Indie budget game you'd make if you could

[Citizen]

Birthright spiritual successor

 

[J_C]

If I were able to do it, I would very much like to make a true Infinity engine successor, with 3.5 edition D&D. Basically something along the lines of Icewind Dale, just turned based and more emphasis on roleplaying part. Non-combat skills and quest solutions were equally viable to combat oriented approach.

 

[janior]

walkie talkie artsy shmartsy pretentious sony style crap made in unity

 

[Bester]

100+ floors 8 person party blobber.

From a future review: "what they lacked in quality they decided to make up in quantity" and "repetitive grind".

i have some intriguing ideas i'd like to explore with a sci-fi mount & blade, easily tweakable to be at the same time single player, multi, moba, last man standing or whatever else you could want from a fps.

You're so over the budget line, you don't even see the line anymore.

I've had an idea for a Roman-era card based strategy game for a long time. 2D map, family trees and decision cards for period politics and Risk-style map and units for strategy and empire building. Basically a cross between Crusader Kings, Alea Jacta Est, and Gwent. I think if you stayed away from 3D, limited the battles and character plays to the card system, one could probably get that done at the indie level with a fairly cheap budget. Give the game scope a few hundred years to enjoy building a Roman dynasty and go conquering.

I don't know what's a card based strategy game, but I imagine it has a TCG base in it? TCGs require 100k+ just for the card art.

 

[Curratum]

A text-heavy mix of hex-crawling and grid-combat 5E RPG with sprites. Sort of like an actual tabletop session but for a solo player.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Text heavy SF game set on Earth with extra-terrestrial AIs colonizing it.
Split screen with art on the side.
Initial character/stat screen acts as a dump for character info while choosing your stats.
View the memories associated with the skills before locking them in and deleting some as you send your backup back home.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i have some intriguing ideas i'd like to explore with a sci-fi mount & blade, easily tweakable to be at the same time single player, multi, moba, last man standing or whatever else you could want from a fps.

You're so over the budget line, you don't even see the line anymore.

it's of such easy realization that it could be done almost with rpg maker.
told you, structurally is barely more than sci-fi mount & blade.

 

[Reinhardt]

"repetitive grind"

Enemies don't respawn so on 88th floor you can find your characters suck.

 

[Citizen]

Birthright spiritual successor

The general idea is to elaborate on a good stuff from birthright and ditch the retarded stuff, so basically a fantasy strategy rpg LARPfest

You control a faction on a pre-made world map tight packed with different factions with complex and lore based diplomatic relations. You have some starting armies/provinces and leader/heroes of your faction, who are portrayed as your typical RPG characters with stats, feats, inventories and shiet. Obviously factions differ in starting strength and goals, so they provide different challenge to the player (conquer the world as a big empire or just try to survive as a small barony)

Three gameplay levels:

1. Strategic. Province and army management on a risk-styled map. Think of dominions/birthright/souvereignity. Build stuff, upgrade stuff, hire, move and dismiss armies, cast global spells, your typical strategy stuff
2. Tactical army battles. I would just shamelessly stole the battle system of dominions, but maybe divide the battle in phases, so you can change orders depending on a situation mid battle. It wouldnt break the multiplayer since the game is 100% single player oriented anyway. Heroes are presented as units on a battlefield
3. Hero missions. That's the unique part: the provinces provide you with faction/province specific quests (think of Eador: Genesis), which are the RPG tactical TURN BASED dungeon crawling. So basically RPG combat sequences, during which you can lvlup your heroes making them more useful and obtain province updates and artifacts

All with maximum simplistic stylized graphics and acessable modtools to allow modders to fix this mess after I abandon it cuz I ran out of roots to eat

 

[Reinhardt]

Also all party members are pansexual furries so i could milk patreon for many years.

 

[DalekFlay]

If I had the money to fund an indie RPG it would basically be UnderRail but with a space opera theme and synth soundtrack.

 

[Bester]

i have some intriguing ideas i'd like to explore with a sci-fi mount & blade, easily tweakable to be at the same time single player, multi, moba, last man standing or whatever else you could want from a fps.

You're so over the budget line, you don't even see the line anymore.

it's of such easy realization that it could be done almost with rpg maker.
told you, structurally is barely more than sci-fi mount & blade.

I don't know if you're trolling, or that's some kind of satire, or you're just being obtuse.

1- Different subgenres of FPS require everything to be different. Think of what makes Overwatch different from Counter-Strike and ask yourself why, and then work through it to realize that to make a MOBA you need: slow, drawn-out fights, different pre-made classes, 4 abilities, high mobility and escape abilities, high variation in abilities, etc etc etc. In Counter-Strike like game, it's slow tactical elements combined with super fast, reflex based combat. You name different genres like they can just work with any FPS. That is not true, and to make a Counter-Strike mode in Overwatch today would require a massive overhaul. And vice versa. And especially if you want to mix all FPS subgenres into a single game.

2- Considering it's SCI-FI, we're talking about a diversity much richer than a historical/medieval game. You got flying/riding vehicles that each would require special physics and controller, jet packs, abilities that may include shit like holograms, and I didn't even begin describing the game. With modern graphics, no less, because who'd want to play Morrowing style graphics in 2019? And today, just to make an AAA quality character - that's one third of the entire $35k budget.
And you want SINGLE PLAYER too, with a shitload of content that it entails. That's just golden.

