCs more realistic or smarter, and you could do this within reasonable frame budgets.
I see. You want to offload AI-specific computations to the Nvidia AI cores. Not a bad idea, although it does mean that hardware that do not have them will have more CPU load so perhaps the AI will have to be tuned down based on the hardware they run on..
so perhaps the AI will have to be tuned down based on the hardware they run on…
Yes, similar to Raytracing which still needs a traditional pipeline, with AI you will have "enhanced" (Neural Nets) and "basic" (if statements).
Endless procedurally generated open-world omni-directional 2D shoot-em-up. Start with a weak spaceship and go on missions to find new weapons and ship improvements. Go to spaceports to buy and sell stuff, fight against aliens or Lovecraftian monsters, survive asteroid waves, find the treasure inside the hostile nebula.
Not exactly, but Cosmoteer might scratch that itch partially.
There's pieces of that in Everspace, I could totally see your game working and being pretty fun in a similar manner, less arcadey than Everspace, but still accessible
I've always thought it was weird that there hasn't been a Hunger Games video game. Not to play out the teen movie storyline, but as the Battle Royale part.
Imagine creating a character using typical RPG elements (strength, endurance, speed, crafting, survival, etc.) with a limited number of points, the same number of points as everyone else. Then you're placed inside different large arenas that have environmental hazards for a Battle Royale survival that could last up to 30 minutes per game if you're good enough to make it to the end.
You have to survive against random encounters just like the gamemasters use in the books, dangerous animals, and you can get sponsorship drops like the COD kill streak rewards (healing items, tools, weapons). You could even make it through by not killing anyone if you're good enough at surviving the environment, but you'd better hope you don't end up in a fight.
I just think a game like that would be sick.
It's not a dedicated game and idk if servers even run these anymore, but the original popular "battle royal" was minecraft hunger games servers and they did kinda run like that - no stats obviously, but throwing you empty into a bounded world where you'd have to survive and craft and kill monsters and each other. I think some of them might've even had like your sponsor drops where you'd get potions or enchanted stuff
Guild Wars 2's World vs World mode, but with an established IP and without the bolted-on single player content. And increase the team sizes while you're at it. Sell cosmetic DLC to pay the bills if you must.
WvW was a blast until they shelved it for a year to focus on poorly-written single player DLC, and lost half of the community in the process. I tried going back a few years ago but it's a grindfest now.
Return of reckoning is a fan run continuation of the warhammer mmo, that might be something you enjoy.
I wish there were more Sims like games. I feel that under EA, the games aren't living up to their full potential, and they could be so much more.
There are a few on the horizon, look into paralives and life by you
A settlers-like game (resource/logistics oriented RTS) using a Minecraft-like (block-based) map.
There is a game I kick-started called Stonehearth that fits this mostly. Sadly, it was abandoned by the developers.
There is another one called Timber & Stone which is also largely dead, sadly.
Stonehearth was eventually abandoned, unfortunately, but the game is very much playable. The devs didn't just ghost the playerbase but had a kind of transfer of knowledge with the modders and the game lives on.
What's great about Stonehearth is it's multiplayer. A multiplayer colony management sim where two players can build an interconnected city (technically 2 separate colonies) and command an army to fend off increasingly difficult waves of goblin raids.
I've had so many fun games with my wife, we'll settle next to a cliff side, she has hearthlings (i.e. hobbits) and me as dwarves. I'd take care of mining and build all into the mountain, make us the best weapons with world-class smiths and she'd take care of the food, amazing cooks, animal husbandry, etc.
I do like 4x and GSG titles for their complexity but I miss the strategy games where you see the actual units moving around. Even better if you are one of those units! Real time action also always ends up being reflex /speed / micro oriented rather than depend on slow strategy so I'm not sure if this is one of those cursed problems and they can't coexist...
Pokémon x Monster Hunter
Explore a world with cute graphics and build a team of creatures to be the very best or whatever story someone comes up with, but you actually have to fight the creatures to capture them.
Isn't that kind of the premise of Monster Hunter Stories 2?
I was imagining a game with real time battles, like Monster Hunter. But yes, this is basically MH Stories, I didn't know this existed!
Stories is real good. Much better than the recent pokémon.
Skyrim but it's an MMORPG (and I don't mean some shitty WoW clone with an Elder Scrolls skin draped over it like ESO)
Basically Dwarf Fortress, but sci-fi, with space travel and with really good 3D graphics.
An overly complicated simulation of an entire universe where I can do anything that the game's laws of physics allow me to do. Particularly, I dream of a game where you can fulfil Star Trek fantasies of solving convoluted problems with equally convoluted solutions; but without it being a pre-programmed option. ("Reconfigure the deflector dish to output a neutrino wave to counter act the tachyon field!")
Fake physics that allow for real fake science and engineering.
Rimworld with the starship mod?
Close, but RimWorld's mechanics are nowhere near the complexity, even with mods. And I don't just mean with how many different types of rocks and trees exist. I've gotten as close to a DF-like experience + the space travel part, but it's still like 1/4 of the full experience.
Although it's moddable, which boosts it's playability a bit more. I've played more RimWorld than DF at this point.
"Reconfigure the deflector dish to output a neutrino wave to counter act the tachyon field!"
PULSAR: Lost Colony kinda has this.
Zombie apocalypse game with souls like combat but all slow zombies. The game takes your GPS coordinates (or any coordinates you enter) and uses a maps API call to generate the game map based on the real world. It would take things like residential/commercial/industrial areas and generate similar structures but not exact to not be a privacy issue. All major landmarks would be generated. So you could start from your house, or the Eiffel tower, or the middle of the Amazon. Things like grocery stores and malls and schools would be in similar locations, roads and highways etc.
The game would generate slightly different every time you create a map so while always based on the real world, things would be different.
You then must rescue your partner who is across the map (random generated) and find shelter.
There would be some crafting and survival mechanics, but mostly action based combat, skills to level up etc. Minimal if non-existent gunplay, though I'd be open to it if done well.
Very gorey, rogue like/light with persistent stats and incremental style progression (get so far then reset/start new map with higher their upgrades)
So think dead rising meets dark souls, mixed with vampire survivors and incremental games, all with this AR framework. I also considered a multiplayer persistent map br style mode but would prefer a single player experience myself
Diablo 3. Not the one Blizzard released.
A new Ori game. :/
A hacking sim like Uplink, but with a less rigid story and a more open world. Also with simulated bash that allows for some scripting
I’m not sure that this is a “game” idea so much, but I’ve had this idea I haven’t been able to wrap my head around the implementation of.
Think a digital audio workstation such as Ableton Live or Logic, but gamified. Complete various musical objectives to pass levels, have a creative mode for just making music and maybe even a multiplayer mode for collaborative or competitive music making.
I want to see a sequel to enter the gungeon.
Do you mean something different from Exit the Gungeon?
Exit the Gungeon is basically a different genre using the same IP.
Yes, that game is pretty shallow in comparison.
When games can have AI that can be indistinguishable from humans, that might not be the best thing for society, but it would make some great games.
Imagine the dating sims!
It might not be as many great games as you'd think. https://youtu.be/1FBGR6vmNeU?si=rckpsplXwQhMBELE has some good explanation. Players often say they want smarter AI, but enjoy "dumber" ones more
Yeah. I’m talking about the sort of AI that was mentioned briefly at the end of that video. Enemy AI doesn’t need to be complex. Only optimised for enjoyment.
AI Dungeon was interesting, but ChatGPT can do the same thing now.
AI dungeon is the shit. I trained a few games to be very much identical to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, incorporating elements from both the games and the books. The best part about it is that you can always modge it in the desired direction, either by rewriting its prompts or doing something that essentially negates or ignores them.
