Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Unlimited money to make a video game.
My first idea was to go big! But then I remembered I've never been interested enough in MMO games to ever try playing one. No matter how much money is spent on a big game with a huge world, I don't think I'd be interested enough to give it a go. And so in that case, why would I want to make one myself?
So instead I'd use my unlimited video game funds to build 2D platformer. Each level would be of equal length, and each level would start and end at nexus points in a huge grid/overworld. Two or more players would be dropped at a single point on the grid. They would then have to race to another randomly selected point on the grid. The overworld grid and levels would be the same every time you played, but the start and end locations change each time. This would result in a 2D platform racing game which would be, hopefully, continuously fresh. Single players could explore the world as they wanted, to practice and beat personal bests. In two player games it would be fun to always see your opponents markers on the overworld grid to see where they were.
It wouldn't need unlimited funds, of course, but with those funds I could pay people to sort through user-submitted levels and content and add it to the grid in appropriate places. The extra powers for the players could be attained and lost on a level-by-level basis, so big jumps and wall flips could be picked up at the start of one level but then lost at the end of it, either by a timer or going through a force field that removes it. Maybe some powers could last for the next few levels, or for a certain time after, or until your next death, and that would require a lot of balance issues. With unlimited funds I could pay for all that.
So instead I'd use my unlimited video game funds to build 2D platformer. Each level would be of equal length, and each level would start and end at nexus points in a huge grid/overworld. Two or more players would be dropped at a single point on the grid. They would then have to race to another randomly selected point on the grid. The overworld grid and levels would be the same every time you played, but the start and end locations change each time. This would result in a 2D platform racing game which would be, hopefully, continuously fresh. Single players could explore the world as they wanted, to practice and beat personal bests. In two player games it would be fun to always see your opponents markers on the overworld grid to see where they were.
It wouldn't need unlimited funds, of course, but with those funds I could pay people to sort through user-submitted levels and content and add it to the grid in appropriate places. The extra powers for the players could be attained and lost on a level-by-level basis, so big jumps and wall flips could be picked up at the start of one level but then lost at the end of it, either by a timer or going through a force field that removes it. Maybe some powers could last for the next few levels, or for a certain time after, or until your next death, and that would require a lot of balance issues. With unlimited funds I could pay for all that.
Comments
Metroidvania-style game with a HUGE map.
-One player is "commander," manages the startings of a simple colony 4X style. Has the typical Civ stuff. They have to find resources, have to manage happiness, have to choose what buildings to make. Offworld colonists regularly come and settle, forcing you to continuously expand. However, you can't see past your colony without...
-Other players can be "scouts," playing a first-person exploration game akin to Metroid Prime, picking weapons/tools for their loadouts and exploring. If they die, they have to wait a certain amount of in-game time for another exploration enviro-suit to be built. They also lower the population when they become scouts. Everywhere they explore becomes new land that the commander can mouse over and inspect. They have to fight, explore, and discover. Sometimes, however, other players colonies (in PvP modes) or hostile alien colonies (in a mode where they're turned on) can be discovered. In the battle for resources, players can also choose to be...
-"Soldiers" pilot battle vehicles. These vehicles take fuel resources and must be built by the commander. There are solo vehicles where one-person pilots and uses the weapons, and group vehicles where everyone works as a team. These vehicles can destroy other structures and NPCs in a level that scouts can't. They have to break through hostile automated defenses to fight.
When you start a world, you can choose if you want a solo colony to just try and establish survival in the hostile environment alone, if you want hostile alien colonies, if you want to allow other human players to establish enemy colonies, or both of these things. You'd run it just like a Minecraft server. Time would continuously progress (an in-game day is about 30 minutes real-time), and the server would be moving as long as the commander was logged in.
If not this idea, then airship MMO, not unlike Guns of Icarus, but players would have smaller, personal airships of different types, and guilds would have large airships where all the guildmates could dock their personal airships.
Imagine if just one real world skyscraper were accurately mapped down to the last detail and you played Counter-Strike in it. Terrorists start on some internal floor. CTs start outside on the street and/or get airlifted onto the roof. Right now with CS each map only has a few paths. It's mostly the same thing every time.
With a real world building, every match would be radically different. 70+ different floors to go to. Rooms, doors, desks, windows everywhere. Tons of elevators, stairwells, closets. Shit gets insane.
If you add on top of that the real world simulation aspect, things get even crazier. Imagine if the computers, TVs, phones, vending machines, etc. in the game actually worked. You could take desks and pile them up to make a blockade. You could take bleach and ammonia from the janitor's closet to make chlorine gas.
It's a canvas of creativity, but there are still limits. The limits are the game objectives and the laws of physics.
I would use this new found tool to force cities to gather collective high scores in classic video games in order to get the sun back. It would then be up to that city to have a collective vote on the next city to be blocked.
Best of all? When I finally get bored of my super villain fun I can sell it to a company like Google =]