Social Anxiety Survival Horror. You’re a guy at a friend’s party trying to avoid conversations while putting in an appearance with your friend so they know you were here. You can deflect conversations with small talk you pick up by eavesdropping, but it won’t work on drunk people, so you also need to run and hide. Your ex-partner eventually shows up and is hunting you down to have a frank conversation about your relationship, which is instant game over.
I would love to buy this game on sale and never get around to playing it.
What about Panic Disorder Survival Horror? You have to get through a full week, including 5 work days, 2 social events, and an errand…except you can have a panic attack at any time but also have a heart condition, so you’re not sure if you’re really having a panic attack or heart attack. If you guess wrong, you lose. Also you have to have a completely empty bladder and colon so you don’t soil yourself at work and get fired or in a social setting and lose friends out of embarrassment if you happen to have a panic attack in those settings. Easy mode comes with a script for xanax. Hard mode comes with an abusive stalker ex and their family.
I had a very similar idea but it’s about avoiding contact and conversation out on the street and on public transportation. May or may not be influenced by real life experience.
You can checkout https://store.steampowered.com/app/1392820/Milk_inside_a_bag_of_milk_inside_a_bag_of_milk/ - it’s not that but it’s a somewhat similar thing
I haven’t played it - and the “social anxiety as horror”-slant feels more metaphorical than literal in its marketing - but this makes me think of the game “Homebody” a bit
You’ve just proposed the next indie game of the year
Good. Someone, please make this. And make it first person for the full effect.
Other ideas for people to pinch:
- You can only use each snippet of small talk once before collecting it again, because you’re afraid of repeating yourself.
- The game is filled with collectibles, but they’re all located on the floor, so you’re more likely to find them if you’re in character and looking at the floor the entire time.
- To pause the game, you have to look at your phone while standing in a quiet area.
- Your ex-partner has a lengthy list of grievances you can hear when they’re hunting you. This includes “you always run away from me at parties”.
A driving (either racing or GTA-style) game that generates the roads from real-world geospatial data/street view imagery similar to how Microsoft Flight Simulator does.
It exists in a very simple way https://framesynthesis.com/drivingsimulator/maps/
100% science based dragon MMO
I actually thought of a ridiculous concept for an mmo, not so much in mmo, but a response to my frustrations with world of warcraft, and how the most play race was human and the most played class was warrior. You know the one combination that you can actually be in real life, human Warrior.
It gave me an amusing thought, then if I ever ran a fantasy-based mmo, there would be absolutely no human option, and no realistic class options, like you wouldn’t be able to pick a class that you could definitely do in real life.
And the first major expansion would introduce the scientist class, and be all about humans finding this fantasy world. And just make that the main selling point you could play as boring Monday and human doing real world stuff. Just a little social experiment to see how people would react.
SimEarth remake with a proper geologic and climate model.
All the newer games in that mode feel like they’re all about growing the predefined lifeforms.
SimEarth was more about making the planet to support the lifeforms.
cries in Spore
That game was such a disappointment.
I quite like it, what do you dislike?
You are one species. I want to play god.
Spent all their time on a cool creature customizer, but the actual gameplay is pretty shallow.
There are plenty of God simulators, but that’s not what Spore’s about. You could try Black and White, for instance.
In that vein, a remake of Sim Life using neural networks and all the latest “learning” and “evolving” tech.
Mirror’s Edge-style gameplay (specifically first person) for experiencing Spider-man’s first few weeks of having powers, including the time prior to having built the web-shooters. I have wanted this ever since the teaser trailer for the first Andrew Garfield movie.
This is so close to what I’d want, which is basically this + somewhat accurate recreations of real life places.
Imaginary places would work too, but the main thing I’d like is to have more maps to explore than I can deal with. I could spend hours just exploring and goofing around
NOTE: Someone probably has developed it, but I’m too poor to buy a decent computer.
I’ve been wanting the shittiest, most grindy military logistics game possible for a bit now. Like, “oh you didn’t upgrade your Sock factory? Fuck you now your platoon has trench foot” type Grindy.
I want to feel pain
Rimworld is probably the closest thing to that right now. Watch your village starve as their clothes wear out and they get frostbite.
Or dwarf fortress if you want to get medieval
Funny thing, I’m actually playing rimworld right now!
I believe this is the Black Ice mod for Hearts of Iron 3
Foxhole? I’ve heard that that game has hella logistics
Thanks! I’ll look into it
Not military but have you tried oxygen not included? That game will give you trench foot.
conversely, Battlefield: Lego
Not quite Lego, but check this out.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/671860/BattleBit_Remastered/
Just bought this game 2 weeks ago and I’m already at 50 hours. I’m addicted
It would be so fun!
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I didn’t watch the video yet but got damn the more I think about it the more I want it
Large scale battles with titans and the excellent pilot mobility mechanics? Sign me the fuck up.
First person city planner, probably in vr where you can plan something out and then see your city grow as you walk around it
Cities VR is pretty close to that.
This sounds mint and I’m sad I’m too solodev to make it.
I want a vampire-survivors style game that integrates with my music streaming and the enemies/weapons sync to the music I’m playing.
Beat Hazard is sort of close, though a different theme. If you put it on one-stick mode (auto-aim) it plays more like Vampire Survivors.