Doubt we'll see anything worthwhile like that in any 3D capacity, though, as there's much more limitations there - primarily the corporate KPIs
Interesting and funny, but still just a language model.
Kerbal Space Program crossed with a procedurally generated aerial dogfighting game
I don't think space battles are anywhere near as exciting when you have to deal with realistic orbital mechanics!
Yeah, you're right. Science can be so fickle sometimes
I would like to see a (real)guitar-centric music game (like Rocksmith) that allows people to input their own songs/guitar tabs. I've always found the limitations that licensing entails very off-putting.
Edit: just to clarify, I meant being able to look up whatever song you want, and then importing the tabs into the software so that you could play the song using the visual format that Rocksmith has (falling notes fretboard style).
Rocksmith has custom songs, check out customsforge.
Ah, sorry I wasn't quite specific enough for what I meant. I really meant being able to import songs, not just creating your own.
So, Rocksmith? There is a third party tool to import tabs.
Oh, ok then. Guess I'll have to check that out next chance I get. What's it called?
You have some items that are not lost upon death (either by them being special and "blessed" or by you paying some in game gold to insure them (costing you every time you die), but everything else? On your corpse, ready to be taken by the nearest player and even humanoid enemy. More than once have I seen a lich just grab some of my stuff and cackle off back into the dungeon.
Aside from being able to lose stuff on death, there are actual Thievery skills ranging from sneaking to pickpocketing and lockpicking (for stealing from player homes or when you unearth treasure chests). There is a "safe overworld" but many popular private servers have removed that. You might go about your daily business to grab some stuff from the bank teller and next thing you know, a grandmaster thief took your precious sword from your backpack (there are a lot of skill checks involved depending on how many possible witnesses there are (player and NPC), if the thief is invisible, how heavy the item is and such).
A remaster of the original two Thief games of the quality they did with Dead Space.
Destroyable environment like Company of Heroes but modern rts setting.
Cities Skylines in the latest Unreal Engine.
Stardew Valley in pretty 3D graphics with no tile system. Valheim comes close but the graphics, while unique, is far from highly detailed.
Teardown multiplayer shooter.
General a lot of single player could use a simple coop that's just playing the game together. It's very rare that coop is more of an addition than a game focus. While often I just wish I could share the fun with friends together. It's sadly because of the complexity of adding coop, vs rewards when it's "just" the same experience but with friends, instead of a competitive like mode where they can sell skins and shit.
I personally always wanted to build a battle ship simulator game with crew system and destructible ships, with harsh survival elements like in the movie Master and Commander. Where you're very close in the action and ships get real impact holes. Most indie games don't come close enough on the realism level I'd like to see. Sea of thieves is somewhat there.
a racing game that feels like mario kart but for pc
So, Tux Kart?
Edit: or more old school, Wacky Wheels (I think I still have a copy somewhere)
In think you are looking for dash dash world on Steam.
Something like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed? It's been quite a while, but I remember having fun with it. It felt like a Mario Kart kinda game
There's the sonic racing series which has a few ports on PC. I haven't played them on PC, but I've played them on the switch and they're pretty Mario kart-ish both in playstyle and mascot racer charm.
Also you can play as The Heavy.
WoW but with the storytelling of FFXIV
I got 5k hours in WoW up to Cataclysm and 10k+ how in FFXIV (beta tester from 1.0). I think the story telling of WoW up to WoTLK, was told amazingly well and it had a strong point, but BC was even better. Things rapidly declined from Cataclysm and this is why I never got back, whereas I've stuck with FFXIV for 13 years.
I really want to play single-player versions, or at least on my own private server, games like Travian or Ikariam. Basically resource management strategies but without the insane need to be 24/7 online in anticipation of an enemy attack.
Edit: Also a single player tab targetting open world rpg.
So, while INFRA already does fully exist, I'd love to see more games like it. It's really hard to describe what INFRA is without major spoilers, but if you've played it then you probably know what I'm talking about.
It's like... take the new Chernobyl game and remove literally all the death states, then fill it to the brim with easter eggs, lore content, secret rooms and pathways, challenging logic puzzles, stuff like that. INFRA ticked all those boxes for me and I have yet to find a game like it.
Every game that I've looked at and been recommended as being "like INFRA" always has some major flaw or some concession that really sets it apart from the original game. INFRA is pretty much all about exploring your surroundings to uncover the plot of the game and even change some of the story if you're vigilant enough about the puzzles. You can literally complete the game just as a walking sim while doing fuck-all, but I think most players will find the intrigue of the story interesting enough to be almost coerced into going down the other fork in the road, so to speak. Like there are sections in every chapter where you have to use your knowledge in civil engineering to repair some sort of machinery using intermediate logic puzzles, but you're always able to just skip it. However, completing these puzzles allows you to unlock the story as the puzzles require exploration. Hope that made sense.
I wasn't expecting to see INFRA mentioned but it's one of my favorite games for a lot of the reasons you mentioned! It really had a sense for exploration and environments to tell more of the story. And it really is part puzzle game without having any single gimmick like other first person games. It reminds me a lot of Half Life 2's puzzles (which makes sense since INFRA was also built in Source as far as I can remember).
I'm really itching for more expansions or games like it. Not sure what happened to the DLC they were working on, but there were some groups working on mods.
A modern take on the (pre-NGE) Star Wars Galaxies style MMO, mainly the social aspects like player housing and player driven crafting system it had. We have still not seen such a deep crafting and resource system as SWG had in any game since.
While there are still private servers around in abundance, they are all too small to properly support the social aspects properly, and the dated engine really hold it back. A newer game engine and some modern QOL and UI changes is all you really need, and although the Star Wars IP would be great it would be fine with a lesser IP or fully unique setting.
There have been a few indie attempts at this but none have finished development, with the most recent one pivoting to AI and then going dark earlier this year, though to be fair indie MMO have a pretty bad track record for actually completing.
One of us! One of us! One of us!
My fear is we won't ever see it because a game like that gives so much control to the players and the crafting/economy and skill system really stains back end databases.
It would be interesting to see what a modern dev could tack onto the concepts. SWG was weak on quests and end game content. You wouldn't have to make it WoW in that regard, but it could use some of that. Or with the rise of "cozy" games, what extra decorations that could be added.
Hell, take the game system and pull Star Wars out of it. Space games do appeal to the community.
An RPG that utilizes LLMs to interact with NPCs in meaningful ways.
I think that is inevitable, and we will see one in the best future.
I want a modern difficult farming Sim with an in depth relationship mechanic and no fucking combat. The old harvest moon games are good, but I've kinda played them to death and for some idiotic reason they removed stuff like rival marriages from the remakes. Rune factory has combat, and so does stardew valley (in addition to having a relationship mechanic that's just, really shallow), and it seems like all the farming Sim games that don't have combat are like baby's first farm Sim and are all cutesy and aren't very difficult
Like it feels like this would be an easy thing to do, right?
I don't think Farm Simulator has any combat
Does it have a relationship mechanic though? I always assumed it was just about equipment and using that.
No but I regularly drive the truck through town at about 90mph.
A bard/artist game that really makes use of the creative potential of music/painting. A great example of a "tech demo" of what I'd like is the magic system in Tchia. You got a ukulele that you can play super freely (possibly the most realistic thing if you don't play it irl), but depending on what notes you play, you unleash different spells (kinda like in the old Zelda games with the ocarina).
I would absolutely love if the creative spell freedom of Magicka (or Fictorum) was combined with the freeform instrument play of Tchia.
I want Quake, DOOM, and Hunt Showdown to have a baby.
Some kind of mad, fast paced, extraction shooter with crazy weapons in a gritty dystopia. Maybe Bungie will come close with Marathon.
I will play the crap out of that as I love all three games mentioned.
I love playing/writing interactive stories with an AI. A dream game of mine would be an RPG/Adventure game that extends this to a fully realized game that adapts to how you want to play.
