Game ideas that you have but will never actually finish making ever

There are at least ten social forums dedicated to visual novel development right now, and at least a few of those were made on the spur of the moment when a whole bunch of dudes went "you know what'd be cool" and "hell yeah that would be cool."

But then there are ideas that you come up with all by yourself and you're reluctant to share them because "it's my idea! I'll bring it to fruition myself since I'm the only one who can visualize it" but you never get around to bringing it to fruition because you don't have the time or capability but you keep clinging to the ideas anyway until at last you're forced to accept that you're never going to bring your ideas to life and if you don't show them to others then they'll follow you to the grave.

So.
Spur of the moment game idea dump, go!

Haha... Everyone, release your broken dreams!

I'd add mine, but the universal feedback I get is that "you're a monster" for making a game out of that. :(

I want a game all about cooking things. Not like "Cooking Mama" level cooking things, either.
I mean give me a game with like 10,000 recipes that I have to get the ingredients for. Like a meshing of Cooking Mama and Harvest Moon. i don't think you know how happy that game would make me.

except i would have to kill my animals and that's no fun

Shepherd's Crossing 2 came close to that, but it fell short because that game becomes a hot mess after a while.

Are you sure? Try me. I *probably* think I've seen worse.

I'd like to make an otome game where all the guys are megane's.

I love you.

I am just about 100% sure I have seen worse.

Yep. I've covered wars, you know.

Game Premise: You are a single optometrist, just starting up a new practice. Unfortunately, you're still working on hiring technicians and assistants, so you're stuck playing double duty as doctor and technician. But on the plus side, it means you get to see your patients outside of the eye examination chair, too.

The game includes scenarios involving...

• Fitting your love interests with glasses frames (potentially of your favorite style)
• Talking them in to (or out of) getting contacts
• Getting up close and personal with them as you try to figure out which one looks clearer- #1 or #2?
• Comforting them when they learn that they can't read past the third line on the eye chart, or can't make out the number made out of differently colored bubbles in the color blindness test

Okay, okay! I'm ending the joke here! Don't hurt me!

Breed ''Em And Eat 'Em
Your breed super-deformed 6 year old children for certain combat traits. You let them loose in the ring where you use them to defeat the specially-bred children of your opponents. The winner (who is 6 years old) gets to eat their opponent, which through Lamarckian evolution gives you their powers and ability to pass on those powers genetically. You can breed your stable of fighters, but once they pop, they can't stop; they can't fight anymore, so there's a tradeoff between short-term and long-term growth in power. The chief draw was trying to convince someone to draw incredibly pregnant 8 year old kids.

Home Invasion Simulator
Like Thief, except without the vanity layer of justifiablity. You break into a completely defenseless suburban family's house and steal their shit. No rape, no gunfire; just cartoony tying them to a chair while you run out with a bag of money with a dollar sign on it. Do you have what it takes to run the gauntlet of the homeowner's gun collection? Can you put up with the children sobbing long enough to pack up their game system?

Forgot one:

Outblack Steakhouse
"No rules, just white!"

Fairly standard Diner Dash restaurant simulator, except you're running a diner during the Civil Rights movement. If you let a critical mass of CORE Freedom Riders in, they'll lock up the place for hours, making you no money! So you have menu of options to get rid of them as a side-game to the restaurant simulator, ranging from subtle discrimination to gangs of vigilantes.

If you're not mean enough to them, the Klan firebombs your restaurant. Game over.

I don't know, seems pretty norm--

FUCK.

(In case it's not obvious, these were all designed as 100% trolly but plausible oh my god that's so funny game designs in college bull sessions).

Crap, forgot the restaurant game had a whole second system - you had a really shitty restaurant you ran where the African-Americans were allowed to eat. Hence "Outblack", it was in the back behind the whites-only restaurant. Imagine a barn with a single light bulb. Do you treat it as a slumlord profit center, or try to make it nice and risk the wrath of the town elders?

