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[Seth]

Haven't played it

and can't, i'm on a Mac 

But, really, they get distinct personalities into that game?

[Melly]

Yes. Simplistic when you look at them individually, but each dwarf has distinct likes and dislikes/personalities/how they are affected by inclement weather/etc.

[Xion]

Not exactly the same, but similar;
The Haunting; Starring Polterguy

I was thinking more subtle.

Something I've been thinking would be a cool game for a while is a fps where you play as a war photographer. You'd have to avoid being shot at but be dependent on your team mates to cover you, and then take pictures of them when they die.

[Ivan]

I had a similar idea, but it was decidedly anti-war

[Melly]

Something I've been thinking would be a cool game for a while is a fps where you play as a war photographer. You'd have to avoid being shot at but be dependent on your team mates to cover you, and then take pictures of them when they die.

Win

[Stij]

Idea: A roguelike game, presented in a side-scrolling view. I don't think that's been done before.

Not sure how you would handle jumping and other 3D movement, though. My idea: you're presented with a number of possible moves you can do, each shown as a flashing hologram or something like that. So you have walk, run, crouch, small jump, long jump, etc. Of course, since you and your enemies move simultaniously, you'd have to plan your moves carefully.

Firing weapons would work the same way, simply target the enemy you want. Accuracy would be based on the size of the enemy, the speed it's moving at (and you're moving at), and any cover the enemy might have. I like the idea of planning out each move you're doing in a side-scroller. Squidi had a similar idea in his 300 thing, I think.

Oh, and you gotta have destructible terrain. Actually, this is starting to sound a lot like a turn-based Worms...
 

[Mizumon]

Something I've been thinking would be a cool game for a while is a fps where you play as a war photographer. You'd have to avoid being shot at but be dependent on your team mates to cover you, and then take pictures of them when they die.

Definitely win.  It's an awesome idea. 

It takes a step back from modern FPS games to a more... moral approach. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I like the war photographer idea. I think that would make a good collaborative project for the projects forum even (are we allowed to propose those or is that something the site administration picks?).

[Melly]

Colaborative projects, I think, only become official if there's a large ammount of support to it. War Photographer, I'm afraid, isn't there yet, and might not ever be since it sounds like a very complex endeavor (if I'm gonna play that game I want it to feel like an actual war, and that's hard to pull off unless you have a lot of resources).

[Derek]

Colaborative projects, I think, only become official if there's a large ammount of support to it. War Photographer, I'm afraid, isn't there yet, and might not ever be since it sounds like a very complex endeavor (if I'm gonna play that game I want it to feel like an actual war, and that's hard to pull off unless you have a lot of resources).

That is an awesome idea, but yeah, I'd generally like to see a working prototype before a collaboration starts on the Projects forum.  That's why Indie Brawl isn't there yet.

[Advenith]

Organic castle. It'd be a sim game where you build structures out of living things, from chickens to your first-born child. However, everything you use has special conditions that must be met to stay alive. In addition, their growth disrupts the structure, dislodging bits of it. And at the end of the day, how do you deal with the poor soul stuck in the ceiling and experiencing digestion problems?

A strangely compelling and most likely disgusting idea.

[Skyleak]

Not exactly the same, but similar;
The Haunting; Starring Polterguy

I was thinking more subtle.

Something I've been thinking would be a cool game for a while is a fps where you play as a war photographer. You'd have to avoid being shot at but be dependent on your team mates to cover you, and then take pictures of them when they die.

There was an online gaming service back in the mid 90s called "Gamestorm" who had online gaming for 10 bucks a month back when it was pay by the hour bandwidth.

Anyways they had a game called Godzilla Online.  You could play as a couple different characters and they each got points for doing their job, a soldier who just just a warrior grunt, a scientist who had some healing tasks, baby zillas who ripped people up, and then there was a news reporter.

With the news reporter you would target other players in action fighting, healing, and dying.  The more action you captured the higher your score.  It was a pretty cool idea and was one of the most popular games on there.

This idea just reminded me of it. 

[Seth]

"Seven Samurai"

Each level you control a group of however many "samurai" preparing peasants for an attack on their village.  Each samurai has a specialty, such as archery, spearmanship, defense structures, that he can train the peasants in.  You have a limited amount of peasants, so you have to be careful what to train them in.  You can train them all in spears, but then you will have built no defense structure.  If you use all your peasants to build, then you they will all be very unskilled (and unconfident) and not very good in battle.

After the training stage the bandits come to attack, and you have to direct all the peasants to block and stop the attack.  You can only control the peasants through the samurai.  If a samurai dies, then you lose control of the peasants until you can get another samurai to them to give them orders.  Depending on how well they are trained, the better they do on their own.