Want to be the adventurer who slays the evil monster and saves the kingdom? Go right ahead!
Prefer to stop halfway, settle down and become the village baker, getting involved in the town's intrigues? Also fine!
It would probably be too much to ask to turn this into a full-fledged 3d world with high detail. But a consistent Visual Novel would be a really great next step.
A true modern successor to The Guild (aka Europa 1400). That concept has soooo much potential imo, but the games after the first were notoriously underfunded, half-baked and riddled with bugs!
I want a shooter-esque game crossed with MOBA stuff. Basically, I just want Monday Night Combat, Battleborn or Gigantic to come back.
Isn't this basically what Overwatch was in it's heydey?
I miss Monday Night Combat's vibe a lot
I think most of what I'd like has already been made. But they are old, few and far between.
I'd really like a modern Freespace game.
I enjoyed how it made your keyboard into a functional cockpit and how you could customize your own and your squads fighters and loadout. And sending tactical info in the thick of battle.
All that junk. It was great. But the old games are showing their age.
Animal Crossing with a super deep friendship system, where you play intricate minigames (like a full tennis sim) and go on adventures together.
I like all those kind of chill "X Simulator" games, but I'd love to see a bunch of them all combined into one mega-game.
So like if there was a game where you could find parts and build a PC like PC Building Simulator, and also build a vehicle like Car Mechanic Simulator, you could cover huge areas like American/European Truck Simulator, grow crops like Farming Simulator, build a shelter like Construction Simulator, keep the place clean like Powerwash simulator and/or House Flipper and so on.
It'd actually be really good for a post-apocalyptic type of game I think, where you could scavenge all that stuff and build a base.
Fallout 5
A modernized .hack// mmo <3
Pacific Drive with the graphics from Sonst of the Forest
I’d happily take “fully co-op Elden Ring” (keep meaning to try the mod, tbf), and “Dwarf Fortress, but in 3D and you can play/explore/participate like Minecraft.
Quake that people actually play. Like look at the virality of Battle bits Remastered, the Battlefield with block characters so you can have like 200 people in the match. Games need to feel snappy and run on a lot of low tech machines, and developers are mostly never catering to that budget demographic. FPS games have a huge demand for this. The hundreds of thousands of nerds who can infodump about how incredible the Source engine feels is my proof. So yeah I think there is still a market for competitive movement game 2.0 - a team fortress 3, a titanfall 3, a quake / unreal tournament that runs well and allows community mapping. Like unironically last gens engines followed the wrong upgrade paths and there is still more performance to squeeze out (titanfall 2 using highly customized source and it looking like a AAA game rather than a source game as my proof)
haven and hearth but before they nuked the xp system 😞
Need for Speed: The Run, but good. Give me an uninterrupted race accoss the US (or any other continent), against 199 other drivers, with strategic decisions to make such as fuel stops, sleep breaks, multiple paths... Make it a rogue lite with unlockable vehicle classes, police chases, weather changes, racing through traffic... Bonus points for realistic physics and VR support.
Nfs the run was so disappointing. Even for a nfs game.
Some NFS game are straight up terrible (Undercover...), but at least the good ones with similar gameplay (NFSU2, Carbon) still exist. But The Run was worse than bad; it was disappointing. It could have been good, but wasn't, and they never tried to make another one with a similar premise.
The only good part of the game is the bonus mission in Carbon Canyon, in all its HD glory.
What about the avalanche mission? Did you find that too Micheal Bay movie-like?
I don't remember it. I don't think I played this game a lot.
Here you go if you're interested: https://youtu.be/M0fpD8LP08Y?si=Mb_msbQ8FFDghfbG
Honestly I loved The Run. It was a jam packed unique short game experience. It was definitely too short for it's price, but you know at that time Blackbox was working on 3 separate games.
Cities: Skylines but ecosystem repair. Plant forests, regrade areas of mountains to mitigate landslide potential, reintroduce species and study their functional relationships with each other... Game progression comes in the form of additional research grants or new area assignments which present new challenges and unlock a new set of tools/procedures, but the successes from previous sites allow for migration of the reintroduced species into the new site.
Terra Nil is like 80% of this.
I've only watched gameplay of Terra Nil, but it seems like it's just an environmentalism themed puzzle game. You could replace all the titles with colors, and all the buildings and what they do with arbitrary rules, and it seems like it wouldn't look anything like an ecosystem sim. It would be like taking the game Lights Out, changing dark spots to "growth", light spots to "wastelands" and saying the goal is to balance out the ecosystem.
I didn't see the late game though, so maybe I didn't see where it shines.
I was hoping this was the direction Dyson Sphere Program would go. I think it would be an interesting twist on the factory management genre if nature was working against you; not in a Factorio "aliens will attack you if they see your pollution" way, but a "you're producing pollution, this is creating more in-climate weather that is damaging your factories and changing the landscape dynamically" sort of way. I think this was the natural next step given that the game is already about climbing the Kardashev scale, producing more energy so that you can construct the means to produce exponentially more energy. Seemed like the natural next step would be exploring the balancing act that has to happen to achieve that energy production without also creating systemic issues for yourself that make it infeasible.
Instead their latest patch adds aliens that attack you 😕.
I guess this game just doesn’t exist, but remember that tweet of the guy who had a dream about an open world pirate exploration game with Waluigi in it?
That game.
Now I'm just imagining AC Black Flag, but Waluigi just replaces Edward whole cloth, just does all the voicelines and everything, everybody else just pretends he's a normal guy.
There is/was a fan made version of this in development! I don't know the status of it currently, and I heard that development was rocky for a while.. and they haven't posted on the blog since 2020. But take a look anyway!
https://seaofgreed.com/
If you go role play as Waluigi in Sea of Thieves, that's kinda the same thing.
Hmmm, quite hard to choose. I would say an anticapitalist game. Most of game focus on growing, gaining power and i never saw an game that has horizontal power hard coded to its bone.
For example : city skyline unlock new building based on population threesold. The city development is geared toward growing, expanding and creating new job. That's bad. We can't live in this kind of world anymore and yet we fail to imagime something different.
Can't we imagine a new economical system and set up new variable ? Or a game that go beyond the scope of heroes's story ? Why should we be special ?
Plenty of games are anti-capitalist (cookie clicker is the first one that came to mind!) but they are usually critiques of capitalism by demonstrating the issues with it, rather than demonstrating alternatives.
There’s a minecraft mod where villages will give you free resources if you’ve been helpful to them in the past, but it’s quite limited. I agree it would be interesting to play a game where alternative systems are clearly depicted. Would fit well with a sci-fi game.
Terra Nil is a great game. It's really chill and relaxing.
True as Sim City where the end result it a big city without nature., nor landscape. :)
Terra Nil
You start with an area that was destroyed by humans (and capitalism), and have to basically revive the ecosystem, and then remove all your buildings and leave.
There are also games like Stranded: Alien Dawn (which is sort of a mashup of Kenshi and Rimworld) where you are not supposed to be growing, you are supposed to either reach an equilibrium and live there sustainably, or escape/ leave.
Yeah, those game are great. Stranded, will look that. There is also Eco. And i would add getting over it :)
Another economical system ? Let's say universal income, bank of time ? Libre currency ? An anarchy system with several democraty system and quadratic vote ? A shared decision along other mayors (players) ? I'm willing to explore those ideas where the idea of grow is simply erased along infinite ressource. Basnished is somewhat close to it as resources are limited.
Something that follow GIEC's recommendation where building the biggest city will result a game over and economic collapse.
Horizontality skill system. Veloren try to do that but it's not what i'm seeking. Maybe soul game are closer as you learn how to be better instead of using skill, weapon, armor ? It would erase the experience point in rpg system. There is no grow. You are just a human with the same set as everyone. No better armor, no new skills. So you can be killed by a new player.