Was this about what my mental vision of rural Texas was like growing up? YES.

Here's a game idea I had crawling at the corners of my brain.
I wouldn't mind attempting to make it but since RPG Maker (what I likely would have made it on) doesn't like macs.../shrug Even then, there are a few other game ideas I have that are higher up on the To Do List.

Title: Corpse Gather
Genre: Horror/Adventure/RPG
The love of MC's life dies tragically. The MC, once a paladin of great renown for the goddess of law and the light side of the moon, removes himself from society and the temple he served. While alone he is then visited by his goddess's twin sister, the goddess of chaos and the dark side of the moon. She promises that, if you serve her instead, she would help bring your love back to life. The paladin then travels around looking for women that had wronged the dark goddess and has a body part that is identical to his love's. (How the body parts are collected would effect what ending you get.) Once the part is harvested, MC takes it to the chaos goddess's abandoned shrine and sews it on to whatever he has already collected.
Also of course there's some other drama and plot twists that would explain things like why MC's love actually died, real reasons why the dark goddess got involved, treachery, very human behaving deities, multiple endings, blah blah. Writing all of that down here would make this post long and boring. Actually I just don't feel like bothering with it.

I promise that most of my ideas aren't this creepy.

Well, it's getting close to 2 AM for me. I think that's a good enough excuse as any to show off my ideas. It is also what I plead if any of these make next to no sense once proper daylight hits them.

Enjoy!

I don't even.
You guys just...
The fuck man. I thought I was used to this by now.

Holy shit she's a badass megane blond.
The Red/Blue sides made me think of the game Sweet Pool.
Sounds pretty sweet to me.

You might want to google "Culina". :D

I feel compelled to make a lousy pun now. Please don't kill me.

I'M GOING TO KISS YOU.

Victorian detective. A person in modern day who dresses in victorian clothing solves crimes.
He or she refuses to use any of the techniques or technology that were invented after 1901.

I once wrote up way too much detail about a...uh...facebook game idea, essentially. That was ALL ABOUT CRAFTING.

See, you'd play minigames to get different types of threads, in both different colors and textile types. Then you'd do a minigame to convert them into fabrics and yarns. You'd collect recipes that could require either very specific sets of ingredients, or broad types (two worsted cotton and one blue skein of any bulky-weight yarn!) that you could use to make different clothes, and even acquire different visual patterns that you could slot your various yarn/fabric types into. Of course, you'd use all of this to dress up your avatar, and display around your house on little sewing dummies.

After a while, there'd be the garden expansion, where you could start growing your own trees, which would be harvested for lumber, and let you mix-and-match pattern parts--just like with the clothing!--to make different types of furniture. (Want fancy lion-pawn maplewood legs for your simple round oak table top, with a shimmering lace green silk runner? Go for it!) Decorate and expand your house, and then there'd be the addition of...animal-raising! Care for your sheep, bunnies, alpacas, and so forth, to harvest their wool instead of waiting for your random drops, and start growing cotton and linen in your garden, along with plants for dyeing it all!

And I guess maybe there'd be some NPCs or plot or something like that maybe if it seemed worthwhile. But it was basically just an excuse to play dollhouse with a lot of emphasis on yarn. Pity I have no programming or art skills.

Oh the ideas I first had when I got RPG maker but didn't (and still don't) have any idea what I was doing.

There was this one called I really liked called, 'The Danse of the Red Masque'.

A based off of the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Masque of the Red Death" and other Poe stories. MC is a young man is looking for his sister because their mother is dying from a terrible plague that pretty much killing the whole country. A local prince, a Sir Prospero, basically said "Screw you guys" and hosted a giant party/bunker to wait out the plague with his friends- this is where MC's sister is. So MC sneaks into the masquerade party wearing a strange, skull-like mask he found and a raven (who serves as a save station) who follows him.