[Wilson Saunders]

A two person fighting game (like street fighter) where every time you hit your opponent a distinctly colored blood flies from the wound. The goal is not to reduce your opponent's health to zero but to paint the level in their color blood. The fighter with the least ammount of their blood deccorating the walls, floor, and cealing is the winner. You would of course be able to paint over your own color with your opponents should the splatter hit the same spot.

[Stij]

So, kinda like De Blob combined with a fighting game?

I like it. 

[Zaphos]

A two person fighting game (like street fighter) where every time you hit your opponent a distinctly colored blood flies from the wound. The goal is not to reduce your opponent's health to zero but to paint the level in their color blood. The fighter with the least ammount of their blood deccorating the walls, floor, and cealing is the winner. You would of course be able to paint over your own color with your opponents should the splatter hit the same spot.

Mr. Hamster this is brilliant! 

[BeamSplashX]

Not actual ideas for whole games themselves, per se, but here they are anyways...

Story: Every day a man wakes up, some element of his life is changed. For example, one day he wakes up and can't find his car keys, but he asks his wife where they are and she tells him a place different from where he usually puts it. She adds that it's where he keeps it every day. Fairly minor, but at one point drastic changes start occurring and lifelong friends cease to exist.

You could make it a mystery, a thriller, or maybe it could have some kind of message. Does he come to deal with his problem? Is it a conspiracy? Is it even reality? I think there are several cool ways to branch off this idea, but I personally can't pick one, or a medium in which to execute this.

Character: A man whose relatives all serve a warlord (declared to be sided with "evil") that seeks revenge after a fabled hero kills them.

Seeing the story through the eyes of someone who suffers because of a hero is unusual, I think. Since this character isn't actually evil, he's not doing it out of allegiance to any higher cause in an epic struggle. He's simply suffering from loss. Another thing that could also add some depth to this is the fact that his relatives are practically "no-names" that were cut down without much effort. You cut down grunts in RPGs all the time and never worry about it. This could be different.

Game Mode: Dungeon Mode, where stat increases and randomized items play an important role.

I always thought that most every game could make use of a dungeon crawler-esque mode. Not many elements of a game need to be changed for this, either. For a wild example, take Metal Gear Solid 2. What is needed to give it more items and features? First of all, how will dungeons exist? Randomly generating areas using previous area elements will work, and the lowest levels can use a VR template since it includes elements of every game area. Weapons? You can numerically display stats of each weapon, such as firing speed, while adding some extent of elemental property to each gun and introducing stat upgrades. For example, a handgun with an electrical property can damage cameras and radios of enemies like a weaker but more specialized chaff grenade.

Something like Soul Calibur could also include this by having weapons with randomized properties and stats. Of course, whether or not the story characters or new characters that equip several weapon types should be used is up in the air.

Game System: State Ability, where you can assign different abilities or effects to your character depending on the current state of your character (just parried, guarding, high jump, etc.). For example, in the Parry slot, you can equip the Critical ability, allowing you to do a more powerful attack after a parry.

This would be a cool way to customize a character, but on a grander scale, a good way to differentiate characters. One character can use Critical after Just Dodging an attack, while another can use a Rapid Attack after a Parry. A completely custom character can earn all the abilities for all the stances, with skills like Critical in the Normal stance being extremely difficult to acquire, but turning your character into a powerhouse.

[Xion]

Game System: State Ability, where you can assign different abilities or effects to your character depending on the current state of your character (just parried, guarding, high jump, etc.). For example, in the Parry slot, you can equip the Critical ability, allowing you to do a more powerful attack after a parry.

This would be a cool way to customize a character, but on a grander scale, a good way to differentiate characters. One character can use Critical after Just Dodging an attack, while another can use a Rapid Attack after a Parry. A completely custom character can earn all the abilities for all the stances, with skills like Critical in the Normal stance being extremely difficult to acquire, but turning your character into a powerhouse.

Oooh, I like this one.

[Seth]

Character: A man whose relatives all serve a warlord (declared to be sided with "evil") that seeks revenge after a fabled hero kills them.

Seeing the story through the eyes of someone who suffers because of a hero is unusual, I think. Since this character isn't actually evil, he's not doing it out of allegiance to any higher cause in an epic struggle. He's simply suffering from loss. Another thing that could also add some depth to this is the fact that his relatives are practically "no-names" that were cut down without much effort. You cut down grunts in RPGs all the time and never worry about it. This could be different.

I really like this idea, but I think if you made it less about defying RPG genre convention and more about casualties of war you would have a more compelling story line.  Might as well break a few more cliches while you're at it.

perhaps this could be combined with the State Ability idea (which I also like) for a nice, short RPG/tactical strategy game... though the idea of a loner out for revenge is also appealing

[BeamSplashX]

It wasn't really about defying the convention, it's just where the idea came from. Also, it'd be interesting when your character has to come to terms with the possible repercussions of killing the hero...