Collaborative game instead competitive one . There are lot ideas to explore as relationship. :)
Back in the day I playtested this game concept under an NDA, but since it expired I can talk about it.
An FPS game in an open map with buildings, has 12 players playing but when someone dies, they respawn right there but swap to the opposite team. The last person to get shot gets eliminated and then the teams split again. This goes on until 6 players are remaining, who are declared the winning team.
It was really fun to play, and I quite miss it.
Doesn't that mean that the last man standing is the first to lose?
So if your team is loosing you try to get shot deliberately to not be the last?
You could mitigate that by coms only being proximity and no indication of how many players each team has. Thst would also make offensive playstyles preferable.
What was that called?
That does sound like a lot of fun.
So, if I die first in every round, I win?
Reminds me of zombie panic
Eve Offline, with all other players being NPCs.
I have a mental hangup with the very real dread of when hosted multiplayer games die, that all the time and effort I have spent, and all the things I've built, will just suddenly disappear. It's why I run a private G17 Mabinogi server on my pc, rather than playing online.
This what got me into the original .hack on PS2.
Saw this trailer the other day that might interest you, it's an offline type mmo where all the other players are simulated. Erenshor Offline MMO Trailer
It used to exist, but not so much anymore. I miss heavily community based FPS multiplayer games. With custom servers and so on. I played Counter-Strike: Source last night, what a breath of fresh air!
Same, I played some Day Of Defeat: Source also a while back. I got onto a server, people were talking about random things and seemed to know each other, there was a sense of community, it felt like a local bar.
It's 3am and I'm chilling and talking with strangers while surfing on CS:S. God, I miss this.
I miss that in newer games. It's all matchmaking, all competitive and in many ways, modern games like this feels "no fun allowed".
I really miss these days where games were more than just the game itself.
I also feel that newer games only focus on the competitive aspect.
Pretty much. It's always competitive. Always on the grind. You can't just play for fun, no. You have to be at your best every time, because now, there is this skill-based matchmaking algorithm watching your every move in game and so on.
I feel like I'm starting to get old when I say this, but every time I go back to play one of those old games, I get reinforced in this idea... so many games feel like jobs nowadays. It's just like the real world, it's all so competitive. No fun allowed. You can't ever be goofing around, you have your rank to worry about... every shooter now keeps on getting updated, the meta keeps on changing, and you have to keep up with it constantly otherwise you'll get left behind.
I can't put it into words exactly, so excuse me if what I'm going to say sounds odd... But I feel like most of the modern entertainment available to me is really stressful and I can't explain it. To be honest, it's the first time I'm voicing this feeling, but I find it really distressing...
I think that I fully understand how you feel. It's pretty much why I stopped playing online games. I want to be able to not think about being good or absolutly winning every single game. Most of the time, I would rather prefer trying out "dumb" stuff in the game or simply having random conversations while having fun.
Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.
A turn-based, tactical, squad-centered action title where a collective of vicious aliens invade the planet and you as the leader of a group of brave if vulnerable heroes have to save the world from the strange new threat. Except this time the world the aliens have picked to invade is a fantasy realm.
Guiding mages, warriors and rogues against the threat from outer space, combining XCOMesque battles with traditional fantasy game combat and levelling mechanics. Advance through the map taking regions back in control rather than zigzagging around the globe. Both the dwarven and elven capitals are under attack, which one do you go to rescue first and gain the help a new race to pick your pool of heroes from? Manage your kingdom and choose which deities you build a temple for, determining whether you unlock paladins or warlocks as a sub-class. Beat the aliens to reach the dragon before its captured and converted to their side. And as you encounter more armoured enemies, let your blacksmiths experiment with slapping together scavenged items from the battlefield to form high -tier magitech armour of your own.
It's a fever dream combination of effectively XCOM and Majesty that's been in my head for years because I love quirky mashups like this. Not necessarily anything new under the sun but I feel like with some work put into it, you could really forge something unique by embracing the combination of styles and genre conventions.
That sounds amazing honestly.
Truly open-world Star Wars. Like a Breath of the Wild game except with multiple planets and all the Star Wars stuff.
We had something close to it with SW: Galaxies, but... RIP SW: Galaxies.
I want a game that's somewhere between Animal Crossing and Dwarf Fortress - something with the extensive world gen of DF, but with cute goofy animals, and maybe a little less grisly. So less sudden death by wildlife/zombies/collapsing ceilings, and more adorable wagon travel, trade and founding of settlements - which you then get to live in!
That sounds like a great idea. I'm picture something with the world and artwork of Root, but yeah, gameplay like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld.
So when you say "less sudden death", would there still be death? Or would it have the potential as a kid-friendly intro to the simulation genre?
Omg yeah I had the style of Root in mind too!
I go back and forth on how much of the dwarf fortress vibes to let in. Probably it'd be a bit distressing to see your adorable villager friends just straight up die. On the other hand, it would be kind of interesting to experience them getting old and passing away, plus racking up memories, hangups, traumas and complicated social connections like the dwarves do.
Me and my SO had this idea (based on where we live lol) for a game that's like Animal Crossing where it's all cute and you build houses and a town for cute animal characters, except they're all shitty crackheads so like you build a park and the next day there's shit on the floor and all the streetlights are broken, you have to fish in the river to get old bikes and shopping carts out and so on.
Modern AAA matrix game
Science-based dragon MMO
Someone should take this project on as their first foray into game dev. Bonus points if it's a middle-aged woman.
I want to play a game like Fallout, with perhaps a light plot, but a much heavier settlement building mechanic.
Like, you found a settlement, and it’s filled with trash, debris, and burnt-out structures. As you scavenge and collect things, and attract people to your cause, the place slowly becomes cleaner and more structured. You can have settlers scavenge for themselves and fix up structures, farm for food, treat wounded, lead small armies against mutants and generally secure an area of a map, and really be able to treat the settlement as a home base.
Playing Fallout 4, I was bothered by how I could build out all these settlements, place structures and whatnot, help these people, and still no one had the sense to pick up a broom and sweep up the pile of trash in the street.
Sounds a bit like State of Decay. Or maybe Surviving The Aftermath
The WoW raiding experience, but without the MMO, and possibly the addition of rogue lite elements (each raid is a run with its own progression, but wiping would be allowed and embraced).
The format of DRG or Gunfire Reborn is pretty close, but 1) I prefer the high fantasy setting of warcraft to the gunplay, 2) I'm not interested in procedural levels, and 3) I want the focus to be on polished boss mechanics.
Dungeon Defenders is also close, but 1) you're defending instead of delving, and 2) it is also focused on killing waves of trash mobs rather than boss mechanics.
Destiny bosses are sometimes well designed, but 1) don't care for the gunplay, 2) classes hardly matter, 3) it's a max of 6 people, and I think closer to 10 is the sweet spot.
Gauntlet from a few years back was probably the closest, but still far from the mark. It could have used more mechanic heavy bosses, more meaningful gear, and a larger party size.
A few things come up for me.
An rpg based on wheel or time or storm light archives
Open world top down skyrim-like with combat more akin to ghost of tsushima than traditional 2d zeldas. (As in focus on bad guys, dodge roll, fluid combat)
Modern single player carpg, similar to original forza horizon
Storm light could work, but I think it's more about the politics than the power sets. Idk maybe it's gets more fantastic. I'm only on book 2.
Mist born would also be a great universe and the powers are really adaptable into a game, IMO.
There are definitely adventures. But even the concept of the powers aligns well to a game. Wouldn't need to follow thr narrative, but I dont think it would be bad if it did. Would have some cool cut scenes and missions
1: An open world exploration game that doesn't have combat ... like Breath of the Wild but without all the fighting and with lots of short stories and puzzles.