I’d argue twin stick shooters like this are VS grandpa. Random-ish waves of enemies, bullet hell, increasing difficulty… The main differences are the powerups instead of permanent level ups, usually the lack of autoaim (right?) and maybe lack of meta progression.
Crypt of the Necrodancer lets you add custom music. I don’t think it is able to handle music streaming though it is a bit of a manual process iirc. The gameplay is pretty different from Vampire Survivors. Basically enemies all move and attack in patterns that increment based on a beat, and you need to time your movement and attacks to the beat as well. Fun game
Did you ever try Audiosurf?
Yeah it’s nothing like what I described other than I pick my own music.
Have you ever played audiosurf?
Yeah, but have you checked out frets on fire. It too can have your own music. Although… That’s even further from a vampire survivor game.
Theres a twin stick shooter in space that syncs to your music. No clue what its called anymore. It came a few years after audiosurf!
Good call, def will check this out
Thats the one!
Interesting! I can already picture the min/max song playlists going around lol
An urbanism focussed city builder where you start with an existing city in the current car-centric style, possibly including a couple of dozen kilometers around the city so rural problems are included as well and have to transform it, with realistic building project times, into one that is more walkable, has safe bike paths, good public transport,…
In particular I would also like it to take verticality in to account both for transport (people and bikes and trains have a harder time going up and down than cars, boats need locks,…) and for buildings (stores at the bottom of a building, residential above,…) and that accounts for the huge amounts of space car-centric cities waste on parking as well as the ongoing infrastructure costs for maintenance and replacements of all that infrastructure in sprawling cities.
Basically “Not Just Bikes” the game.
Have you played anything that comes close?
A spaceship captain game with an AI crew that follows your orders, and is focused on problem solving and exploration rather than combat and resource gathering. Kind of like ongoing episodes of star trek, but in game form.
Kinda like artemis but with AI?
Possibly, but I was picturing being able to move around the ship and you would have to manage your crew by assigning roles. Almost like rimworld meets bridge crew meets star trek online.
You’re describing Barotrauma in space.
I would be so keen on that!
I actually started making a version in the old gamemaker:studio years ago. When they abandoned GMS and went to GM2 I just gave up.
Hollow Knight Silksong :(
A game similar to the Expanse and Firefly. A space exploration, trading and combat game where you fly around a single solar system in a small ship and can also land on planets (please not procedurally generated though. Just make fewer places you can visit, but design them).
Oh, and with realistic Newtonian physics. Even if that means combat will be largely about who can fire the most missiles. But it would also mean you can avoid enemies altogether by planning the right planetary slingshot, millions of miles before you’d meet them.Outer Wilds comes close, but I’d love something more gritty, realistic and on a bigger scale.
Evochron. One dev, super dedicated to this concept.
Elite Dangerous has some of those elements, not quite what you’re describing rhough
So basically Anno 2307?
I haven’t played Anno 2205, but what your describing seems a bit further in time than that game. The start of colonization of the Moon vs settling/trading with the full solar system.
I have this concept for a VR team battle game where you have to learn to actually cast spells through complex real time action. Like a mix of moving your hands in patterns and adding elements via hot bar in sequence and saying words via headphone. 1 on 1 or team vs team strategy game where complexity makes stronger team spells and counters. You could have casters who specialize in defense, offense, healers, traps and counters and how you build your team makes for strengths and weaknesses.
Reminds me of Arx Fatalis. I think it’s the only game I’ve seen where casting spells requires you to trace a rune in the air instead of pressing the cast button.
The old Lionhead game, Black and White, had a gesture system which was similar. Didn’t work very well, but the thought was there.
I can’t think of a game that deserves a modern VR remake more than Black and White. I wonder who owns the rights these days?
I’ve been saying this for years, game is like the perfect concept for VR. I think Microsoft would own the IP yeah they bought Lionhead?
That was my first thought, but I remember there was some rights snaggle that kept B&W from appearing on GOG. Looking it up, according to an interview the source code and IP are owned by Microsoft but EA still has the distribution rights.
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Drakan: Ancient Gates was my inspiration. Their magic casting blew my mind back in the day and I never understood why no one else has utilized that system. I will have to check out Arx Fatalis.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite had spells you cast by tracing a shape on screen, representing wand movements (and it was graded on how closely you matched that spell’s shape as well as on speed.)
Not a complex system, but some of them took some effort to get a good cast.
I’d play the hell out of that.
Planetside 2, but in Warhammer 40k. I want to be an ork running around krumpin gits with a hundred other boyz, smashin up some humie tinboyz or them big bug wotsits
Bonus points if you can be a psyker and blow up your whole squad
I think that if you can make being cannon fodder fun, you can make a lot of money.
I loved being cannon fodder in the M&B Napoleonic Wars mod.
Nothing beats lining up to face a volley of rifle fire.
That’s the easy part, you just have to be able to yell “WAAAAAGH!” while firing indiscriminately like a propa lad
Ethics aside, making the Space Marines pay-to-play while Orks are free would be hilarious, especially if the Orks still have higher odds of winning. Being a walking tank isn’t pay-to-win. You have to coordinate and not get overrun by sentient mushrooms with extra-shooty red guns. Get a few veteran tabletop players to pony up, and they’ll slice through a hundred randos without slowing down… while the survivors think it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen.
I was thinking more about the line soldiers of the Astra Militarum as cannon fodder rather than Orks.
