Needed - inspiration (not code or gfx!)

[maximinus_uk]

Two years ago i gave up my programming job and move to China to teach English (loving it, btw). This year I had a baby son. Both of these things have kept me away from computer programming for a while.

But now I'm really feeling the urge to go and create A GOOD GAME. Something that will probably take me 3-5 years, that I can get engrossed in now that I have a job with a lot less hours. Now that the daily coding grind has gone i can feel my love for programming flow back.

But, fellow Ubuntu users, I am a little lacking in ideas. So perhaps some of you may care to suggest what sort of game you'd like to see appear on Linux? Your ideas will almost certainly shape mine, if only because I want to see what other people can think of.

One final thing - The biggest issue I can think of is the need for 'massive graphics heavy content' in any game. So don't suggest something like a Morrowind clone, or a big MMORG because that's a little too hard to do... :P

[Ferrat]

Make something like a HOMM clone? That would be great :)

[Artificial Intelligence]

A "Sins of a solar empire" clone: http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/
or Homeworld 2-ish.

I'll worship you for something similiar to Dungeon Keeper.

[Arthur_D]

I, and many more, would love to see an Age of Empires 2 or Settlers 3 clone. Or, a racing game focusing on fun instead of pure realism. ;)

[del_diablo]

Age of empires 2 clone, or join the dungeonhack/scone (http://dungeonhack.sourceforge.net/forums/) project.

[CharmyBee]

A quake3 clone, everyone does it, it doesn't hurt to have 74 more.

Just kidding, but a modular, stable variant of a game inspired by Star Control 2's Super Melee is something that is lacking in the scene, topdown combat fun like that hasn't been seen in a while. SC2 Super Melee is excellent and the Ur-Quan Masters port (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/) is also great, but it focuses on purity and it is strictly hardcoded to SC2 ships.

Timewarp (http://timewarp.sourceforge.net/) comes close to this, but it isn't modular (hardcoded C ships), or stable (crashes far too easily and uses Allegro). There's also a 1994 MacOS 7 game that has the same idea with a focus on 32x32 ships that can be painted with custom weapons, but I forgot the name of that one.

Simply an extremely customizable SC2 melee is something i've dreamed of since I was 6. This is definitely a game that is missing these days.

Basically this:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5274/melee001.png
But in 1920x1080, and driven almost entirely by readable interpreted scripts, with networking.

With graphics, you can even get away with just one texture for the entire ship, maybe with a normal map being optional for basic directional ship lighting. This would make a great game for very low end systems, and also given the 2d nature of the game, would make a software renderer fast and possible.

[Sindwiller]

I'd vote for a Homeworld 2 game, too :P

[MaxIBoy]

You want something totally yours, or do you feel like contributing to other projects?


Here are some projects which could use (or would appreciate) a little love:
http://glest.org/en/index.php
http://springrts.com/
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/



If you want to start a project, I would vote for an RTS or space sim (or some crossover between the two.) As others say, we have plenty of great FPS already.

But FPS engines like the Quake engines have been successfully adapted to other purposes (UFO:AI for example,) and could make a good starting point. I would urge you to use as much existing code as possible, no need to reinvent everything. And let us know what you decide, some of us would like to help out!

[juancarlospaco]

Do you want to do something really different...?,
Get the sources of Savage 1 (RTS+FPS Hibrid Engine)
and build something interesting with these.
(avaliable at newerth.com)

[Pasdar]

Two years ago i gave up my programming job and move to China to teach English (loving it, btw). This year I had a baby son. Both of these things have kept me away from computer programming for a while.

But now I'm really feeling the urge to go and create A GOOD GAME. Something that will probably take me 3-5 years, that I can get engrossed in now that I have a job with a lot less hours. Now that the daily coding grind has gone i can feel my love for programming flow back.

But, fellow Ubuntu users, I am a little lacking in ideas. So perhaps some of you may care to suggest what sort of game you'd like to see appear on Linux? Your ideas will almost certainly shape mine, if only because I want to see what other people can think of.

One final thing - The biggest issue I can think of is the need for 'massive graphics heavy content' in any game. So don't suggest something like a Morrowind clone, or a big MMORG because that's a little too hard to do... :P

Games that always become some kind of a success (made by independent programmers) are usually simple war-ish multiplayer games.

Make a simple above-view war game... you can have ppl vs. ppl, select weapons, whatever...

Or whatever... go for multiplayer... non-commercial single-player story games always suck imo...

[portets]

Almost EVERY single person here is telling you to make a clone.

I'm sorry people, but Linux isn't getting anywhere with clones. Sure, they will help a few new linux users get comfortable playing a clone of something they thought they left with their Windows past. And by all means, don't quit creating clones, we need them for the above reason.

But Linux needs high quality ORIGINAL software!!!

I know that may be harder than replicating something, especially since every new idea that comes out is one less idea we can use.

I'm becoming a programmer for this reason.

[Arthur_D]

Well, 0 A.D will not be a clone per definition, but a pretty standard but good-looking RTS that the Linux world really misses.

I'm sorry, but I don't think there are so many game concepts left to explore on the PC platform.

