Spaceship MMORPG

Would it be interesting to have a sci-fi MMORPG where you play as crew of a spaceship?
I'm thinking something along the lines of a Battlestar or Enterprise, and less like a space version of Guns of Icarus.

The big selling point would be the need to pass tests if you want to take part in the more interesting missions aboard. Similar to the story mode of Gran Turismo in which you had to pass tests with a certain grade to earn the right to participate in races, so too will you need to try a flight simulator to be a fighter pilot, or earn a certain score in a mini-game to have a mechanics license to repair or modify certain parts of the ship.

Those in leadership roles might need to assign manpower and resources to accomplish their goals, so there might be a limited number of fighter pilot positions available, and only the best scorers might be chosen to fly out to fight threats.

Cooperative miniatures game

Is there a cooperative miniatures game out there? Most are based on the idea that you build a force and fight against one other player, which I can see the appeal of, but it also seems limited to me.

Board games have themes that go far beyond that, and explore a wider array of mechanics, so why not bring more of that into the hobby of collecting, building and personalizing your own force. Even as I've been writing these words, I've started thinking about the viability of collecting farming miniatures for a game. :D

An idea of thought of last night while writing about lore in games was a game inspired by SRPGs - starting out with a force of low tier soldiers and evolving them through combat experience to specialize in different roles - think Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics. You'd bring a squad (say, 3) of soldiers into playing field, and have the board game set up a scenario for you and a friend or 3 to get through.

A base set might have one or a few such scenarios, and a couple of options to evolve your characters - say from a grunt to a brawler, archer or cleric. Further expansions might through new scenarios, enemies and character evolutions to build on the experience.

Lore in Board Games

The second expansion of the third Race For The Galaxy arc recently showed up on my radar.
I started thinking about lore and stories in board games.
Some games tap into the rich lore of big IPs such as Star Wars, the Call of Cthulhu or Song of Ice and Fire.
Some games are a one time experience of pushing tokens across a board.
There aren't too many games that explore deeper story lines the way RftG attempts to do, and I'm not sure how well it succeeds in the attempts, with most of the gameplay revolving around combos of icons.

Legacy and campaign games offer more interesting examples, with storytelling done through changing the board and player abilities, leading to emotionally investing in the game.

I'd like to create a game with it's own unique lore, that will come through during gameplay.

Puppet Alien Avatars

Inspired mainly by Star Control and to a lesser degree Star Wars as well as Vangers, I've begun imagining creating a space opera game in which you interact with aliens through screens (similar to Star Trek as well, as to how ship captains would interact through view screens.)
The real difference would be in how each alien would be represented in a completely different technique - humans might be live action actors, while a friendly species might be portrayed like the Yip Yip Martians from Sesame Street, while an evil alien might be a hand marionette in the style of Barnaby Dixon, while others yet might be made of clay or other animation techniques, maybe even old school 8 bit graphics or more modern and familiar techniques.

Could be cool to have different freelancers work on different races, and see what they produce with loose briefs, then try to create the actual spaceship game objects in a similar visual language.

Also have some thoughts on the actual game itself, and combat in a truly 3D environment, ships slowly maneuvering to bring their guns to bear in similar fashion to naval tactics in the age of sail. Have I written about that before? I've had the idea for a while.

Slow E-Sport

As far as I know, all current and past e-sports have been fast paced.

Whether it is a run and gun shooter, a vehicle based shooter or real time strategy, fast reaction times are important, even if there can be a lot of strategy in choosing weapons or when to activate abilities.

I'm not very good at such games, so I've had a few ideas of slower paced games. I think they main concern is making it as exciting to watch as it would be for the players. People do watch chess tournaments, but even those have timers.

Time limits could be much shorter in a game, and still provide plenty of time to react and make tactical decisions, but that would depend on game mechanics.

Waifu Collection

Waifu collection

- Meaningful choices city building: Choosing certain buildings will block others from being built. i.e. good vs. evil; technology vs. magic.

- Strategic combat involving units unlocked from city building choices. Possibly squad based tactics

- "Splinters" to build other cities

- Trading of characters, limited to basic form

-One resource for real money, helpful in many ways, but not pay to win

-Quick playing sessions, so squad might be out. Puzzle? Battle Ogre?

-Mini games, such as fishing, for collection and resources

Shred: The Deck Building Game

Let's blow the dust off this little corner of the net and share some thoughts.

I am still floating ideas about my action programming deck building game. In a recent epiphany I realized I could use the fact I have a specific series of cards, corresponding to player choice.

This series of cards could be used as a new way of expanding the deck, making me think of mastering tricks and unlocking them, which lead to the theme of skateboarding (or snowboarding, bmx, inline skates, or any similar Extreme sport)

Basically the top level idea is that each player sets a number of cards down. Each player then flips a card, performs the action printed on the card, and passes to the next player. If a move is successful, a player continues on to the next card. If the player fails his move by ending in the wrong place (i.e. on a ramp instead of a rail) crashes into another player, or is crashed into, he wipes his sequence of cards and becomes a static obstacle until the next round.

At the end of a round, players look at their sequence of cards, and may purchase a new card fitting the pattern they created, or part of it (i.e. if a player played a straight, a straight and a right turn, he may add a deck to his card that requires two straights in a row.)

Cards would come in several stages, ranging from easy moves with smaller benefits, to more difficult maneuvers that offer greater rewards for a player who pulls them off.

I can think of a few options for an end game: one might be to add an 'ultimate' type trick to a deck and land it successfully. Another might involves a final round where the player who racks the most points on a single run (with each card in the series he plays have a numerical value towards that end) wins the game.

More to think about: Specific cards, and potential powers. Adding a counter to denote special abilities unlocked, especially for adding cards to a trick. Throwing unique player abilities into the mix.