Incline Survey - Most Compelling RPG Concept & Setting Not Yet Attempted

[MLMarkland]

Bronze Age Celtic settlement where you must gain fame & use political intrigue to topple the current chief/ become head druid.

Dig it

Something like what this promised to be and didn't deliver on.

View attachment 37554

Bethesda iirc

 

[MLMarkland]

$2M - $3.25M production budget.

$1M marketing.

Thanks for giving it a shake. How many non-marketing man hours did you assume for the 2-3.25MM range?

12-20 man team for 20-30 months.

Would require contracting some studio / some talent outside of US and being able to run a divided half remote team.

Or moving to Eastern Europe and working on it with an entirely EE team.

 

[Kev Inkline]

My quick googling returned only this for a cold war themed crpg:

https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/game-109-third-courier-1989.html

I think espionage/spy crpg set during the 60s-80s is underrepresented, for sure.

Tinker Tailor Choices Consequences

 

[MLMarkland]

My quick googling returned only this for a cold war themed crpg:

https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/game-109-third-courier-1989.html

I think espionage/spy crpg set during the 60s-80s is underrepresented, for sure.

Tinker Tailor Choices Consequences

I’d play a Eastern Bloc Cold War spy RPG, I’d even pay for it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an underrated movie.

 

[Kev Inkline]

You might be familiar with it, but may I interest you in the Sandbaggers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers

The Sandbaggers is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, The Sandbaggers examines the effect of espionage on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists.

The Sandbaggers was created by Ian Mackintosh, a Scottish former naval officer turned television writer, who had previously achieved success with the acclaimed BBC television series Warship. He wrote all the episodes of the first two series of The Sandbaggers, but in July 1979, during the shooting of the third series, he and his girlfriend—a British Airways stewardess—were declared lost at sea after their single-engined aircraft went missing over the Pacific Ocean near Alaska, following a radioed call for help.

 

[Skinwalker]

First-person horror RPG in which you must survive a maximum security Federal penitentiary

I've already played Chronicles of Riddick. Oh, wait, RPG.

 

[agris]

My quick googling returned only this for a cold war themed crpg:

https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/game-109-third-courier-1989.html

I think espionage/spy crpg set during the 60s-80s is underrepresented, for sure.

Tinker Tailor Choices Consequences

From the Hard West 1 guys:

 

[MLMarkland]

My quick googling returned only this for a cold war themed crpg:

https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/08/game-109-third-courier-1989.html

I think espionage/spy crpg set during the 60s-80s is underrepresented, for sure.

Tinker Tailor Choices Consequences

From the Hard West 1 guys:

Interesting

 

[Kev Inkline]

Yeah, I know that one, I remember reading some lukewarm impressions of it, but must admit I haven't tried it. Also, it's just a bit on the modern side for what I'm looking for.

 

[Hace El Oso]

The terrorist/‘terrorist’ one is easily the best. You could include(or exclude) anything. Combat, character building, team management, base management, resource management, crafting (Maybe take a leaf out of ‘This War of Mine’s book). Real or fictional, it doesn’t really matter. I think it’d be best if it presented itself with the identifiable 1970s zeitgeist, rather than a post-9/11 angle.

A shame Phantom Doctrine, posted by Argis above, turned out to be such crap.

Here's my pitch: …

I may be biased, having loved everything T.E. Lawrence since I was a boy, but that is a really nice idea.

 

[MLMarkland]

The terrorist/‘terrorist’ one is easily the best. You could include(or exclude) anything. Combat, character building, team management, base management, resource management, crafting (Maybe take a leaf out of ‘This War of Mine’s book). Real or fictional, it doesn’t really matter. I think it’d be best if it presented itself with the identifiable 1970s zeitgeist, rather than a post-9/11 angle.

A shame Phantom Doctrine, posted by Argis above, turned out to be such crap.

Here's my pitch: …

I may be biased, having loved everything T.E. Lawrence since I was a boy, but that is a really nice idea.

70s Weather Underground / SLA is a nice twist and a more unique aesthetic

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Voted for the Derian-Ka (for some odd reason it was misspelled Darien Gap) & Kingcomrade

 

[Hace El Oso]

70s Weather Underground / SLA is a nice twist and a more unique aesthetic

True, lots of individual character and color, and I thought you'd say that. I can't help myself, the bag-on-head is so iconic in Colombia that it still lives on as guerilla dress uniform.

IRA Classique

 

[rojay]

I have a doc with details on an RPG in a setting like the Silk Road in the 13th century but also low magic.

It's a private doc, but good luck with everything.

 

[None]

How about an RPG where you play as Kingcomrade?

 

[duskvile]

Cosmere setting of Sanderson and Malazan RPG would be my cup of coffee. Often in high and epic fantasy there are quite some political intrigues.

 

[karoliner]

Weimar republic. You manage one of the irregulars military units of the time like Freikorps, Roter Frontkämpferbund, Heimwehr and others. Party based isometric.

Japanese occupied Manchuria. You play as a Manchu collaborator. Quests have multiple solutions you can keep serving your Japanese masters, undermine them and reunify with China or just keep all the money for yourself and go live in a mansion in the west.

Italy during the years of lead. This can be done several ways. A sort of detective RPG where you play as the police investigating and arresting terrorists. Or a isometric RPG planning and executing the terrorist attacks.

 

[MLMarkland]

Weimar republic. You manage one of the irregulars military units of the time like Freikorps, Roter Frontkämpferbund, Heimwehr and others. Party based isometric.

Japanese occupied Manchuria. You play as a Manchu collaborator. Quests have multiple solutions you can keep serving your Japanese masters, undermine them and reunify with China or just keep all the money for yourself and go live in a mansion in the west.

