mugnyte's Journal: Game Idea

FPS is slick but tired. It's becoming a commodized format that is sorely in need of not just new genres, but new gameplay mechanics. In other words, the actions of "Move To Place"/"Act On Object"/"Fight With Being" are Ye Olde Hat. Even when combined into a neat bunch of puzzles, to achieve a new location/object/fight, are flavors in an ever-diminishing cup.

  The market for games is new large enough that targeting a subsection of that market could be profitable. If the commodization of the capable engines continues, focus on the design content, storyline, and others may soon follow. I already know of a plenty of texture manipulation packages that line up the "to do" list of surfaces and transitions so that you have to simple fill out the spots (albeit a huge lineup of nice images) to re-skin.

  But what I want is to start injecting programmability into the FPS environements. I want to run a Corewars+QuakeArea game, with bots linking to one another, communicating, learning. I want algorithms to be shaped, reshaped by hours of tourneys, and eventually reach the limits of the platform.

  Game AI is finely tuned, since bots could have perfect reflexes, perfect aim, etc. But let's make maps that demand more advanced path algorithms, let's have bots attack the puzzle collections. Let's present the bot language to the gamer, and have them simply watch, or perhaps coach, the bots during gameplay.

  I'd much more enjoy a war sim if the "eye in the sky" coaching was tweaking bots in real time, dealing with variables as "fear", "erratic behavior" or "hubris" in a bot. early on, we're doomed to a limited platform for such things, but with some amount of movement from that huge market, we ought to see games commoditize the AI control platforms much like physics engines are are to be in the next 5 years.