Looking to the Stars for Inspiration

First, a confession: I forgot my game idea. I remembered it was a good one, so I came back to this very blog, and reading my posts sparked inspiration for a new round of ideas.

Been thinking about Race for the Galaxy and how they didn't introduce combat rules until the 3rd expansion. I hear it's a bad mechanic, but I like the idea of having a game in which you build your engine toward your goal without someone else tearing it down, though they can obstruct your way as they build their own.

To this end I have been looking at the Star Wars universe as my main source of inspiration, and chewing on whether there is enough in if I remove all the combat.
Political intrigue, trading via legal and illegal means, bounty hunters, and more go along in the background, so I think there is something to work with.

I've also been thinking of some of the 4X video games I've played, such as Master of Orion and Civilization and looking for ideas - possible victory conditions in particular.

As I was typing this, I actually thought to look some things up, and an idea sparked - what if instead of playing a supreme leader type of role players took the role of some sort of galactic criminal. Like Firefly, I guess? (Not a huge fan of the series.)

Stray Thoughts

Can't escape from working all week at the day job, missing out on board game night. It's not worth it, I hope I find something better soon and it fades into a story to tell strangers.

A few thoughts about games have come up. The first is in the board game space, in which I'm currently thinking of creating multiple different games, but each a part of the same world, using the same characters and visual style to tell different stories connected together.

The Silicone Valley and the Reverse Galaxy Truckers come to mind as an example. What if one of the "Neckbeards" you can use in your recruitment agency turns into one of the crew members you can draft for your ship.

The second idea I'm occupied with is inspired by the success of Multiplayer online battle arena games. I never tried playing DOTA or LoL, but I suspect I would suck. I would feel much more comfortable with a turn based strategy game. I think this idea is an extension of older ideas for an online TBS, with the current incarnation involving building a team belonging to a faction (similar to miniature games.)  This team could be broken up and used in several simultaneous asynchronous games.

Oni Touge

Been thinking some more about the endless drift concept, which I'm currently leaning towards calling Oni Touge.

What if instead of a single right or left button I would use three for each side.
Looking at the following example, a player would need to start a left turn by pushing the "D" button, making his way towards the "A" to increase his turning rate as necessary, even going over to "L" through "J" at a hairpin turn, with the space acting as the break to keep him/her from flying of the road.

Releasing the keys would return the wheel to center. Not sure if pushing a button out of sequence (like starting a right turn by pushing "K") should have any effect, a penalty, or a similar result as if "J" was pushed first.

Endless Drift

I'm currently reading through the Developer Magazine's Career Guide I picked up at GDC Europe. There's an article on how to make your own endless runner in Unity. A rocket avoiding obstacles and collecting bonue points? Lame.

So what sort of idea can I come up with that isn't quite so generic? An endless tōge to race down, drifting around the corners, trying to avoid dropping down the cliff or smashing into the mountain, skidding over loose debris.
A pumping eurobeat soundtrack, cars and achievements to unlock, scenery changing around you from typical Japanese mountain to fire and brimstone in hell... ;)

Left, right and brake, the only 3 buttons you would need as the car builds up speed without any player input.
A camera which gives exciting views and enough information so that the player can react to what's coming up.

Blast From the Past

One of the first X-Com clones I thought of year ago was one based in a fantasy setting, in which you play as the leader of a guild of thieves.

Been thinking about this concept again, and I think it has more meat than the usual spiritual and recent successors to the classic from the 90's.

Instead of intercepting aliens, you would send your band of thieves underground through sewers and tunnels to sack various locations, whether they be residential, commercial or industrial.
Other missions will provide the opportunity to recruit new people to your cause, stop rivals from taking over your territory or defeat monsters threatening your base.

Unlike X-Com where you hired people for the exclusive position which they filled (soldier, scientist, or worker,) in my game people would fill different roles - if you take your blacksmith out to a mission, your ability to forge new weapons or armor will be limited, especially if he is wounded or killed. If you allow your wizard to research spells, she won't be able to come on a mission with you, and you may miss an opportunity to learn new magic.
Recruits will start with stats that will lend them towards particular roles, and they may become more specialized or diversified as they gain experience.

Finally, I thought of a variation on the color based magic system similar to D&D, Magic The Gathering and Tolkien's novels, changing primary colors to such things as brown or grey magic, enabling control of such elements as mud and mildew.

I think this game is a pipe dream, but wanted to write it down anyways, in case I or someone else finds a use for it.
My High Tech recruitment / Silicone Valley board game is a more attainable goal, and sill on slow burn in the back of my head. I need to try to come up with a flow chart of how things could work.

Time For Myself

It seems as though the stress of work has been impeding my thinking, and I haven't been dreaming up game mechanics while I was working everyday.
With the new guy coming in I've finally had some time away from the office, and as I let off some steam the game ideas came back to me.

The first direction I went was to my hi-tech recruiting / Silicone valley game. I came up with some ideas to streamline gameplay and come up with a clearer goal.

At the start of the game, players will take turns placing a CEO to give them their first special ability, place a worker at the lowest rank at a tower of their choice, and start with a worker in the pool/
Each player will have a set number of cards they may turn per round (with one of the bonuses possibly being an extra card,) with the final goal being to be the first to have a control a certain amount of CEOs.

After thinking about this game, I started thinking about XCom and how the base building aspect of the game wasn't as strategically deep as the combat, and how I might that could be amended.
This lead to thinking of a different theme, and I came up with harvesting souls in hell, not that that hasn't been done before such as in Disgaea or Dungeon Keeper, but I might continue exploring that.

Entertaining myself at the grandparent's place

As a child my parents would sometime, such as on long holiday breaks, leave my brother and I at the care of our grandparents, with both sets living fairly close to each other, but an hour and a half drive from home.

Neither my maternal or paternal grandparents had computers, so other ways of entertaining myself had to be found.
TV was one such way, but until the mid-90's we only had 2 stations to choose from, which didn't always have child appropriate shows.
A VCR was available, and walking down to the video rental store and picking something out was as much fun as watching what we chose, it seems we have seen all the classic Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons that way.
My maternal grandparents also had some video tapes passed down from the American branch of our extended family, degraded copies of such classics as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Alice in Wonderland.
Grandma had some girl magazines from when she was a girl (dad's mom is a holocaust survivor who didn't have much left from her childhood, but she survived them all.) which didn't quite suit my taste, but beggars can't be choosers and they were marginally better than grandpa's gardening magazines - there are only so many ads for sprinkler systems I can look at.

Another hit from that time was going to the supermarket to buy freeze pops and something banned from the US and no longer imported to Israel - Kinder eggs. These things had amazing toys inside (unless you had the bad luck of getting a statue) which were a joy to assemble, and fun to play with for about ten minutes.

When I discovered arcades I found there was one in a nearby shopping center, and would spend countless hours in there, even just to watch demo modes going on. Later I found a few others to haunt, longer to walk too and full of cigarette smoke, but with new games to look at.
I even started getting money to play, even though I hadn't asked for any, probably because my brother got bored just tagging along.

In closing, I think these experiences had a lot of impact on my creativity these days, even if it isn't always obvious exactly how.