Innovative Shooter Ideas
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well those aren't really shooters. They're both first person yes but portal is a puzzle game and mirror's edge is about running in first person. Yes Mirror's Edge has guns if you want but neither of the games are about shooting things and getting a body count.ksn0va said:
Just making something up on the fly here...
Rip off Alien.
Single-player survival horror.
It's in a "sandbox," but the "open" world is actually very... claustrophobic.
The player is on some kind of ship (the layout of most of which should be well-known to the player)... with a thing. Everyone else is already dead; the only exceptions to this rule are people that only pop up for one scene, there to tease you with the prospect of human contact that is never realized (finding a guy who dies immediately, hearing a jumbled radio message, that kind of thing), or maybe a confused difficult-to-talk-to-computer.
The focus of the game is not so much the monster but the ship. You can scavenge for tools and improvised gear, kinda like how they make the flame throwers and scanners in Alien (no adventure-game ingredient-mixing bullshit, though). The environment also presents you with a lot of possibilities for how to hurt the monster(s) and a lot of danger, too. Ideally, the engine would have some pretty fancy physics for simulating flame, liquids, &c., giving you a variety of ways to blow stuff open. It is definitely possible to shoot open the hull.
Spaceship or submarine both work well, depending on how you want to "flavor" it(*). Use the monster(s) sparingly -- this isn't Resident Evil or Doom 3.
No health counters or anything like that. Wounding should mainly take the form of the impaired performance -- you're sore, sleepless, fatigued. Serious wounds should force you to scramble for medical supplies to dress them. Limit what the player character can sensible carry. No "HUD" unless you find a suitable item (which should, in turn, restrict vision or movement like a helmet or space suit would -- the whole point of the game is that everything's kind of a trade-off).
Assuming Mirror's Edge shows us how to make an FPS where you can actually see your legs, copy that, too.
The goal is to survive. Ideally, multiple endings depending on how you do it. The game itself would be kinda short. Maybe tweakable difficulty, respectable monster AI, and multiple endings would make it moderately replayable. The overall goal is something like Portal in terms of playing time, though -- with an environment that's smaller but much less sparsely-packed.
If you want to be truly hardcore, add a cat.
-- Alex
* -- Hierarchy of awesomeness: a ship out in the deep void > a space station over a far-away planet > a submarine. Notice that "undersea base" doesn't even make the list.
Rip off Alien.
Single-player survival horror.
It's in a "sandbox," but the "open" world is actually very... claustrophobic.
The player is on some kind of ship (the layout of most of which should be well-known to the player)... with a thing. Everyone else is already dead; the only exceptions to this rule are people that only pop up for one scene, there to tease you with the prospect of human contact that is never realized (finding a guy who dies immediately, hearing a jumbled radio message, that kind of thing), or maybe a confused difficult-to-talk-to-computer.
The focus of the game is not so much the monster but the ship. You can scavenge for tools and improvised gear, kinda like how they make the flame throwers and scanners in Alien (no adventure-game ingredient-mixing bullshit, though). The environment also presents you with a lot of possibilities for how to hurt the monster(s) and a lot of danger, too. Ideally, the engine would have some pretty fancy physics for simulating flame, liquids, &c., giving you a variety of ways to blow stuff open. It is definitely possible to shoot open the hull.
Spaceship or submarine both work well, depending on how you want to "flavor" it(*). Use the monster(s) sparingly -- this isn't Resident Evil or Doom 3.
No health counters or anything like that. Wounding should mainly take the form of the impaired performance -- you're sore, sleepless, fatigued. Serious wounds should force you to scramble for medical supplies to dress them. Limit what the player character can sensible carry. No "HUD" unless you find a suitable item (which should, in turn, restrict vision or movement like a helmet or space suit would -- the whole point of the game is that everything's kind of a trade-off).
Assuming Mirror's Edge shows us how to make an FPS where you can actually see your legs, copy that, too.