[MaxIBoy]

Sez here:
But now I'm really feeling the urge to go and create A GOOD GAME. Something that will probably take me 3-5 years, that I can get engrossed in now that I have a job with a lot less hours. Now that the daily coding grind has gone i can feel my love for programming flow back.Looks like he wants to get into programming more than anything else. And, say, an exact Age of Empires clone can be made to share 70-100% of all actual code with a new an innovative RTS (the more they can share the better.) And having an existing game to shoot for is a good thing as you write the code, giving you a nice framework within which to work. But once you have programmed a game engine (takes a while,) you can use that to explore original territory.

However, if you take an existing, general-purpose game engine, and you use it to clone another game, then that's only excusable if the original game is closed-source, and even then it's still kind of a wasted effort.

If you introduce new code, great! If you introduce new gameplay, great! If you introduce both at once, you're trying too hard, and if you introduce neither then what's the point?

I would urge the OP not to reinvent any wheels, and if he absolutely must create an all-new game engine, make it as general-purpose as possible so that another project (or one of your own future projects) can go into new gameplay concepts with it.

[CharmyBee]

But Linux needs high quality ORIGINAL software!!!

Good luck, as even Linux itself isn't original software (it's also a clone). Everything is pretty much derivative no matter how 'original' it's flaunted.

At least my idea has no real clones of in existence.

[portets]

yeah, i understand it's getting harder and harder all the time to make a new idea, but it can still be done. all we need are some organization skills and a few people with enough free time.

and if you're going to clone something, it needs to be given many new features over the original to be viable.

almost like, instead of cloning games, make a virtual sequel

and @CharmyBee, i've been planning on making an advanced version of spores cell stage. networking, very moddable.
it would be easy to turn that into your idea if i ever get around to it

[nixscripter]

Two years ago i gave up my programming job and move to China to teach English (loving it, btw). This year I had a baby son. Both of these things have kept me away from computer programming for a while.

But now I'm really feeling the urge to go and create A GOOD GAME. Something that will probably take me 3-5 years, that I can get engrossed in now that I have a job with a lot less hours. Now that the daily coding grind has gone i can feel my love for programming flow back.


My favorite game is an old one, Descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(video_game)). Unfortunately, it's already open source (but not FOSS).

Therefore, my suggestion is somewhat more general, and has always been what myself or friends have mine have done with video games: take a basic game, and add one twist. Examples:


For a while we worked on a space adventure game, where the twist was going to be AI which adapted to the players and got "smarter" over time.
My attempt to write a 2-D scroller was going to let you fly and do acrobatics for points, rather like Nights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_into_Dreams...) (also had a rather odd storyline, which some might appreciate as unique).
To avoid a long list of incomplete things (I never "fail", just don't finish some things ;-) ), the simplest game I have created was T*tris. It's unique thing? The levels were timed, and the total time was 10 minutes. The idea was to let you play it at work when you have a break, without running over.
Finally, a few former classmates put together a complex version of BrickShooter (http://www.brickshooter.com/) in about four weeks. They just added extra kinds of bricks, like bombs which cause extra cancellations, extra directionality of which way things could move, a complex story line, and really good graphics.


I guess I have one more question: why video games? The most satisfying things I do are data processing scripts (for my job) and or GUIfying command line stuff (for scripts I already write and run with awkward inputs). What makes something satisfying is getting it working (as you no doubt agree), and what makes it simple is to use what is already there. Video games, unless you use an engine, you have to start from scratch. Almost by definition, they are going to be complex and hard to debug.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Hope this helps.

[farrell2k]

Why don't you try making a nice text-based game? You can do something like the old infocom games where you "examine object", etc, or you could do a RPG like rogue in ascii. It wouldn't be too hard, and you may just come up with a really nice story. In fact, I think I am going to do a nice little ascii rpg in Java. :)

[Nailox]

tanks .. I love tanks from back in the day of Nintendo/Terminator - that game where 2 people play and at first they build their base and then start mashing other tanks level by level, collecting powerups, lives and so on.. it was so much fun.. a game like this would be TERRIFIC, just give it some modern looks - and I fancy multiplayer as well :ks

[Sindwiller]

I'm sorry people, but Linux isn't getting anywhere with clones. Sure, they will help a few new linux users get comfortable playing a clone of something they thought they left with their Windows past. And by all means, don't quit creating clones, we need them for the above reason.

Write a game design document then. :)

[MindFusion]

Well, this is my personal idea, and I don't know if you'll read it, but hey, i might as well write it down.

Linux' mascot, Tux the penguin, seems perfect for a game really. It wouldn't take much graphic effort into a cartoonish penguin, and the environments could be colorful and vivid, whereas other games tend to make it rather cold and realistic nowadays.

I'm a huge nintendo fan as well, and I just thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a 3D platformer for Linux featuring Tux? It'd be great because it'll attract kids for it's unique charm. But also, you could build in an online mode, with co-op or multiplayer.

I don't know, i realize that mascot games are kinda 90', but it'd still be great to have a good Tux game, instead of that sturdy piece of crap Tux racing.

[osmorphyus]

i vote for legend of the red dragon.

</end unnecessary input>

[SimplySimon...]

There's no games anymore like simcity2000 i loved that game so much, there are newer versions but they're somehow not as fun as the original dos-game! :)
http://adambowker.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/fotosimcity2000.jpg
file:///tmp/moz-screenshot.pngfile:///tmp/moz-screenshot-1.png