Basically I want to be able to go wandering off and uncover ancient ruins etc without having to fight for my life.
2: Snowrunner, but with a good narrative story mode and gearboxes that actually work.
There's so much potential to have engaging stories in that game, which could be tied into improved game structure (namely restricting truck / tire choice to make some tasks challenging in an interesting way).
Give Outer Wilds a go.
This fits OP's description perfectly. Great game. It's on PS+ if you play on Playstation 4 or 5.
For your #1 point, have you heard of Palia? It got released last month and it is a chill have where you gather and build your house. Additionally you can explore ruins to uncover your origins.
Wobbly life is like that. It's targeted more towards children, but my kids absolutely love it.
I'll tell you what I want... Katamari Damaci online multi player. Imagine the final level where you roll up the world but with the mechanics of the multiplayer mode that was already in place. It'll be like agar.io where you get bigger and you absorb other people as you get bigger or you get absorbed because you weren't quick enough at growing. They could update the levels to be themed and add new items and Easter eggs for you to discover and pick up. I want this soooooo bad! I want to play with my friends and strangers. I want different play modes where you get the biggest in the time, pick up the most of a specific thing, capture the flag, use your katamari to play golf but it gets harder if you pick up weird shaped stuff that throws off your balance, Easter egg hunt, racing, team games where you absorb the enemy!!!!!!!! I want it alllllll!!!!
Oh my god, this would be so chaotic, I would play the absolute hell out of an online multiplayer Katamari! I love this idea.
I will start. I want to see a game that mashes factory building with either FPS or RTS, where one or more players create a supply chain inside a zone/factory and the other one or more players utilise the ammo, weapons, vehicle etc.
This sort of sounds like Foxhole
I was also thinking that. Long term battles simulated to the point of working on supply chain
Thank you for your suggestion. I've looked at this and it is really very close to what I was thinking.
I bought it and I will play it this weekend.
Factorio can be that if you play pvp with a mod that allows you to build and control units like an rts
Wasnt there a starship troopers game that was pretty close to this? Swear I saw a jackfrags video on a game like this.
I think I've seen Orbital Potato on YouTube cover a few games that might come close to that idea
Oh, a Diablo or Borderlands like game where the items (loot) and their effects are AI generated.
I don't think we're at a point where this is possible yet. But I'd love to see the kind of random stuff the AI could come up with.
That would also mean: no more meta builds. You'd have to come up with your own build based on the unique items you got.
How would that be better than procedural generation? AI wouldn't be able to invent new game elements, since they still need to be coded in
I love playing Diablo solo self-found, and ignoring metas as much as possible. But every new game that's released makes it more and more difficult, because they are generally designed with the most powerful builds in mind. I.e. if you don't follow one of a few cookie cutter builds, you're in for a hard time and unlikely to finish the game. Having completely random items (as opposed to RNG'd items) means the focus would shift to experimenting. Which I enjoy more.
I don't see why they would need to be "coded in". If we can train AIs on language (including programming languages) and media, I don't see why we would not reach a point where actual game content and mechanics are AI generated.
This is nothing for AI now:
_In a post apocalyptic roleplaying setting, I am in an abandoned electronics store. Invent a completely new, ludicrous weapon made of items I can find in the shop. Describe briefly how it is built and its effects.
You craft a "Jolt-O-Matic," a makeshift weapon from the items found in the abandoned electronics store. To build it, you combine a car battery, several copper wires, a broken microwave's magnetron, and an old CRT TV screen. Here's how it works:
Construction: First, you attach the copper wires to the car battery, creating a makeshift power source. Then, you connect the other ends of the wires to the magnetron, which you've salvaged from the microwave. This forms the core of your weapon.
Amplification: You carefully remove the CRT TV screen and use it as a reflector to focus the microwave energy emitted by the magnetron.
Effects: When activated, the Jolt-O-Matic releases a powerful burst of concentrated microwave radiation. It can incapacitate or severely damage electronic devices and even cause minor explosions in nearby metallic objects. However, it has a limited range and may drain the car battery quickly, making it a high-risk, high-reward weapon in your post-apocalyptic adventure_.
IMHO, it's realistic to think that we'll soon be able to generate all the resources and code necessary to implement an AOE weapon that makes metal explode.
Or:
_In a darkmedieval fantasy roleplaying setting, I am in a cemetery. Invent a completely new, ludicrous weapon made of items I can find nearby. Describe briefly how it is built and it's effects.
In the eerie cemetery, you stumble upon a makeshift weapon known as the "Soulshiver Spire." It's constructed from a weathered tombstone, a twisted iron gate, and an ethereal, glowing wisp captured within a lantern.
The tombstone serves as the hilt, providing a solid grip, while the iron gate forms the blade, jagged and menacing. The lantern, containing the captured wisp, is attached to the pommel.
When swung, the Soulshiver Spire emits an unsettling, bone-chilling wail that can paralyze foes with fear. Its blade can phase through solid objects momentarily, allowing you to strike from unexpected angles. But its most sinister power lies in the lantern: when shattered, the wisp bursts forth, sapping the life force from anyone nearby and channeling it into the wielder, granting temporary invulnerability. However, using such dark magic comes at a price, as it corrupts the wielder's soul over time._
It's bonkers. Afaik, you can't procedurally-generate every item in a way that is so random and unexpected.
You clearly misunderstand both how language models work, and how procedural generation works. Procedural generation is as "random and unexpected" as you want to make it.
My bad, I used the wrong term because indeed, it's not my area of expertise. I don't really care what powers it. I just want to see that kind of game.
Oo, something like stable diffusion for loot generation. Brilliant!
A modern dungeon keeper.
I was going to suggest War for the Overworld but at eight years old perhaps that doesn't qualify.
I'd love to play a fighting game, with 0 executional difficulty. I'm not talking a simplified fighting game, no. I love the fighting game culture, and discussion and analysis of fighting game tech is super interesting. But before I get to have any fun I have to grind and memeorize for hours the structures and matchups. I can't just pick up guilty gear, do a quick match and have fun.
I want a full fat, meaty fighting game where its turn based. Every frame, or at least every frame where I could have an input, I can look at the scene and make a choice. 0 hidden information, 0 mystery on why I got bodied. The depth of a real fighting game, but now its all understanding of the mechanics and not practicing dragon punches.
If this game existed I'd be so jazzed. I would like for it to have CPU matches as well, maybe not as fleshed out as a full story mode but something I can casually play with even when the community inevitabily dies.
Your Only Move is Hustle is pretty much exactly what you described.
I was going to suggest Toribash, but that looks way cooler. Toribash is pretty ancient at this point and has a pretty tough learning curve.
This looks incredible. It doesn't look like it has a VS CPU option though? I'll definitely look at this for sure. How insane that I've imagined this concept for a game, and bam it actually exists.
Two player retro JRPG (a la Chrono Trigger, etc) where each player can play independently in the same world, but the story lines intersect and must work together in many parts of the story. Would work great if the story filled in gaps when you replayed as the other player.
Would both people always have to be playing at the same time? Or would it be possible for one person to play and progress while the other person isn't playing?
I think the idea of an open world RPG with more than one player, not necessarily competitive or coop, but each with their own quests and motives, is interesting. I'm often hanging out in discord with friends, and we're all just chatting while playing different games. We might as well be playing in the same world, and occasionally influence each other.
You'd have to somehow make it clear to the players that the goal is not to party up and just walk around doing everyone's quests together, though. Ooo what if it was the world of the last airbender, and each person started as a different bender in a different part of the world? And maybe one person is secretly the avatar, but they don't know until they've progressed. Ok, I'll stop intruding on your idea lol.
I think you could go either way. If you want to be able to play without the other person also playing, you'd need a server or someone/something hosting the "game" where you connect in. If you were really clever as a programmer, you may be able to sync actions after both people are online without having a server, but that would be a challenge.
