Game Idea

[ApocaRUFF]

So last night, as I was laying down, I came up with an idea for a game I think would be pretty fun.


The game would be a location-based Superhero vs Villain themed mobile MMO. I'm thinking it would have perma death, but only if certain conditions are met beforehand, to make it so the perma death isn't so much of a big deal, but just an interesting feature that provides more options. But I'll get into that later.


Character Creation
This is where I think the game will be the most interesting. What I would like to do with it is have it be largely random. First, you'll choose a side - hero or villain. Then you'll choose a gender. From there you will do a 15-20 question personality test which will provide modifiers on the "randomly" generated character. The answers wont have a huge effect on the outcome, but it will be enough to provide at least a bit of control over the character that is generated.

From there, you will be given a randomly generated character. This character will have an Archetype with primary and secondary powers. These ArcheTypes will be stuff like magic, elementalist, gadgeteer, mutant, accident, experiment, etc... Some Archetype will only be a possibility if your character rolled certain other traits/feats, such as Rich or Super Intelligent for Gadgeteer.

Some of the fields that would be present/chosen at character creation (all randomly, using modifiers from the personality test):
Archetype/Origin
Job
personality
Initial costume
Body-type
Intelligence


The reason for the mostly randomly generated character is so that you don't feel much attachment to it. That way you wont want to kill yourself when your character eventually dies.


Gameplay features
As I said, the game will be location based. Similar in nature to Ingress. As you have the game open and are moving around, you will have potential crimes to stop/commit (depending on your faction). I would like to have a bit of interactive combat, but not to much. I haven't thought to much about the actual mechanics of the combat yet.

But, for example, lets say you're a hero. You open the game and just wander around, or you could call it a "patrol." We all know beginner heroes spend many sleepless nights patrolling around their city/town looking for crimes to stop. As you're on this patrol and are looking for crime, random NPC crimes will pop up. These are weak crimes like muggings, purse snatching, etc...

What I would like is for the game to allow for player-submitted high-crime or crisis locations. Such as ponds having the chance to spawn a "Drowning kid" crisis, or a bank have the chance to spawn a bank robbery crime. It would also provide criminals for the chance to commit larger crimes for bigger rewards.

There will be PVP in the game, both direct and non-direct. Whenever a criminal commits a crime, it will create a marker on the game map. Heroes that are nearby (they can set what distance they want to receive alerts for) will receive an alert and can decide wether or not they want to try and stop the crime. The crime will stay up for a few hours, most likely. If no hero comes by and successfully stops the crime, the villain will receive the reward plus infamy bonuses if they defeated any heroes.

Which brings up the experience system. Fame for heroes, infamy for villains. As they gain fame/infamy, they will raise their hero/villain level. At a certain point, they will have the chance to build a secret base/HQ. This is when the permadeath starts to open up, as once you have an HQ you can get either Sidekicks or henchmen. These are randomly generated but generally are similar to your original hero with slight differences. Once you get a sidekick/henchmen, you can be killed in a PVP encounter. If you're killed, your sidekick/henchmen will inherit a bit of your original heroes stats, its money, and name.

At character creation, your character will be assigned an "Alias" which includes a real-world job. These jobs are usually part-time (as stopping/committing crime is almost a full-time job in itself), but there are chances for you to get a full-time job, an oddly high-paying job, or even a job that gives you the "Rich" modifier. These jobs will provide a weekly pay-out of money that can be used to purchase costume upgrades, equipment, etc...

Infamy and Fame will also act as a sort of currency. For example, heroes with high fame can apply for a chance to win grants of cash from the government or some other hero-overwatch type organization. It is also used to get and upgrade your sidekick/henchmen. Stuff like that.

Supergroups and cabals and whatnot would be a thing.

For each successful crime commited or stopped, heroes or villains will begin "taking" control of a city. A city with lots of crimes stopped will make it harder for further crimes to be committed (but far from impossible), and a city with more crimes committed than stopped will make it harder to stop further crime. Essentially, the winning side in an area will make it harder for the opposing faction to do their thing. I'm not sure yet how this sort of territory control feature would work out. Perhaps something to do with the HQ's/Secret bases.

The HQ's and Secret bases will be a place to provide item storage, gain sidekicks and henchmen, and other upgrades and bonuses. They are generated and placed wherever you like, you simply have to be standing in the spot you want to place it. Each player is allowed one HQ at a time, and can change it once a week using both money and infamy/fame. There is a chance for a member of the opposing faction to discover your HQ is they walk near it, and then they will know where it is from then on and can raid it and possibly destroy it.




Anyways, I have more ideas along those lines. Stayed up for an extra hour or two writing in my notebook.

[DizzyPW]

Would say it's too out of the box in thinking but after reading your Ingress review, it seems entirely possible. Would be fun for someone like me that travels so often.

[ApocaRUFF]

The HQ's option is viable but I see problem's with it. It doesn't really allow team cooperation such as guild, cabal and etc. It'll be more of a 1v1 thing expand my own base and make things easier for me. Unless it is an option later that things such as guild, cabal and, etcetera can eventually help in on the hq conquest. Also it can lead to population problems. If the game is, sorry to say, unpopulated than one might be rather lonely or move to a location where one would see more action. Then if the game is too populated, you'll have too many players creating HQ's and eventually run out of room in a specific area and is down to whoever is most active leading it to a pretty intensive hardcore gamer demise. The biggest problem if it was a popular game it will most likely come down to server side issue of not being able to handle too many HQ's depending on the graphics and so on.