It turns out that MC's sister is dead, killed by Prospero, and MC's mask is possessed. I had all these plans for the game, like a puzzle where you have to follow a heart beat to find a body behind a wall, and Prospero was a cool mix of three Poe stories. I want to write the story, but I don't have many other ideas for other characters or scenes or, really, much other content for anything longer than a short story. I'm going to have to read more Poe stories.

Creepy masks?
Edgar Allen Poe based?
Puzzles?
That sounds like great fun. I'd play it.
I LOVE AHEM like Edgar Allen Poe. Is Prospero's name a play off of Fortunato or is that from a story I haven't read yet?

Based off of Fortunato. I didn't want to pick the exact name. I picked Prospero because it was similar enough in terms of theme and such.
I really do want to make this game, once I actually worked more of it out and when I learn to used RPG Maker, or maybe some other program. I think it would be such a fun story.
And I love Edgar Allen Poe too. I got two big books of his work this Christmas and I was super excited.

The

The mental image of all the datable guys being cars is extremely hilarious to me. Reminds me of Hatoful Boyfriend, but with cars, haha.

It's especially amusing since their license plate has "BL" in it.

I have a full notebook of VN/Otoge ideas and I will probably never finish them but I really, really want to. My main projects at this time are the Subjects, Weather and Yandere!Protag-chan ones, along with another VN I'm discussing with Donmai and a Robot Boyfriend Prince one with Nekochi. The rest are projects other people started that I hope to contribute to, namely the My Immortal one and the Alien one.

This isn't even starting with personal projects I won't divulge until they get somewhere.

I have two that I want to happen and one that seemed cool but I honestly have no idea who the characters are going to be, how the rules of the setting work, and it seems similar to Fruits Basket.

So, MC is walking home one day when the streets keep changing direction into a veritable labyrinth (not unlike the mazes in Cafe Rouge). Eventually after wandering around trying to find her way, she finds that all the roads lead to the house that just so happens to have a gate open. Figuring she'd ask for directions, she walks in on an important looking ceremony where a crowd of people are standing around 5 girls and a blue orb. Everybody is dressed in traditional clothing (Not sure whether to do Japanese because it's based on the European system but that's how it appears in my mind) and 12 people have animal masks on (these guys are standing on a platform so MC can see them). Knowing she's intruding, MC tries to quietly leave but the gate won't open. One of the girls approaches the orb and starts smiling as it glows blue but then the orb floats up and over to where MC is. It lands gently in MC's open hands, glowing blindingly bright, and the crowd begins to murmur. MC quickly hands the orb to the lady who was conducting the ceremony and dashes out through the suddenly open gate.

The next day in school, three guys approach her and what do you know, they were part of the 12 masked people. One teacher, 2 students.

Basically, MC is the next chosen person to choose the next leader of that family (more like an organization really) out of the masked people and she needs to prepped to handle the responsibilities. Oh, and it just so happens that the picker often falls in love with chosen leader.

I had planned that picking guy as your husband =/= picking him as next leader. I mean, that just doesn't make sense. There would be 2-3 guys that could have ended up being the leader. The snake would have been female.

Accept the responsibility or run the heck away from these insane ward members?

This does not belong in this thread because it WILL get made. Speaking of which, you're never on Skype. :(

I wouldn't be able to make it, but I've always wanted a fantasy sandbox game like Skyrim or Oblivion, but set underwater. I don't even care if someone steals this idea, I wanna play it so bad.

As for VN/otome ideas, my scattered story ideas mostly revolve around fantasy settings and gender roles, things like that. If you know me you can probably tell what I'm ripping off influenced by... XD

Which reminds me!

What are you talking about, this sounds amazing.

Aw, that's not dumb at all! I think it's really cute ^_^ Would the POV change over the episodes, or would it by only from one character?

And, well, you gave your idea, so here's mine...