The goal is to survive. Ideally, multiple endings depending on how you do it. The game itself would be kinda short. Maybe tweakable difficulty, respectable monster AI, and multiple endings would make it moderately replayable. The overall goal is something like Portal in terms of playing time, though -- with an environment that's smaller but much less sparsely-packed.
If you want to be truly hardcore, add a cat.
-- Alex
* -- Hierarchy of awesomeness: a ship out in the deep void > a space station over a far-away planet > a submarine. Notice that "undersea base" doesn't even make the list.
Lots of ideas in this thread, but pretty much all of them aren't solving the problem, they're highlighting them. This is the Lime Coke philosophy: take a basic idea that everyone has proven to like and adding a twist of lime. But it's still COKE. Hey, it's basically GTA but instead of guns, you have cats that shoot lasers out of their mouths (thanks SNL).
It's not the theme, the colors, the story, the weapons, the aliens vs. nazis... it's all in the execution. The problem with FPS's is that if you've played one FPS, you've basically played them all. It's like watching a Jerry Bruckheimer film: A group of _____ has taken over ____ and now one man with a dark past must go up against them armed with _____ and a useless, but comedic sidekick who constantly repeats the phrase "Wow, I can't believe you just did that!" Explosions ensue. Insert whatever you want in the blanks, but basically when you break it down, it's the same movie. Yet we pay to see them time and again. Because we like explosions and corny one-liners.
We're not hard to please, if it's done properly. How many great game ideas have been ruined by poor execution? How many horrible/unimaginative game ideas have been a smashing success *cough* Halo *cough* because they were done proplerly?
It's not the theme, the colors, the story, the weapons, the aliens vs. nazis... it's all in the execution. The problem with FPS's is that if you've played one FPS, you've basically played them all. It's like watching a Jerry Bruckheimer film: A group of _____ has taken over ____ and now one man with a dark past must go up against them armed with _____ and a useless, but comedic sidekick who constantly repeats the phrase "Wow, I can't believe you just did that!" Explosions ensue. Insert whatever you want in the blanks, but basically when you break it down, it's the same movie. Yet we pay to see them time and again. Because we like explosions and corny one-liners.
We're not hard to please, if it's done properly. How many great game ideas have been ruined by poor execution? How many horrible/unimaginative game ideas have been a smashing success *cough* Halo *cough* because they were done proplerly?
Um...fluffylandmine said:
*Catholic* priests don't marry or have kids; there are plenty of other denominations (let alone faiths) where a married priest with children is perfectly acceptable.fluffylandmine said:
-- Steve
I agree totally.GothmogII said:
Why do people have to create clones of something old? Playing around with new ideas could produce new opportunities.
Yay, someone else who's played the N64 Hexen and enjoyed it. That makes 2.Indigo_Dingo said:
Seriously, I think a new Hexen updated with modern graphics and animation could do well; it did have some moments of innovation despite being touted as a 'Dark Ages Doom'. For one, it was the first FPS I'd played that had 'hub' worlds branching out from the main area where hitting a switch in one level would affect something in another level. It also had some intersting beasties to kill, although it ran out of new ones after the 4th Hub World or so.
Hm? Oh yeah, FPS innovation. Hexen by itself isn't terribly innovative regardless, but how about an opportunity to control some of those nasty beasties by possessing them, each with their own 'sight' and abilities (i.e. Ettins have two heads, so you get a split screen, Serpents see everything in black and white... not sure how Dark Bishops see the world). The closest idea to this in recent memory is Geist, but this time you have your own body and no weapons save the ability to displace your own soul- conveniently, demons have none, allowing you to control one body at a time.
oh my god. that's amazing. I absolutely love that. Wow. But one question, who would you be fighting? Would you have to hunt to keep yourself alive once to food runs out? How do you complete the game?GothmogII said:
but honestly that's brilliant, hope some game designer reads this and is inspired.
As realistic a game as can be. All multiplayer.
Get shot in the heart=Death.
