My soapbox

What if I designed my own video game?

Those of you, who know me best, likely have realized along the way that I constantly have a torrent of ideas rushing through my brain at any given time. The ideas range from all sorts of things, such as things to write, things to do with video games, an idea for a specific video, ideas for games, tv shows etc. The miserable part of it has always been that I’ve always felt under equipped to be able to do anything about those ideas.

The latest idea that has been circling around in my brain refusing to be tucked away into the proverbial filing cabinet came late one night when I was laying in bed attempting to fall asleep. The idea just kept gnawing at me, wanting me to acknowledge it in some fashion. The idea was simple. “If you had full reign over creating a video game, what would it be?” I knew then that entertaining this idea would greatly derail my chances of falling asleep at a reasonable hour, but there I was, tugging open the corner of the Pandora’s box.

How can you possibly answer a thought like that while still trying to fall asleep? This would have to be some complicated & detailed stuff, man! The question itself is tough to answer for someone like me. I play such a wide variety of games, that it’s kind of hard to just pull the trigger on something like this and then know instantly what it would be, how it would play and what would be the design philosophy behind it. Plus, what the hell do I know about designing a video game!?

I entertained the idea for an hour or so and eventually settled down enough for my brain to turn off and grant my body permission to fall asleep, I was grateful. Now, it’s been about four days since that night, and the idea has continued to be a frequent topic of discussion for the voices in my head and funny enough, I kind of started to like the idea of a game design that has been slowly building in my head. I liked it enough that I figured maybe I should do something about it, and let’s face it, what better option is there than to write it on the internet?

I decided that over the coming days or perhaps weeks, I’d begin to gradually write out just how such a game might take shape, how it would work, what the premise or storyline might consist of, hell what genre it may fall into. What will the point be? If nothing else, it’ll give me something to do when I end up having a bit of spare time, and hopefully be moderately entertaining for some of you to read. Best case scenario might be one day I get pissed off because some game studio ripped off the idea I posted on tumblr for everyone to read,  which still, might even be cool to see a real game company actually rip off and create a game that I tried to design.

 I’ll begin the process by a bit of a brief description, or overview of the game that I have been carefully constructing within the far reaches of my mind. The game would be built on an engine that has full scale destruction, Frostbite 2 comes to mind, but I know there are alternatives out there that feature high quality piece by piece destruction. The game itself would be a period game, we’re talking swords and arrows and siege equipment here, perhaps the 14^th century with the capability to expand into other cultures and time periods as well. The game play itself would focus on first person competitive player vs. player controlled environments were the players square off against an opposing force in attempt to achieve the established goals. If I was forced to describe it, I would say it would be one part Mount & Blade, one part DOTA, one part total war and 1 part historical FPS.

I’ve got a lot more on how the game would shape up, but I think that’s good for now. If you’d like me to continue,  be sure to let me know what you might think on twitter, as well as follow along to my tumblr page so that you are sure to catch the impending up dates.