I’m always way ahead of the curve. The young people tend to adopt my way of thinking a couple generations after me, so I think the way I view video games might have a future.
I can’t play the new ones. The newest game I played at all is Fallout 4, and by about level 25 the radiant AI and scaling kills it for me. I never even finished it. Anything below hardcore is too easy and then they take away fast travel. Plus you have to eat, sleep, stay warm, take a piss—we play video games to not have to deal with that kind of bullshit. If I wanted to do chores, I’d code video games rather than play them.
I’ve had a game in my head for over twenty years now. It’s nothing special, although I’ve still never come across one like it. While playing Skyrim today, I was able to articulate what I /don’t/ like about new games, so I’ll combine my ideas of what not to do with my idea for a lightweight game worth playing. No scaling, no personalization, and no hidden math. That’s really it. Keep the game dynamics simple, out in the open, and the same for every player all the time. Y’know, the way the real world operates. The real world doesn’t scale to your abilities, it just eats you alive if you show up unprepared. Think of the game as existing only on hardcore mode, but still fun and playable.
I designed an open world fantasy strategy RPG in my head in about 1999. It doesn’t have a main story arc. You have to complete the game with each of the three premade characters before being allowed to create your own. I pictured it as a single player game, but the interconnectedness has grown a lil’ since the last century. It’s probably adaptable to an MMOG. If you can figure out a touch interface, it could be a decent phone game. I didn’t picture it requiring any kind of fast twitch reflexes. Real time movement until you enter combat, then turn based combat.
I like the idea of eliminating some of the common tropes that make gaming easy. Injuries and healing are mostly realistic. Limbs can be permanently crippled or removed. A wounded limb performs less well for days to months to forever if it never heals right. If you lose an arm, your bow skill is now worthless. Maximum HP never go up, but do degrade with age and significant injury. To prevent the game becoming absurdly tedious, you employ cannon fodder. Allies come in two types—npc characters and personalityless mercenaries. You hire mercenaries in the tavern, mostly, and fight behind them in combat. Dead is dead. Mercenaries are replaceable. NPC’s aren’t. You can fight from horseback (if you own a horse).
Combat would take place on an overhead isometric grid. Probably hexes. You’d put your avatar and NPC allies behind a wall of mercs. I picture allies having up to three squads of five and enemies having up to five squads of eight, but see what the design holds. I pictured it similar to the combat mechanics in Nobunaga’s Ambition, except with individual fighters rather than companies of soldiers.
As far as character development, there are no levels. Like most games, I picture there being physical and mental traits with skill values derived from them. Mental stats don’t change except in unusual circumstances, and physical stats don’t budge much except for waning with age. You can develop a skill either by practicing it, studying with a trainer, or using it in combat. Group the skills into the usual three sets—fighting, social, and stealth.
My game is almost faux-fantasy. There is no magic at all, no healing potions, and very limited and realistic poison and venoms. I picture it set on one roughly oblong land mass that takes one year to cross on horseback and two years to cross on foot. As an open world, you can build whatever plotlines into it that take your fancy, but I did rough out the three premade characters. The first is a farm boy, 16yo, large and strong but barely skilled in anything. His parents die and he sets out to make his fortune. His first encounter on the way to the local town is a man with a hobbled unicorn bringing it to market. Now, this kid has “pure” karma, which gives the occasional significant help later in the game, and the only way to rescue the unicorn is by backstabbing the trapper. Make him an overtly evil man, and the unicorn is good. Rescue it and it becomes both a mount and adept fighting ally. This is the only unicorn in the game, but the player won’t know that for a long time. I picture this kid finding a king with a kidnapped daughter, rescuing her, and being given the kingship as reward. At this point, the game asks the player, “Do you accept this ending?” If you say yes, that’s it for this round. Go back to start and play the next character.
She’s an older princess, maybe 28, and she’s betrothed to an old asshole because she was too smart and feisty to be married young and her father has to marry her off to one of the second tier of suitors. She has strong social skills and is fast and healthy with some minimal ability to defend herself, so she runs off to find her fortune. If anybody cares, I’ll write more to her story.
The third premade character is an aging thief, 35 years old, with one last score needed to retire. You must finish this plotline quickly, because his reflexes start dropping off dramatically with every year he ages.
From there you could basically crowdsource it. Design a world with an infinite variety of quests and plotlines, some of which leave your character in a permanent position. Some will give you the choice to end the game, some will force it. I really like one idea I had at the time, which is to make a really remote and difficult location with a long, long struggle to get to the final boss. The final boss is boyishly enthusiastic to meet you and gives you a tour of his magical emporium. He has a scryer to see anywhere in the game world, and an ear trumpet to hear anything said, a navelgazer to read people’s thoughts, a lightning thrower to incinerate anyone he doesn’t like…lots of amazing gadgets. After the whirlwind tour he says, “I’ve been waiting ten thousand years for a hero strong enough to get to my stronghold. You’ve proven yourself worthy. You are now god. So long and have a nice day!” at which point he vanishes in a puff of smoke and you are trapped in that room forever. Game over.