Get shot in the chest=depends on whether your wearing a vest or not.
Get shot while your shooting/running=you don't keep fucking shooting or running.
Headshot=death.
ANYSHOT = bleeding
Leg shot = walk with a limp
arm shot = arm rendered disabled. Unable to use weapons that require two hands.
It's a good idea, because spray and pray would be useless if you die in one shot, because someone accurately shooting with a pistol can take down someone with an LMG.
PENALTIES for shooting a large weapon while standing up, no perfect sniping while standing.
A REASON to go prone.
Think about it, if they did it right, a realistic shooter would own.
Get shot in the heart=Death.
Get shot in the chest=depends on whether your wearing a vest or not.
Get shot while your shooting/running=you don't keep fucking shooting or running.
Headshot=death.
ANYSHOT = bleeding
Leg shot = walk with a limp
arm shot = arm rendered disabled. Unable to use weapons that require two hands.
It's a good idea, because spray and pray would be useless if you die in one shot, because someone accurately shooting with a pistol can take down someone with an LMG.
PENALTIES for shooting a large weapon while standing up, no perfect sniping while standing.
A REASON to go prone.
Think about it, if they did it right, a realistic shooter would own.
Far be it from me to point to one aspect of gaming's multifaceted problem and say "That's it" but honestly, that's it. Right there. That's it.
Innovation is stymied because of excessive copyright law requiring millions, literally millions of dollars to re-invent effects and graphics that other games have already done. Take Bioshock's water effects. In a sane world, boom, no one needs to spend money on water until they want to improve the effects right? No. Everyone still needs to spend 20 million on it to re-create what Bioshock has already done. And as no one is going to do that in a non-water-centric game, we have NO innovation. We're stuck with the generic shit we've had for the last 7 years, and all of the Bioshock devs' money and resources are used up in about 20 hours, instead of refreshing the entire medium.
So the result is 100-million dollar games that spend all that money just keeping up with last month's games, leaving all of 4 dollars for innovative writing, characterization, and plot.
It's almost impossible to have innovation when you have to re-invent the wheel every fucking time you create a game. It's simply not in the budget.
As are little mini-games during loading sequences.
As are games where you have the possibility of dressing up like Superman.
Innovation is stymied because of excessive copyright law requiring millions, literally millions of dollars to re-invent effects and graphics that other games have already done. Take Bioshock's water effects. In a sane world, boom, no one needs to spend money on water until they want to improve the effects right? No. Everyone still needs to spend 20 million on it to re-create what Bioshock has already done. And as no one is going to do that in a non-water-centric game, we have NO innovation. We're stuck with the generic shit we've had for the last 7 years, and all of the Bioshock devs' money and resources are used up in about 20 hours, instead of refreshing the entire medium.
So the result is 100-million dollar games that spend all that money just keeping up with last month's games, leaving all of 4 dollars for innovative writing, characterization, and plot.
It's almost impossible to have innovation when you have to re-invent the wheel every fucking time you create a game. It's simply not in the budget.
I'm pretty sure you'd be facing a lawsuit from Disney if you did that. The whole insanity bar/crazy wonky results thing is copyrighted.Parallel Streaks said:
As are little mini-games during loading sequences.
As are games where you have the possibility of dressing up like Superman.
How about playing an alien defending his home planet from greedy human invaders who have come to ransack his homeworld for it's natural resources?
I think that is more like what the future would be like. Humans are not really suited to being the good guys. I always wonder why every alien civilization is both evil and more technologically advanced than us. What if we go to an alien world and all there technology is World War 1 level. No automatic weaponry.
I think that is more like what the future would be like. Humans are not really suited to being the good guys. I always wonder why every alien civilization is both evil and more technologically advanced than us. What if we go to an alien world and all there technology is World War 1 level. No automatic weaponry.