Though I do see the point system with its own issues as well..

The game would be 2.5d. Not very graphic intensive at all. Your HQ would basically be a window with various tabs, with new tabs being added for whatever rooms, attachments, etc... you put on it. I'll probably create a mock-up of what I think the main game screen plus some GUI stuff later on tonight or tomorrow.


As for supergroups/cabals forming... it would be mostly out of the players control. At least for heroes. When two heroes control fields begin touching, they are immediately put into a supergroup. It'll probably have some randomly generated name, or if its possible would have something to do with the areas name in it. For example, "Newton Protection League". If you're a new player joining the game and you set up an HQ and it happens to be in the NPL control area, you'll auto-matically join them. Or if you set up a bit away and eventually your two control fields touch, the new person would then auto-join the NPL. If two super-group control fields touch, both groups would then dissolve and form into a new, larger supergroup.

Villains can either choose to join a cabal or "resist" which would put them at a sort of "war" with the other villain. If they resist, then that villain and the villain they resist (and whoever is the guy that grew his field enough to touch the other field will be considered the "creator" of the supergroup/cabal) will be able to go into PVP with each other and their fields will begin competing and eventually one of them could find the others HQ and raid/destroy it, winning the "war."

The point of the HQ isn't to be all-important, but just to provide a sort of strategic meta to the game. You want to put the HQ somewhere near you in real life, so you can visit it from time to time, but there's really no restriction. If you find that a hero supergroup has basically dominated your town, you could drive 10 minutes out of town to an empty field and but your base there. You don't have to visit it constantly, so it wouldn't be much of a big deal. I suppose I could also think deeper into it and come up with some rules/features that make it possible for a single villain character to resist a hero-dominated area. And even if the place is hero dominated, it's not the end of the world for the villain, as they would still be able to commit crimes.

[GenoX]

Ok then when it comes to 2.5D the game mechanic becomes more flexible without as much limitation's. I was thinking more on the line of a three dimensional game and a touch of City of Heroes/Villains style.

[ASNZern]

Ok then when it comes to 2.5D the game mechanic becomes more flexible without as much limitation's. I was thinking more on the line of a three dimensional game and a touch of City of Heroes/Villains style.

Think of GPS style #_#

[ApocaRUFF]

Have you tried Google Earth yet ?

The Google Maps API is what the game would probably end up using. I did some basic research into what would be required for the game. Unfortuntely, I have no coding ability nor app/game making experience.

I did download the Android API along with something called Eclipse. Plus there are resources on google that basically explain to you step-by-step how to enable GPS locations gathering for apps, and how to integrate the google maps API into an app. They just make no sense to be because I haven't learned any of that stuff.

On that note, whenever I try to extract the Android API + Eclipse stuff, I get errors with Winrar because the filepaths/names are to long

I did download the free version of Unity, but I don't think it would be good for creating a 2.5D mobile game that uses location-based gameplay and the Google Api for a map/game world. I could be wrong, though. I originally downloaded it as I wanted to make a small multiplayer game just for shits and giggles, to see how easy it would be with Unity.

- - - Updated - - -

Combat musings:

I'm thinking there will be two options for combat, at least for NPC fights. You can either auto-fight or go for manual control, which will give some bonus drops and infamy/fame gain. Auto-fighting will be much faster and easier to do if you want to keep moving. Manual fighting will be similar to a turn-based game like final fantasy/brave frontier/Summoners War. Each player character will have a maximum of four abilities, with new ones being unlocked/made available as they rise in levels. The abilities you get are based on your power and are chosen randomly from a pool of powers. So even if you're a ice-throwing mutant, you wont be the same as all the other ice-throwing mutants.

Sidekicks and Henchmen will also be able to participate in combat. I'm thinking a maximum of two sidekicks and henchmen at a time. You will be able to higher better sidekicks/henchmen as you level up, or you can choose to cultivate (And thus have greater control over their development) from lower level. They will also be limited to just two abilities max, rather than four like a player. If your character dies/retires/gets put in prison, one of your henchmen/sidekicks is randomly chosen and the first two powers of the new hero/villain are whatever powers they had at the time, plus one power from the previous hero (As long as their origin/archetype match).



Edit: When coming into a location a crime has been committed (or when a crime pops up when just patrolling around), something like this would pop-up. If you choose auto, there would just be some behind-the-scenes auto-battling. However, I still need to think more on that actual combat.



Villains would get a similar screen, except instead of a picture of a crime, they would just get a picture of a businessman with something like, "A simple businessman carrying a briefcase. Probably has a well paying job and a fat wallet. Ripe for the picking." and then options to mug him or just leave.

[GenoX]

You might not need unity because unity is more for three dimensional games last I looked. It includes feature such as physics of bouncing and etc. Coding part is not all that hard only when it comes to looping it becomes slightly more difficult then again I'm a beginner coder I only know c and some of c++. There are sights that help teach you the coding part and they have forums that'll guide on mistakes. Again because I only knew c and some of c++ I use this site http://www.cplusplus.com/ when I was taking beginner college course for programming.