Italy during the years of lead. This can be done several ways. A sort of detective RPG where you play as the police investigating and arresting terrorists. Or an isometric RPG planning and executing the terrorist attacks.

Unit 731 perhaps as well.

I’d get sanctioned by China. But I’m already banned in China so whatevs.

 

[Vic]

I’d rather have 33% of TAA passionate about a unique project and 33% angry and 33% not caring, than 100% of people not caring, or 50% of the people with low intensity interest.

yeah, I'm genuinly curious to see how that goes.

"First-person shooter RPG in which you fight for Ukraine or Russia"

I hope you have 2FA enabled

I’d say gamers who played NAZIs in WW2 and OpFor in Arma (literally opposition force to NATO) and Middle East terrorists in various shooters will be able to cope.

the autism is strong in you if you can’t tell the difference

 

[Vic]

I asked you what your game is and you rattled of a list of games including NWN2 and Assassin’s Creed. I assume you worked as a lawyer for those companies and now this is going to be your first own game? And you want it to be a (probably, as it’s for American market) Ukrainian killing Russians in an ongoing war conflict? And it’s an RPG too so you’d have to write lots of nice dialogue that makes the player really care and sympathize with the Ukrainians killing Russians. Or heck, vice versa if you’re complete nuts.

Yeah what could possibly go wrong. Wait, didn’t you get triggered by a friendly warning not to dox other members and thrown a tantrum like a child threatening to sue everyone and take their shit?

Oh, yeah.

 

[Harthwain]

A political RPG set in Vatican could be interesting. I think Gangsters: Organized Crime (1998) could serve as a good basis for gameplay. Add more fleshed out politics and influence mechanics to the mix and you should be golden.

First-person terror RPG? I just wish someone did a good spiritual successor to The Legacy: Realm of Terror... There is no need for a specific setting here.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Instead of Dashiell Hammett style on a specific case, an open ended noir rpg would be awesome. Where the cases you choose to solve and the people you choose to work with affect your reputation and the business that comes your way. Hell, I'd take the same thing with Glen Cook's Garrett P. I. setting.

Or yeah what Lady Error said. It's a pity that we don't have more games where you're adversary is an active player that needs to be tracked down, chased and confronted, while he tries the same thing on you.

 

[MLMarkland]

I asked you what your game is and you rattled of a list of games including NWN2 and Assassin’s Creed. I assume you worked as a lawyer for those companies and now this is going to be your first own game? And you want it to be a (probably, as it’s for American market) Ukrainian killing Russians in an ongoing war conflict? And it’s an RPG too so you’d have to write lots of nice dialogue that makes the player really care and sympathize with the Ukrainians killing Russians. Or heck, vice versa if you’re complete nuts.

Yeah what could possibly go wrong. Wait, didn’t you get triggered by a friendly warning not to dox other members and thrown a tantrum like a child threatening to sue everyone and take their shit?

Oh, yeah.

You seem to have misunderstood what I posted, and I understand you don’t know the business side of games.

I generally financed games, and game-adjacent projects, and ran a game studio, and the people who worked for me made games and other things, and we’d have 3 teams operating on three productions at the same time.

When I worked for Feargus and Fargo, I was generally a producer in charge of a project or a game engine (along with almost always being in charge of the pipeline in every situation since 2010).

When I was freelancing, I was setting up games like Halloween (which was completed and couldn’t be distributed because of Harvey).

I have built, as the owner/EP/TD entire game engines — a much more complex activity than a single game.

The first game I made entirely of my own accord was Rocksmith, under the rubric of Ubisoft, which financed it — this game was completed 13 years ago.

I’ve been in a senior role, executive role or a founding role in every game and game engine I’ve worked on since 2008. 15 years ago. Usually in a role that was determinative of whether the game was finished, cancelled or delayed.

I’ve spent more hours in a lead or executive capacity in video games (roughly 30,000 hours of professional experience) in games than any single other game developer on the planet who started working in the business in ~2007.

So no, this would not be my first game, it would be my 30th game, or more if we count things we built that we cancelled or sold the prototype to another company, more if we counted game engines, more if we count idiosyncratic things that are video-game like.

I also happened to go to law school, write laws in the Texas state legislature, run political campaigns and PACs. Then, one day it struck me I could go make games for a living, so I quit politics and did. Games is my 2nd career.

You can name any arbitrary activity in game development and I have been paid to do it, except concept art & animation. And I have also directed other people doing every single thing involved in game development, marketing and distribution.

I get that you are obsessed for unclear reasons, but if you want to tangle — educate yourself on the subject matter.

 

[MLMarkland]

Instead of Dashiell Hammett style on a specific case, an open ended noir rpg would be awesome. Where the cases you choose to solve and the people you choose to work with affect your reputation and the business that comes your way. Hell, I'd take the same thing with Glen Cook's Garrett P. I. setting.

Or yeah what Lady Error said. It's a pity that we don't have more games where you're adversary is an active player that needs to be tracked down, chased and confronted, while he tries the same thing on you.

1:1 MP in a complex video game is an interesting idea, I’ve never really considered it — it’s not inherently different from an adversarial asymmetric MP game (like Halloween was, 1 player is Michael Myers - everyone else trying to survive).

 

[MLMarkland]

A political RPG set in Vatican could be interesting. I think Gangsters: Organized Crime (1998) could serve as a good basis for gameplay. Add more fleshed out politics and influence mechanics to the mix and you should be golden.

First-person terror RPG? I just wish someone did a good spiritual successor to The Legacy: Realm of Terror... There is no need for a specific setting here.

I do dig the idea of political machinations in Vatican City among Cardinals before and during conclave. A “Confess to God” system repurposing of the general dialog system to give you control over your characters’ actual internal motivations.