Oh, Far Cry 2 is doing this - I'm sure someone told you before I did but I couldn't help but impulsively say this when I saw it.Indigo_Dingo said:
Anyway, about 65 ways you can "heal yourself" in the game (I think that's how much) - example could be if you crashed your car head on into something, and you have to pop your shoulder back in, etc. etc.
Alright, here is my very limited idea on what would make an awesome FPS. Or really just my idea for an awesome FPS.
The title would be Newts In Space
Basically, the plot involves two different alien species battling it out for control. However, there is a twist. The two alien species are...
A. The human sized Newts
B. The human sized Geckos
C. The child sized Squirrels
You start off as a civilian Newt, that was just drafted into the Newt Grand Army-Navy-Marine-Space Corp. For the record, that is the actual name I would want to use. It's redundant...I think.
Now here is the twist. The geckos and newts are not battling to destroy each other, but they are battling to decide who gets the rights to invade the squirrel planet. As you can probably tell, I have just left around 5 plot holes in my FPS idea so far. I am actually purposely during that out of a combination of both lazyness and some other random feeling of satire.
Now, for the last part of what I think would be an awesome FPS- the weapons. It has your basic pistol, shotgun, machine gun, melee weapon, rocket launcher, and over 3 over-powered exotic weapons.
The pistol...is a pistol that is attached to your mouth via a mask, which is attached to the pistol through a tube. It fires your own spit in your mouth at the enemy at super speeds somehow.
The shotgun...is a regular shotgun. But instead of regular ordinance, it fires leaf fragments at super speeds. Yes, that is right, leaf fragments, that kill someone.
The machine gun...would be a machine gun that fired explosive anti-material mercury/incendiary rounds.
The melee weapon...Actually, you get 4 melee weapons for some random reason. The first weapon is a crowbar, for satirical purposes. The second weapon are your newt claws. The third melee weapon would be your combat ax. Your final melee weapon is obtanable by using your ax on a corpse, and cutting off their arm. Yes, you would get to use a severed arm as a melee weapon.
Rocket Launcher- The rocket launcher would be a launcher, that fires rockets. But instead of rockets, it would fire the corpses of dead enemies...that would have high explosives strapped onto them.
Over-powered weapon #1- Over-powered weapon number one is a volcanoe gun. When fired, it creates a full sized volcanoe that spews fast cooling lava, killing everything around it. The best part is that it's a sniper rifle.
O-P-W #2- A gun that shoots shurikens and lightning. No, just kidding. This weapon in a weapon that uses the magical power of music to turn enemies inside out...but keep them alive. You can then use the next over-powered weapon to destroy them.
O-P-W #3- This last weapon is a pistol. When you use it on an enemy, they explode in a bloody mess. It is even more bloody when you use the second over-powered weapon first.
Well, that is what I think would be an original FPS. Also, sorry if I stole anybodies ideas on accident.
The title would be Newts In Space
Basically, the plot involves two different alien species battling it out for control. However, there is a twist. The two alien species are...
A. The human sized Newts
B. The human sized Geckos
C. The child sized Squirrels
You start off as a civilian Newt, that was just drafted into the Newt Grand Army-Navy-Marine-Space Corp. For the record, that is the actual name I would want to use. It's redundant...I think.
Now here is the twist. The geckos and newts are not battling to destroy each other, but they are battling to decide who gets the rights to invade the squirrel planet. As you can probably tell, I have just left around 5 plot holes in my FPS idea so far. I am actually purposely during that out of a combination of both lazyness and some other random feeling of satire.
Now, for the last part of what I think would be an awesome FPS- the weapons. It has your basic pistol, shotgun, machine gun, melee weapon, rocket launcher, and over 3 over-powered exotic weapons.
The pistol...is a pistol that is attached to your mouth via a mask, which is attached to the pistol through a tube. It fires your own spit in your mouth at the enemy at super speeds somehow.
The shotgun...is a regular shotgun. But instead of regular ordinance, it fires leaf fragments at super speeds. Yes, that is right, leaf fragments, that kill someone.
