I have an idea for a game based on this one mechanic. Thread

This game would be a sandbox game, with decent graphics. You can have kids, time goes around, different era's/ages, and you can build whatever you like with a voxel based engine. The game will involve kids a lot more than other stuff, because, you depend on your kids when you die.. When you die you have the ability to "delete" your save, OR, be "reborn" and play as one of your children, now, when you choose this, you/your child will be sad for the first 5 minutes of the game, because, his father died, when he is sad, he is slightly weaker. As you have children, time obviously passes by, in your last lifetime, maybe the civil war happened, in the next, the Car was invented, perhaps in 20 more lifetimes, you can travel through space. You'd start in the midevil era, and time would take place to ultimately end up into exploring space. I have a great concept, but, in order to make this a reality, I need YOU to help me design and create this game. This is just the simplified version

heres my plan:

We'd make a prototype in unity or something

Get kickstarted

Use the funds to pay you/make this game

Upgrade to a better engine/Make our own engine

During the alpha/beta phase, let kickstarter people / people who preorder "playtest" our game.

Get on steam greenlight

Finish the game

Make profit! us --> <-- haters

Big dreams.

What would you bring to the team? Skillwise?
What is the one game mechanic?
If its a sandbox game that has time travel* how would it be open ended? as the history would be scripted, eg the invention of the car...

I like the idea of time travel, the idea of having kids and death in the game though just sounds random, i don't see how it connects with the player...

TKAzA wrote: What would you bring to the team? Skillwise?
What is the one game mechanic?
If its a sandbox game that has time travel* how would it be open ended? as the history would be scripted, eg the invention of the car...

I like the idea of time travel, the idea of having kids and death in the game though just sounds random, i don't see how it connects with the player...

The idea is that you live on your life through the kids when you die.

Indie development and marketing 101:

Not to deflate anyone's bubble, but we use a rule of thumb in game design where we say that no ideas have any real value until they've been prototyped (yet for various reasons, we stove all the crappy ideas in a box anyway, though that's a different subject matter). That sounds quite harsh, but you would be amazed over how much different things sound on paper and look in reality.

Point is, it's hard to make any plans beyond the prototyping stage until you've prototyped, to find out if the idea holds any merits for further development. As a designer, however, I'll still say go for it, absolutely.

Please do be prepared to always throw out everything that doesn't work, though, even the very foundation of the original idea itself.

It's all an iterative process and you'll only refine it by testing it out. Just be prepared for a bit of a catch-22 early on: It can be tough if you don't have a bit of funding from yourself to boot, as you'll need a functional prototype with a conceptual outline to get people's attention. People often start out with a job on the side while they create their first prototypes, so they don't run out of money and die.

Seriously though, you sound greedy if you demand money for anything, but you die if you don't.

And for god's sake, don't rely on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is for lucky people and big names. I know it's a very fancy way to go about getting publicity, but the reality is that you need to have a pretty decent fan-base from elsewhere. That's how you get the proper attention that your game deserves, when it finally does go on Kickstarter or wherever. But don't under-estimate the power of Desura and similar platforms to secure some funding early on. Just be careful with the rating systems, they'll make you suffer bad if your first pay-to-play build is chuck-full of bugs, so make sure to take it easy on that front.

Also, making your own engine is an amazing feat to pull off, but there's a lot more stability, support and modding possibilities if you stick to platforms like Unity. It's also a lot more work than one might think, unless you are very used to doing absolute bare-bones object-oriented programming and developing your own physics (and all the other features you plan on using). I encourage doing stuff from the bottom up, but modern day game development tools are just getting so damn powerful that it's, more often than not, not balancing out in terms of resources spent contra benefits attained. Only make your own engine if your current tools really can't do what you need them to do.

Finally, Steam Greenlight is actually a very good way to get early funding as well, if your prototype and vision holds the bar up high. But just as it is with Kickstarter, don't rely on it, just hope it might work. Seriously though, work on creating an active community around your project. That's the best way you can get some consistent PR as an indie developer. There was a pretty good article about this on Gamasutra recently, actually:

• When developing your game, don't underplay effective promotion

I hope that helps a little bit. It's not exactly the definitive go-to guide for start-ups, but it should clear things up a little bit. Unfortunately, it can take quite the effort to hit it right on the market today - but spend enough time observing other people's mistakes as well as recognizing your own, and you'll be making a living off of it eventually. Just always respect the players and respect your product - it's your name that goes on the box when it goes online after all.

Cheers,
~Dave

Edited by: Genero