I also have another idea of a Protag-chan who is the unholy character spawn of Nanami/Jeanne (from Rose of Versailles)/Electra Heart who is transported into Generic Otome Game. I just think the clash would be amusing.

Guilty as charged! (Sorry, I've been distracted by VNs and a slow computer. I should be able to come online sometime this week, hopefully with actually interesting material to discuss.)

A little cliche but that sounds decently fun

As for the actual game, I think something along the lines of an isometric adventure/rpg, similar to Fallout 2, but with updated graphics like that Stasis game.

I'll never make it, because it obviously requires writing at levels beyond my ability. My regret is that I never tried to pitch it back when I worked at Obsidian. (Though it probably would've gone nowhere, like most of our pitches -- and we had some pretty cool ones, the only one I think that is safe to mention, is someone wanted to do a 40k game but as an RPG where the player was an Inquisitor)

I don't know if I'd start threads about either of these games in this subforum, but I'll certainly post about them in such an inviting-looking thread. :P

*grognard voice* I've always wanted to build a game about a starfighter with a Falcon 4- or DCS: A-10-level of fidelity, but 'simple space sim' is well beyond my technical abilities, to say nothing of 'incredibly complicated space sim'.

*less grognardy voice* This one might actually happen sometime. I have a setting for short fiction that resembles Crimson Skies with the whole skypirates-and-zeppelins motif, and Indiana Jones in the Nazi-punching tomb-raiding thing. I want to do a sort of Mount and Blade-style game, with some Carriers at War-style management of air wings and patrols and scouting, and a turns-and-hexes tactical combat system, and on top of that support for storytelling through in-game assignments. One of these years I'll find some time to do it.

This is obviously cool to imagine. Also suspenseful since one alien is a mole.

Although it's way outside the range of a VN, the game I always wanted was an exploration/survival/taming game. In the single player game, you (fully customizable MC) have crashed onto an uninhabited, but richly vegetated, alien planet. You have the wreckage of the shuttle for shelter, and the master computer, which thankfully includes some analysis and science gear, as well as a whole bunch of blueprints for stuff you could build, if you had any materials. Outside, it's a whole new, unexplored world of dense forests, towering mountains, rolling plains, and deep seas (emphasis on the scenery porn and vibrant colors). Your mission: survive.

You have to go out, find edible plants and animals (determine that they ARE edible, although the non-edible ones might have other uses, such as poisons, medicines, dyes, etc.) and you have the option of finding young/eggs of any of the creatures you run across and bringing them back to the ship. Once you have enough wood to construct holding pens/barns/etc, you can raise these monsters as tamed ones. Every animal has certain traits which can be enhanced or de-emphasized with their offspring, including hostility/tameability. But also things like strength, longevity, speed, and physical features like coat type and horns. There are also animals that are able to be ridden. Some fly, some swim, some can climb cliffs with ease. The rarest combine some of these traits, so you could be flying, spot something in the ocean, and the monster could immediately dive down through the waves and swim to whatever it was. In addition to that, there's of course mining for ores to build stuff, and the ability to construct things, customize them, etc.

Ongoing plot could be ignored, but if you wished to explore it, it involves finding ancient ruins of a civilization not your own, exploring them, and gradually putting together the story of what happened here. Veery occasionally, you'll run across automated defense systems scattered across the world - sometimes guarding ancient artifacts. If you piece together the maps and clues left in those grand old wrecks, you can eventually find a site that will let you construct a gate that will open a doorway between this world and some inhabited planet that you know.

The multiplayer game is pretty much the same, except that you can invite people at any time, and they 'wake up' from stasis. You and your chosen friends would be playing in a unique world, very much like how Minecraft multiplayer is set up.

You know, I wonder how many of the ideas in this thread could be boiled down into something that would be feasible to implement. I'd love to see, say, JoshV 's or Fishbreath 's idea as a boardgamey title for my Nexus 7, or Pyrephox 's idea as a card game.