The machine gun...would be a machine gun that fired explosive anti-material mercury/incendiary rounds.
The melee weapon...Actually, you get 4 melee weapons for some random reason. The first weapon is a crowbar, for satirical purposes. The second weapon are your newt claws. The third melee weapon would be your combat ax. Your final melee weapon is obtanable by using your ax on a corpse, and cutting off their arm. Yes, you would get to use a severed arm as a melee weapon.
Rocket Launcher- The rocket launcher would be a launcher, that fires rockets. But instead of rockets, it would fire the corpses of dead enemies...that would have high explosives strapped onto them.
Over-powered weapon #1- Over-powered weapon number one is a volcanoe gun. When fired, it creates a full sized volcanoe that spews fast cooling lava, killing everything around it. The best part is that it's a sniper rifle.
O-P-W #2- A gun that shoots shurikens and lightning. No, just kidding. This weapon in a weapon that uses the magical power of music to turn enemies inside out...but keep them alive. You can then use the next over-powered weapon to destroy them.
O-P-W #3- This last weapon is a pistol. When you use it on an enemy, they explode in a bloody mess. It is even more bloody when you use the second over-powered weapon first.
Well, that is what I think would be an original FPS. Also, sorry if I stole anybodies ideas on accident.
Need to mix two types of game to get the perfect game, the serious sam type games with their random/ridiculous weapons such as things like chainsaw launchers and such, and then games with an actual story line like half life or sumet. Then you need to smother it all in realistic gore graphics.
Maybe set it in the steam punk future. All your space ships are coal powered, your ray gun has a big ol' light bulb on it, the bad guys have seriously cool mustashes and top hats, you have dirtly brown leather overalls and goggles as well as hearty side burns.
Insted of different ammo for every weapon you have coal, a battery that you can upgrade through out the game to store more power and thus power bigger weapons, and one or two sizes of slug/bullet or just gunpower level. And then you would have 3 gauges that show how muxh ammo you have left for every gun, so you know you will always be able to use THAT gun at the end of you inventory with out getting it out first to see its on empty.
The weapon upgrade system should be truly well thought out and work well. and you can combine any combination of weapons at workshop points, thus you start off with simple weapons and objects, but you can combine them, so long as they work off one/two types of fuel. So after picking up your motorised gauntlet/chainsaw, you fix it to a grappling launcher and WHAMMY! yo got yourself the chainsaw launcher that auto reels the chainsaw back, you just use up gunpowder with each shot. This way more extream weapons would use 2 or 3 different ammo types at a time to fire, this is how you include the limited ammo for awsom weapons rule as it were.
Some one please make this, or something with a good weapon combo system.
J
Maybe set it in the steam punk future. All your space ships are coal powered, your ray gun has a big ol' light bulb on it, the bad guys have seriously cool mustashes and top hats, you have dirtly brown leather overalls and goggles as well as hearty side burns.
Insted of different ammo for every weapon you have coal, a battery that you can upgrade through out the game to store more power and thus power bigger weapons, and one or two sizes of slug/bullet or just gunpower level. And then you would have 3 gauges that show how muxh ammo you have left for every gun, so you know you will always be able to use THAT gun at the end of you inventory with out getting it out first to see its on empty.
The weapon upgrade system should be truly well thought out and work well. and you can combine any combination of weapons at workshop points, thus you start off with simple weapons and objects, but you can combine them, so long as they work off one/two types of fuel. So after picking up your motorised gauntlet/chainsaw, you fix it to a grappling launcher and WHAMMY! yo got yourself the chainsaw launcher that auto reels the chainsaw back, you just use up gunpowder with each shot. This way more extream weapons would use 2 or 3 different ammo types at a time to fire, this is how you include the limited ammo for awsom weapons rule as it were.
Some one please make this, or something with a good weapon combo system.
J
This could be interesting. Since it would be underwater, both the players and enemies could swim up and down to use cover, or to get a look down at their enemies, adding a third dimension to the battle.Joeshie said: