Game idea for my own profit

[Xifanie]

As many of you know, I haven't worked in 2 years now, and seriously need a stable source of income (heck even unstable would help). I'll be broke in a few months and can't afford anything right now, but if this idea would work, and if I had the motivation to complete it within a reasonable amount of time, it might be the solution I've long seeked. But for that I need people's opinion to know if this would be worth it.


Crap aside:
I've had this idea for over a year.

- Player VS Monster
- Player VS Player
- Turned based (more like FFT's CT)

Items:
- Appraisal
- Numerous stats
- No generic item, each will likely be unique (i.e. my health potion can restore 167HP while yours restores 180HP depending on ingredients quality and alchemy skill)
- Most built items will have parts that can be detached/attached by a proper craftsman, given the parts are of the same type (i.e. a katana blade wouldn't fit on a longsword handle)
- Imbue your equipment with a certain skill, which you can use without consuming your own mana, but rather the weapon/accessory/etc.'s energy.

Item Appraisal:
- Players will be able to appraise their own items, before buying from another player or ask an appraiser for a report
- The worse you are at appraisal, the more times you'll need to appraise to have a good idea of the real stats of the item
- The better you are, the least time it will take you and you'll be able to even make it a job

Attacking:
- Power can be adjusted before attacking to save energy, or use a lot more for powerful blows
- You can select what to do when predicting your enemy's next move; favour blocking with shield/evasion + (counterattacking).

Skills:
- Heavily customisable; angle of attack, number of projectiles, shape of projectiles, spread of attack, status infliction, etc.
- You gain mastery for your custom skills if you don't modify them, allowing you to spend less mana/energy when using them and raising accuracy

Masteries:
- Each weapon type (increases attack and accuracy)
- Elemental attack (increased damage)
- Elemental Defense (reduces damage)
- Skills and combos (decreases mana cost and increases accuracy)

Combos:
- Drains stamina faster
- Can land more hits in the same amount of time
- Once you start missing, your chance of missing again will be higher and you'll be more vulnerable to counterattacks

Global skills:
- Mining
- Fishing
- Alchemy
- Blacksmithing
- Appraisal
- Running (to flee more easily)
- etc.

Maybes:
- 2+ Players fighting against another team or against a monster.

Everything would have an exponentially reduced effect as you put more points in it.

For example, if you have 10000 Fire Mastery, your spell could damage by 500 and if you equip a staff that adds 10000 more, it would raise your damage to ~700.

[Kaijyuu]

I'd play it, but I dunno if I'd pay for it. Indie games are a very competitive market... I wouldn't bank on this as a source of income even if you do complete it.

[mekk_pilot]

Xifanie, if I can approach you humbly...

If you need to make money quickly, I've got a card game that could be made into a phone app (with stock graphics, even, if you can find them).  I've put in probably over 100 hours of testing*, half of which on the finished iteration.  It's based on American football, uses Ace-9 and the defender uses the kings to pick his defense.  I don't have the AI done, but that would probably take a week to figure out (I'm a non-coder, but I could write stuff  like "If condition Y is true, do A 80% of the time, B 15% of the time, and C 5% of the time")  If you wanted to make it, I'd take an 85/15 split, me taking the low end of course.

*and I didn't twist anyone's arm, they came to me and wanted to play more!

Just putting that out there.

Your idea:  Personally,  I like your suggestions for attack/combos, but most of the stuff seems needlessly complicated, IMO.  And simple is where it's at, if you want to pick up a lot of players.

[Dokurider]

Sounds like it should be a rougelike.

[Dokurider]

Okay, I came up with a more detailed plan.

First off, let's ignore everything but the item creation system and to a lesser extent, the skills for the sequel. All of that will take way too long to code for our purposes. Let's make creating items and weapons the core of the game and main drawing point.

Instead of finding handles and blades laying around all over of the place, let's find materials and forge those into weapons. These materials can be split up into three primary groups: Organic, Inorganic, and Magical/Phantasmal/Ethereal/Whatever.

Inorganic weapons like steel, glass, stone and adamantium have the higher WP, high attribute compatibility, resists degradation and is repaired better. But it lacks in energy, skill compatibility, and rarely comes with uniques. Magical weapons like ectoplasm, laser, ice and rainbows have high skill compat, very high energy, all materials have their own uniques and are immune to typical forms of degradation. However, it has low WP that goes down in power as energy is used up and average attribute compatibility. Organic weapons like wood, bone, flesh and coral start out with low WP and low Energy, with restricted access to it's uniques and skills, but as you kill enemies, they'll eventually grow into powerful weapons. They self repair but are much easier to break the the other materials. They also have bad compatibility with attributes.

(I know I just threw a bunch of terms I did not introduce, but I really am thinking out loud here and this is the conception stage, so bare with me.)

All three of these types look like a blast, but it may take too long to code. Instead, let us just code in the inorganic types for now, the easiest to code, and add the rest in later.

As for what type of game this should be exactly, it should be a top down dungeon crawler. You uncover the tiles around you as you move around. I would recommend enemies that only attack when you attack like Desktop Dungeons as opposed to the conditional turn battle of FFT, otherwise you'd have to code AI and that could take time. Forget about evasion and all that fancy stuff. Just good old man to man fighting. Customization is only limited to types of material and very basic weapon types. Sword, Axe, Spear, Knife, Bow, if you have time, Katanas, that's about it. No angle adjustments or yaw or pitch or shit like that.


So here's what you're coding:

Tile-based movement with an uncovering mechanic for the dungeons
Player attacks Monster, Monster attacks Player, who dies first?
Weapons
Pickups
Potions
Skills
and the menus to tie it all together

I managed to code a combat system all by myself in a week's worth of time spread throughout a month, and I'm an inexperienced unfocused monkey. An experienced coder could have something tangible in a month.

Oh right, and then there's the sprites and sounds and junk. You're on your own for that.

[dinosaur]

What is your gaming platform? Is this going to be an app for mobile devices? Flash based game?...

I think it is great you can use your skills to create a game in a place where people can purchase it. I think if you can make a game in the android or iOS, I would go for it! (I would say iOS)

[Dome]

Just pointing out that Dekstop dungeons is a very simple -yet awesome- game
My 2 cents are to focus on simple, easy to play stuff, because making a big game requires time and resources, and at the moment, Xif, you lack both

P.s: Many said it's reliable, might help you get some money
Adf.ly

[Xifanie]

As people seem to find my idea too complex, I'll likely have to scrap this idea. I was very much aware that this could fail given I thought everything on my own, without anyone else's opinion. The poll is still rather young; the trend may change? I'll decide what to do after that.

I'd play it, but I dunno if I'd pay for it. Indie games are a very competitive market... I wouldn't bank on this as a source of income even if you do complete it.

It all depends on my number of players... Because other than that I have very good strategies to get users to pay, to have some benefits, but having no definite advantage compared to a non-paying member. Stuff that would make playing easier, scripts, etc.

Xifanie, if I can approach you humbly...

If you need to make money quickly, I've got a card game that could be made into a phone app (with stock graphics, even, if you can find them).  I've put in probably over 100 hours of testing*, half of which on the finished iteration.  It's based on American football, uses Ace-9 and the defender uses the kings to pick his defense.  I don't have the AI done, but that would probably take a week to figure out (I'm a non-coder, but I could write stuff  like "If condition Y is true, do A 80% of the time, B 15% of the time, and C 5% of the time")  If you wanted to make it, I'd take an 85/15 split, me taking the low end of course.

Thanks for the offer but:
1) I don't own, nor can afford a cellphone to test
2) I hate learning new programming languages because I hate coding
3) I only proposed this idea because at least I get a little motivation coding my own stuff, if it's other's, my drive is very low.

Okay, I came up with a more detailed plan.

I appreciate the idea, but this deviates so much from my original plan... not to mention I made it quick in my post and didn't specify some that you seem to think would be easy to change while it would require a complete rewrite of the engine to go from your suggestions > my original goal.

What is your gaming platform? Is this going to be an app for mobile devices? Flash based game?...

Just a browser game... probably just PHP with Javascript. It's been forever since I last worked with Flash, so I don't know how much trouble that would be.

P.s: Many said it's reliable, might help you get some money
Adf.ly

I don't even have enough viewer volume to make the first 5 initial bucks out of this... well maybe over the period of a few months. Either way, once you have a lot of viewers, the hardest part is done and then earning money through advertising is the easy part.

[mekk_pilot]

Thanks for the offer but:
1) I don't own, nor can afford a cellphone to test
2) I hate learning new programming languages because I hate coding
3) I only proposed this idea because at least I get a little motivation coding my own stuff, if it's other's, my drive is very low.

Alright, thanks for considering.  Are there any other coders on this site who I might ask if they'd be interested?  I mean I know people hate working on other people's ideas, but I'm pretty confident that the design is fun.

[Xifanie]

You're at the wrong place to find coders, really.

[mekk_pilot]

Alright, then...my bad.

[Celdia]

might help you get some money
Adf.ly

You might also try doing a Kickstarter for it. I hear its the thing to do these days.

[VampragonLord]

i submit myself to be locked away deep in the dungeons of programming to assist you as best i can until this game is completed and your money made. Tie me to the computer so i cant leave until the jobs done.

[Dome]

While I know nothing about programming, I'm an avid video game player, and being part of a videogame-making team (Even if only for suggestions/beta testing) would be awesome
I don't want any money, of course :-)

P.s: A good game needs good music
This guy lets you use his awesome music FOR FREE (Yes, you can make money with his music, you just have to credit him somewhere)

[Xifanie]

i submit myself to be locked away deep in the dungeons of programming to assist you as best i can until this game is completed and your money made. Tie me to the computer so i cant leave until the jobs done.

Don't you know by now that I'm an awful Domme? :S

[Neophyte Ronin]

About time someone propped this.

Xif, you need to think here.  Your mind is a very complicated weapon of mass destruction.  The first thing I got was a roguelike Vagrant Story weapon customization.  If things get too complicated, try to simplify things.

I recommend Tri-Stat as a first avenue.  There are three base stats, they govern all the skills, and the skills are customizeable by points.  In fact, the free guide is so stripped-down that it could satisfy practically any setting and character.

Ren'Py is a Visual Novel engine.  Like it or not, I have played a role-playing game demo from a company that uses Ren'Py.  It wasn't Hentai, if that's what you're thinking.  The amount of storytelling one can insert into the system, combined with the ability of python to create a simple game, should be worth looking into.

Monsters' Den is a series of roguelikes with an emphasis on equipment and tactical combat.  The latest edition, Chronicles, is free-to-play at Armor Games.  Even if you don't go the Flash route, Newgrounds has a bottomless pit of an Audio Archive that is beginning to match its Flash Portal.

Want to know my idea:

A game where you're a mercenary dispatcher and personally oversee the missions you send your subordinates to.  Note that this merges FFT's proposition system into the actual meat of the game, where you decide on things in a visual novel menu progression but then perform encounters (not limited to just killing shit either) in a battlefield setting.  It's meant to be open-ended.  You can find people out in the field or look over randomly-generated applications of characters, each with their own traits--advantages and disadvantages that affect competence and inclination.

It's about as big on the character management as yours was on equipment.  The idea to keep things trimmed to barebones, of course, should be a relatively constant theme.  Are you about to be thrown out of your apartment or something if you cannot make ends meet?

[Vanya]

If you really want to put something together to make some money off of, I have to agree with everyone's sentiment that you should keep things simple. Really the best shot an indie developer has these days is to make smaller games and hope it gets viral. Social gaming is also very "in" right now, but it's become stagnant and needs more content that isn't a "Ville" game.
I got my business license last month and I've making preparations to release at least two games at the end of the year for both Facebook and PC. I'm planning to use the potentially viral nature of FB in conjunction with the earning potential of both the social gaming market and the more traditional PC market to my advantage. It's a bit of a gamble, but it's better than working for someone else for the rest of my life, right? Anyway, I hope things work out for you, Xif.

[Gakousai]

You just invented Disgaea ,

[Xifanie]

You just invented Disgaea ,

How is this anywhere near Disgaea? If you're going to make comparisons like this, then it would be much closer to Legend of Mana if anything.


I already explained I would surely not be motivated enough if this wasn't an idea I care for, and people are just throwing around so many ideas, many of which I don't personally like or doesn't fit with what I had it mind... I could've written a tl;dr post, but I wanted some votes. That said, if my original idea needs to be altered so badly, I have no intention of starting something I know I won't finish.

[Neophyte Ronin]

They're only suggestions.  They're also meant to offer perspective, or recommend something you can shoot for.

If you ask me, keep the numbers simple, like dirt simple, dice-rolling simple.  Weapons and equipment may be customized with a set of (logical) features such as bypassing an enemy's resistances to attack categories....

...Okay, you're right Xif.  Sorry.  I'll be frank.  I was hoping your declaration could pool the folk around here, who enjoy modifying Tactics for fun, into a game where our ideas could congeal into a profitable venture, with you as one with the final say.  It's not that you cannot finish it on your own, you cannot finish it in the timeline you described--the two months of which you have any money left--so this put me in a quandary to recommend something feasible without stepping on your toes.

With that said, I'm still for assisting you in any way I can, if you'll let me.  The concepts at first glance look interesting, the basis of a roguelike as you say, but it may be too much for one to work on.  So let me propose this: set down everything you wish to accomplish, summarize it in organized manner, and let us see what the summary is like.  You can choose to go indie, but what I'm saying is that we'll support your endeavor, no matter how involved you wish us to be!