The other option is something like couch multiplayer, where you're both playing on the same device. If one person isn't there to move around, then no biggie.
Me too! One thing I'm looking at trying out soon is the multiplayer mod to Elden Ring. It's enables a mechanic that's very similar to this goal, but not entirely.
In an open world where just a few people are playing their own game, together, you could have very fun friend interactions like trading and helping with quests or missions.
Right -- I imagine when you both start the game you both get a very different intro, and are clearly starting in different parts of the world. I don't know much Airbender lore, but that sounds like a great theme for a game like this.
One feature I'd like to see is the two players' stories intertwine in such a way that you absolutely do have to help/meet to beat the game. Like, one player is arrested in jail and the other has to help them break out, because the one in jail is the one that can get the one not in jail access to the dungeon/castle/area that he wants to go to. Ultimately, I think it'd be important to kill the final boss/end the game together.
A modern version of black and white
Imagine if Rockstar did a superhero game.
With their satire style on it. Like The Boys style.
Open world, some destructive environment, a deep character creator.
That's basically Saints Row 4.
Everything being in a simulation killed it for me, though.
The visually glitching-out NPCs ruined the fun of being a completely unhinged maniac with/without superpowers. Which is kinda what the games are about.
And the constant black skybox became depressing fast.
SR3 does it better, imo. It constantly rides the edge of "How much is movie set? And how much is not?"
Not a new concept or idea, but:
HL 3 and Portal 3 in Source 2
My new pet theory is that CS:2 came out so that Valve had all their IP sitting at 2. So then at some point, when their audience is too old to play games anymore, and the youth don't even know that Valve ever made games, they'll release a 3-box with HL3, Portal 3, LFD 3, CS:3, TF3, and DOTA 3.
The sequel is a lie. It's so delicious and moist.
Subnautica in space. "Breathedge" came close, but it just didn't quite get the sandbox element right.
"Subnautica in space" as in "outer space" or "on an alien planet"? Because outer space is kinda empty. Probably wouldn't make for as lively a backdrop as under an ocean
The way Breathedge got around it initially is the starting area is a ship crash, so you collect broken bits of the ship(s) (which includes water and food).
But space is vast. Why couldn't there be space fauna? Or a way to travel to nearby system planets? Its fiction, after all. We don't need to be constrained by reality.
If you get a spaceship and can just go wherever, that sounds to me exactly like NMS. I think part of what makes Subnautica what it is is the constrained resources of the environment, and that feeling of being stranded. NMS lets you just bum around space forever, which is fun, but you don't really feel that need for survival like you do in Subnautica.
NMS is survival in space, insomuch as planets are in space and you can fly around in a ship, but you start on a planet. I was thinking more like having to survive in space by building the ship in space, building a station in space, etc. Space would be your primary sandbox, rather than planets (at least initially).
The normal NMS experience isn't quite what I'm envisioning. Maybe if you started on one of those abandoned freighters, though...
Any game where the AI cores of modern GPUs are used for actual AI and not graphics.
It's not as simple as that. Those cores are specialised in handling graphics. Game devs have 0 control over it
The AI cores? I'm pretty sure they're for AI right?
They are for providing special hardware for Neural Network inference (most likely convolutional). Meaning they provide a bunch of matrix multiplication capabilities and other operations that are required for executing a neural network.
Look at this page for more info : https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/tensor-cores/
They can be leveraged for generative AI needs. And I bet that's how Nvidia provides the feature of automatic upscaling - it's not the game that does it, it's literally the graphic cards that does it. Leveraging AI of video games (like using the core to generate text like ChatGPT) is another matter - you want to have a game that works on all platforms even those that do not have such cores. Having code that says "if it has such cores execute that code on them. Otherwise execute it on CPU" is possible but imo that is more the domain of the computational libraries or the game engine - not the game developer (unless that developer develops its own engine)
But my point is that it's not as simple as "just have each core implement an AI for my game". These cores are just accelerators of matrix multiplication operations. Which are themselves used in generative AI. They need to be leveraged within the game dev software ecosystem before the game dev can use those features.
By AI here I mean what is traditionally meant by "game AI", pathfinding, decisionmaking, co-ordination, etc. There is a counterstrike bot which uses neural nets (CPU), and it's been around for decades now. It is trained like normal bots are trained. You can train an AI in a game and then have the AI as NPCs, enemies, etc.
We should use the AI cores to do AI.
You could imagine training one AI for each game AI problem like pathfinding but what is see the benefit over just using classical algorithms?
Can DLSS and XeSS be used for something else than upscaling?
Utilisation. A CPU isn't really built for deep AI code, so it can't really do realistic AI given the frame budget of doing other things. This is famously why games have bad AI. Training AI via AI algorithms could make the NPCs more realistic or smarter, and you could do this within reasonable frame budgets.
I see. You want to offload AI-specific computations to the Nvidia AI cores. Not a bad idea, although it does mean that hardware that do not have them will have more CPU load so perhaps the AI will have to be tuned down based on the hardware they run on..
Yes, similar to Raytracing which still needs a traditional pipeline, with AI you will have "enhanced" (Neural Nets) and "basic" (if statements).
Endless procedurally generated open-world omni-directional 2D shoot-em-up. Start with a weak spaceship and go on missions to find new weapons and ship improvements. Go to spaceports to buy and sell stuff, fight against aliens or Lovecraftian monsters, survive asteroid waves, find the treasure inside the hostile nebula.
Not exactly, but Cosmoteer might scratch that itch partially.
There's pieces of that in Everspace, I could totally see your game working and being pretty fun in a similar manner, less arcadey than Everspace, but still accessible
I've always thought it was weird that there hasn't been a Hunger Games video game. Not to play out the teen movie storyline, but as the Battle Royale part.
Imagine creating a character using typical RPG elements (strength, endurance, speed, crafting, survival, etc.) with a limited number of points, the same number of points as everyone else. Then you're placed inside different large arenas that have environmental hazards for a Battle Royale survival that could last up to 30 minutes per game if you're good enough to make it to the end.
You have to survive against random encounters just like the gamemasters use in the books, dangerous animals, and you can get sponsorship drops like the COD kill streak rewards (healing items, tools, weapons). You could even make it through by not killing anyone if you're good enough at surviving the environment, but you'd better hope you don't end up in a fight.
I just think a game like that would be sick.
It's not a dedicated game and idk if servers even run these anymore, but the original popular "battle royal" was minecraft hunger games servers and they did kinda run like that - no stats obviously, but throwing you empty into a bounded world where you'd have to survive and craft and kill monsters and each other. I think some of them might've even had like your sponsor drops where you'd get potions or enchanted stuff
Guild Wars 2's World vs World mode, but with an established IP and without the bolted-on single player content. And increase the team sizes while you're at it. Sell cosmetic DLC to pay the bills if you must.
WvW was a blast until they shelved it for a year to focus on poorly-written single player DLC, and lost half of the community in the process. I tried going back a few years ago but it's a grindfest now.
Return of reckoning is a fan run continuation of the warhammer mmo, that might be something you enjoy.
I wish there were more Sims like games. I feel that under EA, the games aren't living up to their full potential, and they could be so much more.
There are a few on the horizon, look into paralives and life by you
A settlers-like game (resource/logistics oriented RTS) using a Minecraft-like (block-based) map.
There is a game I kick-started called Stonehearth that fits this mostly. Sadly, it was abandoned by the developers.
There is another one called Timber & Stone which is also largely dead, sadly.
Stonehearth was eventually abandoned, unfortunately, but the game is very much playable. The devs didn't just ghost the playerbase but had a kind of transfer of knowledge with the modders and the game lives on.
What's great about Stonehearth is it's multiplayer. A multiplayer colony management sim where two players can build an interconnected city (technically 2 separate colonies) and command an army to fend off increasingly difficult waves of goblin raids.