Either you have difficulties describing your concept or you're just detached from reality.

 

[biggestboss]

A game like TOEE.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

misc rambling

or maybe you're too limited to understand someone else's grand vision. it's fine, i won't blame you, it's not 2006 every year.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I'd love to create a click and point adventure.
No money in it nowadays, right Blackthorne ?

Yeah, it's very difficult to many any money in it. I mean, it's possible - Wadget Eye is doing it, of course, but it's difficult. We still haven't broken even on Quest for Infamy, let alone Order of the Thorne.

I think Feargus Urquhart's boss when he was working at Interplay had a simple method of determining whether or not a game should be made.

Finish this sentence:
"This game needs to be made because it's the only game that..."

I think its an interesting tool to use when making such decisions.

 

[Tweed]

An updated version of Darklands.

It would end up being over budget in the end.

Spoiler

And no, Serpent in The Staglands is not that game, not even close.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Soldier of Fortune style ~retro~ shooter, but replace terrorists with gamers/weebs/incels who finally rose.
Clive Barker's Undying / Saya's song hybrid, but a political thriller. You find out world is controlled by astral lizards who enslaved majority of population via mind radiowaves. You get accidental lobotomy on a construction site when a metal rod fall on you and pierces your brain. After than you can see the true nature of the world (like in From Beyond or Them) and now world government is trying to get you. They unleash both mental attacks via astral inhabitants of 1st density dimension and physical attacks via mutated humanoid creaturas. You also get to meet a cute girl.

 

[Reinhardt]

You also get to meet a cute girl.

You really want to turn realistic setting into fantasy?

 

[Falksi]

A spiritual successor to Buck Rogers: CTDD. If I was in any way technical that'd be what I'd go for. But I can't program a digital watch.

 

[zapotec]

A game like XCOM, but you play as a Somali pirate warlord.
Research will be replaced by scavenging and you can also trick the NATO to send you supplies etc etc

 

[Blaine]

I'd like to create a hard sci-fi capital starship management game incorporating mechanics that are heavily based on the day-to-day operations and logistics concerns of a large modern naval vessel, such as an aircraft carrier. In addition, genuine naval traditions (such as the bosun's whistle, which was incorporated into Star Trek, for example) should be incorporated whenever possible.

Very often in computer games and video entertainment (hard military sci-fi novels are sometimes an exception), the fine details of actually managing a large vessel are ignored, glossed over, or at best abstracted. I'm talking about details such as:

• planning and overseeing the efficient and safe loading, storage, and offloading of adequate supplies
• planning resupply and refueling runs; scheduling ports of call and shore leave
• ensuring that operational security is maintained during shore leave
  
• ensuring that all crew (and no stowaways) drag themselves out of the nearest pub and embark prior to getting underway
  
• delegating crucial duties to subordinate officers
• receiving and following communications and orders from HQ
  
• assigning limited living space based on rank and specialization
  
• working up a watch (shift) schedule for the crew
• maintaining crew morale over the long haul
• ensuring that the ship is adequately policed and secure
• guests or emissaries aboard must be treated with proper protocol, kept secure, and kept away from sensitive areas of the ship
  
• resolving disputes and maintaining discipline, to include disciplining rule-breakers
  
• performing drills to simulate emergencies and combat situations
• ensuring that regular and preventive maintenance is performed
• long-term route-planning taking factors such as gravitational fields and hazards into account
• when there is actual combat, various procedures must be followed and crew must man battle stations
• combat should be gritty, infrequent, undesirable (best avoided), and play out more like a submarine battle than a bright explosive action sequence

Something like that, anyway. There's a lot more I could list, and some of it could be better stated than it has been in a brief bullet-pointed list, but that's the general idea.

 

[Blackthorne]

$50k

I could make a sequel to Quest for Infamy. It probably wouldn't be as big as I'd originally envisioned, but that's probably better. It'd be tighter - we'd improve on the areas that were weak in QFI, while retaining what people liked about it. Artist created backgrounds and animation, good music, cheeky writing and decent puzzles. I could do it for $50k. But that's just money for game dev, not for advertising, making physical items, etc. Just game dev.

 

[J1M]

A turn-based RPG that implements resting in a well-designed way with a D&D 4e ruleset. Setting would be either Eberron or prehistoric fantasy with paladins praying to dinosaur gods. No romances.

2.5D art style (sprites with normal maps + 3D lighting) as seen here:

 

[Reinhardt]

For free 50k$ i'd just buy few cheap appartments in my shithole and rent them. It would bring me enough money for game development for the rest of my life.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Driving/Survival/exploration/RPG in Sci-Fi setting, where you drive a futuristic truck camper, through a dark ice-age landscape of a parallel universe future Earth. The sun is misteriously missing, small spots of living humans are tucked in sparse underground self sustained small arcologies. The only way to survive on the surface is to use these "trucks". Exploration through the abandoned ruins by foot is possible but only for limited ranges.