Search and Find: In Real Life

Search through my house looking for items that I misplaced. But hurry, time is running out!

  • Engine: GameMaker
  • Release: Summer 2018 (delayed due to me not working on it)

Circles and Lines

You are the Circles, the computer is the lines. You start with on screen of nodes with one little circle and try to intercept the lines shooting from node to node without getting hit before your circle is complete. Kinda like that old game where you divide the field that has balls bouncing around, but different.

Anti-cancer metaphor (working title)

A army of soldiers has one traitor in it's midst. Your job: shoot him, even if it means sacrificing the good soldiers in the way. Like C&L, it's about lining things up, but this time it's 3D and might contain a modicum of a story.

CozyFishing

You are a fisherman, looking for today's meal. Or you can sell your catch to a local trader who brings it to town. A charming fishing game, except for the days you don't catch enough to feed your family. A relaxing game, unless you decide to go into town...

You could go into town to get a better price, but that would mean taking time away from fishing. And being taxed on what you earn. And being concerned about ever more restrictive fishing laws. And, possibly, getting very, very rich. Is it worth it to give up fishing? This game features hats.

  • 2D topdown perspective to get the best look at the hats
  • Realistically simulated markets
  • The best fishing experience on PC

A stranger comes to town

An isolated village. A strict set of rules. And a man looking for a better life. The outcasts say becoming a villager is impossible; it's better to stay outside and scrounge for scraps, like them. Just don't go too deep into the jungle. In any case, they teach the stranger a few phrases to be able to speak to the villagers.

  • Inspiration: The Village, Don't Starve, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, the Pharisees
  • Twenty or so deep and rich characters
  • Every action, mundane or profound, affects every person
  • Intricate and finely tuned self-sustaining economy - don't upset it!
  • Learn to fit in, or be cast out
  • A unique conversation mechanic; you must collect words and phrases to speak
  • Try to be exactly like them; or destroy the village attempting to
  • Try to change the villagers; or destroy them in the effort
  • Maybe life in the jungle isn't so bad; if you can avoid sudden death

Quest for Excellence

You are preparing to be a hero at the School for Adventures. The people you meet and classes you take will uniquely set you up for the quests you will take on as you go out into the wide world. Eventually, your preparation is over, and there remains but one requirement for graduation: prove yourself. It's up to you to decide how you will spend your year making your mark on the world; but you're not the only one out there.

[rant] After playing TES 3: Morrowind for many hours, my excitement for TES 4: Oblivion was unparalleled. A larger world to explore, intelligent people who had actual lives and motivations, bigger and better and more beautiful than ever. Playing it was a disappointment for several reasons:
1. Dumbed down. Half the magic classes and weapon classes were just gone. How is this a bigger game?
2. Fast travel. It's real nice as a player to click on a thing on the map and be there, but it sacrifices a lot of what made Morrowind so memorable. I had to carefully plan everywhere I went to not spend too much on travel, and get to places efficiently, because backtracking means hours of in-game time, walking. Sure, the map was bigger, but it felt half the size, because it's just so convenient to just click on a city, and not bother with the area in between.
3. The people are dumb. Sure, they have lives where they walk from house to the store everyday. So while I'm waiting for the shop to open, I follow the shopkeeper, who stops and has the same inane conversation with every person he meets. "Did ya hear about them headcrabs?" "They're sure dangerous" "Did you hear that the hero is saving the day?" "Yeah, it's all in the newspapers." The worst part is I know they are only doing this when I'm around. They get nothing from it; it's solely for the player character to pick up hints or hear about his or her exploits. Meanwhile, what I want is for the stupid shop to open up.
4. Urgency is a hoax. This is the big one. I was on the main quest, and was told "Quick, this town is under siege by demons! Everyone is hiding in the church and we need to save them!" But first, I want to level up just a tiny bit. Being the Elder Scrolls, there's plenty to do, and I forget about the main quest for months. One day, I come back to the city, and everybody is still waiting for the hero. The demons haven't done any evil, the guards haven't gotten impatient and stormed the castle, and the people holed up in the church haven't gotten hungry. The whole façade of a living world dissolved. [/rant]

Ok, I understand each of these design choices, and if they had made it actually time dependent, with people consuming food, realistic interactions with a player character who has no job (just runs around stealing stuff), and an expanded set of skills, weapons, and magic, it would have been a totally different game, and not necessarily a better one. Nevertheless, QfE aims to fix a pet peeve.

The major feature of QfE is that events go on with or without you. Will you spend a year of time doing "find my chicken" quests, and return to gain your diploma with nothing but a few happy farmers as your recommendation? Or will you seek out quests worthy of doing? Or, you know, maybe you'll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time the entire game, and your fellow classmates will get all the glory. You should have teamed up with them, you self-centered player character.

  • Addresses my #1 pet peeve of RPGs: a world that entirely revolves around the PC
  • Four playable classes of heroes, but feel free to mix and match
  • Mages specialize in the immensely difficult art of magic (surprise!)
  • Knights specialize in the honor of serving a king (warning: more politics than slaying dragons)
  • Merchants specialize in bringing wealth to the people (but mostly themselves)
  • Bards specialize in lore and music. Boring Bards, we call 'em.
  • Or you can just be a worthless thief. Is there truly honor among thieves?
  • Intricate system of trade that forces merchants to think strategically
  • Convoluted system of magic that forces mages to scream in frustration
  • Clever system of loyalty and disposition that forces knights to be vigilant
  • Realistic depiction of thieves that curbs a players desire to steal everything that's not nailed down.
  • Large world featuring multiple countries with their own cultures
  • Bunches of lore
  • More farmers with lost chickens than you can shake a stick at
  • But also more fulfilling and possibly dynamic quests
  • The possibility of influencing many NPCs
  • The possibility of NPCs influencing you
  • Every choice you make affects the world
  • Every choice your classmates make affects the world
  • But mostly, what the king says affects the world
  • And you're not the king
  • In short: A world that goes on without you
Last updated: November 9th, 2018