I've had so many fun games with my wife, we'll settle next to a cliff side, she has hearthlings (i.e. hobbits) and me as dwarves. I'd take care of mining and build all into the mountain, make us the best weapons with world-class smiths and she'd take care of the food, amazing cooks, animal husbandry, etc.
I do like 4x and GSG titles for their complexity but I miss the strategy games where you see the actual units moving around. Even better if you are one of those units! Real time action also always ends up being reflex /speed / micro oriented rather than depend on slow strategy so I'm not sure if this is one of those cursed problems and they can't coexist...
Pokémon x Monster Hunter
Explore a world with cute graphics and build a team of creatures to be the very best or whatever story someone comes up with, but you actually have to fight the creatures to capture them.
Isn't that kind of the premise of Monster Hunter Stories 2?
I was imagining a game with real time battles, like Monster Hunter. But yes, this is basically MH Stories, I didn't know this existed!
Stories is real good. Much better than the recent pokémon.
Skyrim but it's an MMORPG (and I don't mean some shitty WoW clone with an Elder Scrolls skin draped over it like ESO)
Basically Dwarf Fortress, but sci-fi, with space travel and with really good 3D graphics.
An overly complicated simulation of an entire universe where I can do anything that the game's laws of physics allow me to do. Particularly, I dream of a game where you can fulfil Star Trek fantasies of solving convoluted problems with equally convoluted solutions; but without it being a pre-programmed option. ("Reconfigure the deflector dish to output a neutrino wave to counter act the tachyon field!")
Fake physics that allow for real fake science and engineering.
Rimworld with the starship mod?
Close, but RimWorld's mechanics are nowhere near the complexity, even with mods. And I don't just mean with how many different types of rocks and trees exist. I've gotten as close to a DF-like experience + the space travel part, but it's still like 1/4 of the full experience.
Although it's moddable, which boosts it's playability a bit more. I've played more RimWorld than DF at this point.
PULSAR: Lost Colony kinda has this.
Zombie apocalypse game with souls like combat but all slow zombies. The game takes your GPS coordinates (or any coordinates you enter) and uses a maps API call to generate the game map based on the real world. It would take things like residential/commercial/industrial areas and generate similar structures but not exact to not be a privacy issue. All major landmarks would be generated. So you could start from your house, or the Eiffel tower, or the middle of the Amazon. Things like grocery stores and malls and schools would be in similar locations, roads and highways etc.
The game would generate slightly different every time you create a map so while always based on the real world, things would be different.
You then must rescue your partner who is across the map (random generated) and find shelter.
There would be some crafting and survival mechanics, but mostly action based combat, skills to level up etc. Minimal if non-existent gunplay, though I'd be open to it if done well.
Very gorey, rogue like/light with persistent stats and incremental style progression (get so far then reset/start new map with higher their upgrades)
So think dead rising meets dark souls, mixed with vampire survivors and incremental games, all with this AR framework. I also considered a multiplayer persistent map br style mode but would prefer a single player experience myself
Diablo 3. Not the one Blizzard released.
A new Ori game. :/
A hacking sim like Uplink, but with a less rigid story and a more open world. Also with simulated bash that allows for some scripting
I’m not sure that this is a “game” idea so much, but I’ve had this idea I haven’t been able to wrap my head around the implementation of.
Think a digital audio workstation such as Ableton Live or Logic, but gamified. Complete various musical objectives to pass levels, have a creative mode for just making music and maybe even a multiplayer mode for collaborative or competitive music making.
I want to see a sequel to enter the gungeon.
Do you mean something different from Exit the Gungeon?
Exit the Gungeon is basically a different genre using the same IP.
Yes, that game is pretty shallow in comparison.
When games can have AI that can be indistinguishable from humans, that might not be the best thing for society, but it would make some great games.
Imagine the dating sims!
It might not be as many great games as you'd think. https://youtu.be/1FBGR6vmNeU?si=rckpsplXwQhMBELE has some good explanation. Players often say they want smarter AI, but enjoy "dumber" ones more
Yeah. I’m talking about the sort of AI that was mentioned briefly at the end of that video. Enemy AI doesn’t need to be complex. Only optimised for enjoyment.
AI Dungeon was interesting, but ChatGPT can do the same thing now.
AI dungeon is the shit. I trained a few games to be very much identical to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, incorporating elements from both the games and the books. The best part about it is that you can always modge it in the desired direction, either by rewriting its prompts or doing something that essentially negates or ignores them.
Doubt we'll see anything worthwhile like that in any 3D capacity, though, as there's much more limitations there - primarily the corporate KPIs
Interesting and funny, but still just a language model.
Kerbal Space Program crossed with a procedurally generated aerial dogfighting game
I don't think space battles are anywhere near as exciting when you have to deal with realistic orbital mechanics!
Yeah, you're right. Science can be so fickle sometimes
I would like to see a (real)guitar-centric music game (like Rocksmith) that allows people to input their own songs/guitar tabs. I've always found the limitations that licensing entails very off-putting.
Edit: just to clarify, I meant being able to look up whatever song you want, and then importing the tabs into the software so that you could play the song using the visual format that Rocksmith has (falling notes fretboard style).
Rocksmith has custom songs, check out customsforge.
Ah, sorry I wasn't quite specific enough for what I meant. I really meant being able to import songs, not just creating your own.
So, Rocksmith? There is a third party tool to import tabs.
Oh, ok then. Guess I'll have to check that out next chance I get. What's it called?
DLCBuilder
Check out Customsforge for already created songs (you need an account, use a throwaway email address).
Thanks for telling me about that, I appreciate it
@Ultimatenab
A single server MMO like eve online, but with real stakes.
In eve, when you die, you keep your character, most of your assets are safe, either by meta gaming or game mechanics.
You can't *really* harm/steal from characters.
Which reduces the need to work together and defend your character and your assets. Risk aversion and occasional replacement is a valid strategy.
There is more stuff wrong with eve... but the biggest problem is the stakes.
#MMO
May I introduce you to Ultima Online?
You have some items that are not lost upon death (either by them being special and "blessed" or by you paying some in game gold to insure them (costing you every time you die), but everything else? On your corpse, ready to be taken by the nearest player and even humanoid enemy. More than once have I seen a lich just grab some of my stuff and cackle off back into the dungeon.
Aside from being able to lose stuff on death, there are actual Thievery skills ranging from sneaking to pickpocketing and lockpicking (for stealing from player homes or when you unearth treasure chests). There is a "safe overworld" but many popular private servers have removed that. You might go about your daily business to grab some stuff from the bank teller and next thing you know, a grandmaster thief took your precious sword from your backpack (there are a lot of skill checks involved depending on how many possible witnesses there are (player and NPC), if the thief is invisible, how heavy the item is and such).
A remaster of the original two Thief games of the quality they did with Dead Space.
Destroyable environment like Company of Heroes but modern rts setting.
Cities Skylines in the latest Unreal Engine.
Stardew Valley in pretty 3D graphics with no tile system. Valheim comes close but the graphics, while unique, is far from highly detailed.
Teardown multiplayer shooter.
General a lot of single player could use a simple coop that's just playing the game together. It's very rare that coop is more of an addition than a game focus. While often I just wish I could share the fun with friends together. It's sadly because of the complexity of adding coop, vs rewards when it's "just" the same experience but with friends, instead of a competitive like mode where they can sell skins and shit.
I personally always wanted to build a battle ship simulator game with crew system and destructible ships, with harsh survival elements like in the movie Master and Commander. Where you're very close in the action and ships get real impact holes. Most indie games don't come close enough on the realism level I'd like to see. Sea of thieves is somewhat there.
a racing game that feels like mario kart but for pc
So, Tux Kart?
Edit: or more old school, Wacky Wheels (I think I still have a copy somewhere)
In think you are looking for dash dash world on Steam.
Something like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed? It's been quite a while, but I remember having fun with it. It felt like a Mario Kart kinda game
There's the sonic racing series which has a few ports on PC. I haven't played them on PC, but I've played them on the switch and they're pretty Mario kart-ish both in playstyle and mascot racer charm.
Also you can play as The Heavy.
WoW but with the storytelling of FFXIV
I got 5k hours in WoW up to Cataclysm and 10k+ how in FFXIV (beta tester from 1.0). I think the story telling of WoW up to WoTLK, was told amazingly well and it had a strong point, but BC was even better. Things rapidly declined from Cataclysm and this is why I never got back, whereas I've stuck with FFXIV for 13 years.
I really want to play single-player versions, or at least on my own private server, games like Travian or Ikariam. Basically resource management strategies but without the insane need to be 24/7 online in anticipation of an enemy attack.
Edit: Also a single player tab targetting open world rpg.
So, while INFRA already does fully exist, I'd love to see more games like it. It's really hard to describe what INFRA is without major spoilers, but if you've played it then you probably know what I'm talking about.
It's like... take the new Chernobyl game and remove literally all the death states, then fill it to the brim with easter eggs, lore content, secret rooms and pathways, challenging logic puzzles, stuff like that. INFRA ticked all those boxes for me and I have yet to find a game like it.
Every game that I've looked at and been recommended as being "like INFRA" always has some major flaw or some concession that really sets it apart from the original game. INFRA is pretty much all about exploring your surroundings to uncover the plot of the game and even change some of the story if you're vigilant enough about the puzzles. You can literally complete the game just as a walking sim while doing fuck-all, but I think most players will find the intrigue of the story interesting enough to be almost coerced into going down the other fork in the road, so to speak. Like there are sections in every chapter where you have to use your knowledge in civil engineering to repair some sort of machinery using intermediate logic puzzles, but you're always able to just skip it. However, completing these puzzles allows you to unlock the story as the puzzles require exploration. Hope that made sense.
I wasn't expecting to see INFRA mentioned but it's one of my favorite games for a lot of the reasons you mentioned! It really had a sense for exploration and environments to tell more of the story. And it really is part puzzle game without having any single gimmick like other first person games. It reminds me a lot of Half Life 2's puzzles (which makes sense since INFRA was also built in Source as far as I can remember).
I'm really itching for more expansions or games like it. Not sure what happened to the DLC they were working on, but there were some groups working on mods.
A modern take on the (pre-NGE) Star Wars Galaxies style MMO, mainly the social aspects like player housing and player driven crafting system it had. We have still not seen such a deep crafting and resource system as SWG had in any game since.
While there are still private servers around in abundance, they are all too small to properly support the social aspects properly, and the dated engine really hold it back. A newer game engine and some modern QOL and UI changes is all you really need, and although the Star Wars IP would be great it would be fine with a lesser IP or fully unique setting.
There have been a few indie attempts at this but none have finished development, with the most recent one pivoting to AI and then going dark earlier this year, though to be fair indie MMO have a pretty bad track record for actually completing.
One of us! One of us! One of us!
My fear is we won't ever see it because a game like that gives so much control to the players and the crafting/economy and skill system really stains back end databases.
It would be interesting to see what a modern dev could tack onto the concepts. SWG was weak on quests and end game content. You wouldn't have to make it WoW in that regard, but it could use some of that. Or with the rise of "cozy" games, what extra decorations that could be added.
Hell, take the game system and pull Star Wars out of it. Space games do appeal to the community.
An RPG that utilizes LLMs to interact with NPCs in meaningful ways.
I think that is inevitable, and we will see one in the best future.
I want a modern difficult farming Sim with an in depth relationship mechanic and no fucking combat. The old harvest moon games are good, but I've kinda played them to death and for some idiotic reason they removed stuff like rival marriages from the remakes. Rune factory has combat, and so does stardew valley (in addition to having a relationship mechanic that's just, really shallow), and it seems like all the farming Sim games that don't have combat are like baby's first farm Sim and are all cutesy and aren't very difficult
Like it feels like this would be an easy thing to do, right?
I don't think Farm Simulator has any combat
Does it have a relationship mechanic though? I always assumed it was just about equipment and using that.
No but I regularly drive the truck through town at about 90mph.
A bard/artist game that really makes use of the creative potential of music/painting. A great example of a "tech demo" of what I'd like is the magic system in Tchia. You got a ukulele that you can play super freely (possibly the most realistic thing if you don't play it irl), but depending on what notes you play, you unleash different spells (kinda like in the old Zelda games with the ocarina).
I would absolutely love if the creative spell freedom of Magicka (or Fictorum) was combined with the freeform instrument play of Tchia.
I want Quake, DOOM, and Hunt Showdown to have a baby.
Some kind of mad, fast paced, extraction shooter with crazy weapons in a gritty dystopia. Maybe Bungie will come close with Marathon.
I will play the crap out of that as I love all three games mentioned.
I love playing/writing interactive stories with an AI. A dream game of mine would be an RPG/Adventure game that extends this to a fully realized game that adapts to how you want to play.
Want to be the adventurer who slays the evil monster and saves the kingdom? Go right ahead!
Prefer to stop halfway, settle down and become the village baker, getting involved in the town's intrigues? Also fine!
It would probably be too much to ask to turn this into a full-fledged 3d world with high detail. But a consistent Visual Novel would be a really great next step.
A true modern successor to The Guild (aka Europa 1400). That concept has soooo much potential imo, but the games after the first were notoriously underfunded, half-baked and riddled with bugs!
I want a shooter-esque game crossed with MOBA stuff. Basically, I just want Monday Night Combat, Battleborn or Gigantic to come back.
Isn't this basically what Overwatch was in it's heydey?
I miss Monday Night Combat's vibe a lot
I think most of what I'd like has already been made. But they are old, few and far between.
I'd really like a modern Freespace game.
I enjoyed how it made your keyboard into a functional cockpit and how you could customize your own and your squads fighters and loadout. And sending tactical info in the thick of battle.
All that junk. It was great. But the old games are showing their age.
Animal Crossing with a super deep friendship system, where you play intricate minigames (like a full tennis sim) and go on adventures together.
I like all those kind of chill "X Simulator" games, but I'd love to see a bunch of them all combined into one mega-game.
So like if there was a game where you could find parts and build a PC like PC Building Simulator, and also build a vehicle like Car Mechanic Simulator, you could cover huge areas like American/European Truck Simulator, grow crops like Farming Simulator, build a shelter like Construction Simulator, keep the place clean like Powerwash simulator and/or House Flipper and so on.
It'd actually be really good for a post-apocalyptic type of game I think, where you could scavenge all that stuff and build a base.
Fallout 5
A modernized .hack// mmo <3
Pacific Drive with the graphics from Sonst of the Forest
I’d happily take “fully co-op Elden Ring” (keep meaning to try the mod, tbf), and “Dwarf Fortress, but in 3D and you can play/explore/participate like Minecraft.
Quake that people actually play. Like look at the virality of Battle bits Remastered, the Battlefield with block characters so you can have like 200 people in the match. Games need to feel snappy and run on a lot of low tech machines, and developers are mostly never catering to that budget demographic. FPS games have a huge demand for this. The hundreds of thousands of nerds who can infodump about how incredible the Source engine feels is my proof. So yeah I think there is still a market for competitive movement game 2.0 - a team fortress 3, a titanfall 3, a quake / unreal tournament that runs well and allows community mapping. Like unironically last gens engines followed the wrong upgrade paths and there is still more performance to squeeze out (titanfall 2 using highly customized source and it looking like a AAA game rather than a source game as my proof)
haven and hearth but before they nuked the xp system 😞