Topic: Hve you ever thought of a game idea that actually came out as a game?

[Oldskool]

Once I thought of a video game idea that was pretty much the same as Battlefield 1942. It was about 2 years ago, and my friend and I were exchanging ideas for video games (yes, we're sad people), and I told him my idea for an online FPS where you fought battles with (usually) huge numbers of people, used vehicles on land, sea, and air, and fought for territory. The only big differences in my idea was that it was set in the Halo universe, and that I didn't think of a class system. Imagine how spooked I was when I heard that a game, almost exactly like this, was being released.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

[mouse_clicker]

Mall Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon- those bastards ripped me off!

Then again, they weren't original ideas anyway and were bound to happen eventually.  

[Bill Aurion]

After OoT came out I wondered what a 3d LttP would look like...Wind Waker! ^_^

[Guitar Smasher]

No, not WW... no, just no.   But anyways, I had an idea of connecting GBA together and basically running through a maze trying to find the other players... sort of like that Pac Man thing on GC.

[Termin8Anakin]

When I got F-Zero X, I immediately drew some full-colour pics and wrote down some ideas for the sequel, and they were in F-Zero GX - my idea of Death Race on a normal race track was put in Chapter 4 of Story Mode in GX.

[Bill Aurion]

Quote
Originally posted by: Guitar Smasher
No, not WW... no, just no...

...

The graphic style in WW is so similar to LttP, it's not even funny...I'm talking look here, not content...

[ib2kool4u912]

IMO ALTTP looks alot closer to OOT than WW.

[Ian Sane]

"The graphic style in WW is so similar to LttP, it's not even funny"

I guess that's why Four Swords and LttP use different sprites.

Anyway I for all intents and purposes designed Driver years before it came out.  My idea was much better though in that it revolved mostly around chases and you could either play as a crook being chased or a cop chasing.  It was originally going to be an arcade game where two machines could be connected for two players to play as either a cop and crook or two cops chasing the same crook.  The home version would use split screen multiplayer.  Aside from the ability to play as a cop the game design was nearly identical.  I did however have the ability that once your car had sustained too much damage you could get out and run on foot and steal another car.  That of course is in GTA which had already been released at the time though I was unaware of it's existence.

I guess the idea isn't exactly like Driver but it's so similar that it now seems pointless to make the game I designed.  It would come off as a generic Driver rip-off with a few neat ideas.

[Deguello]

When I first played ShadowRun on the SNES and Genesis (different games) I thought the whole hacking part was kinda neat, but I thought the rest of the game was arse.  So I thought, what if all of the game took place on the internet, fighting viruses and solving puzzles.  Lo and behold, 2k1 rolls around and MegaMan Battle Network shows up and I scratch another off the list.

Yes I do aspire to be a game creator one day.  I have a couple of ideas that will probably get thought of before I have a chance to produce them.  Like the game being about a TV network and the levels you play are a weeks worth of episodes of a show like some campy 60's cop show, or a mini series about the Civil War.  I even get inspired by some games.  In this same game I got an idea from WarioWare, and thought up a Broadcast News type segment where you have 5-10 seconds to make the video clip accompanying the news GOOD news.  Like foiling an assassination attempt on the president of Armenia, or completeing the big 60 yd. pass to win the Super Bowl.  And at the end you would get rated by how good the news was.

And although not related to a game design, I have a nifty idea for a bonus (unlockables) screen.  It's like you are downloading all the unlokable content in the game.  However it's 10 GB, and you are on a 56k.  And it will actually take that much time, but you can find bandwidth upgrades in the levels to increase your download speed.

Just some ideas.

[mouse_clicker]

In MY opinion LttP, OoT, and WW have three very different and equally good graphical styles.  

[Guitar Smasher]

Well said!

[Ian Sane]

"In this same game I got an idea from WarioWare, and thought up a Broadcast News type segment where you have 5-10 seconds to make the video clip accompanying the news GOOD news. Like foiling an assassination attempt on the president of Armenia, or completeing the big 60 yd. pass to win the Super Bowl. And at the end you would get rated by how good the news was."

That is such a weird yet cool idea.

Along with Driver I also invented Capcom vs SNK but what fighting game fan didn't think of that game.

While nearly everyone who plays videogames has some ideas for games I wonder how many of us would actually be able to make a really good game if given the chance.  Most ideas I hear from people are either incredibly generic or unrealistic (let's have a game where I can do anything!) but some of them are really good and I imagine there are some individuals who have the creativity to be designers but lack the actual programming skills to make a game themselves or have any of the experience required to break into the industry.

[Guitar Smasher]

Ian:  I think you're quite right.  Almost anyone who says that they could've done a better job on a book/movie/song/game, can't.  People just don't realize how tough it is to be wholy creative and to execute.  The level of skill needed is tremendous.

[ib2kool4u912]

Well i was playing Donkey Kong Country and i was thinking "A sequal would kick ass". Then what do you know? Donkey Kong Country 2 came out. Stupid Rare stealing my ideas!

[Ian Sane]

"Well i was playing Donkey Kong Country and i was thinking "A sequal would kick ass". Then what do you know? Donkey Kong Country 2 came out. Stupid Rare stealing my ideas!"

Me too!  I guess great minds think alike.

Oddly enough when I first played Super Mario World I thought that they should make a game similar to it where you play Yoshi the whole time.  A few years later they released Yoshi's Island which is easily one of the best games I've ever played.  Of course it ended up being very different than my idea.  My idea was basically identical to Super Mario World and Yoshi could eat everyone in sight.  It would have been a brutally easy game but I was a kid then so what do you expect.  That's one of the few situations where a game idea I had ended up being done MUCH better in a real game.

Oh and my brother invented the concept for online first person shooters like Tribes, Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, etc.  What's funny is at the time I thought his idea was idiotic because no one would play a game where they absolutely had to play online to enjoy.

[rpglover]

when i was playing a lot of ps1 rpgs when they came out (and other rpgs too) i had lots of fun with them- but the battle systems were mostly the push the x button until the enemy is dead sort of system- thats when i thought 'what if they made a battle system where they mapped the character's actions to the buttons of the controller' and BAM- valkyrie profile came out- not exactly what i had in mind, but similar nonetheless

[KDR_11k]

rpglover: That sounds a bit like the Mario RPGs as well...

[rpglover]

see valkyrie profile is the first rpg i played that had character attacks mapped to the face buttons of the controller- you would press x and that character would attack, then square and that character would attack and so on- i had a similar idea- valkyrie's system is a little different than i imagined- i was thinking real time with my system and when you press the button your character would attack- valkyrie is still turn based

[rpglover]

see i had an idea for a battle system similar to valkyrie's but not exactly- i thought of a system that could be a combination of chrono trigger and secret of mana- it would be a real time system- but you dont move the characters around- the characters attacks would be on the face buttons of the controller and each character would have a power meter like chrono trigger- but you would not have to wait to fill it up- you could attack any time- but the higher the meter the more attack power- it is not exactly what valkyrie profile is like- but it used the same concept of mapping character actions on the face buttons of the controller

[Deguello]

Also try to realize that some good ideas might just not work in the game.  Like this game I read about the other day, by the producer of Killer7 for the PS2, something like you being a cameraman and you are filimg a disaster, yet you can tell your reporter  chick to go help some people int he background.  It sounds cool, but it seems like a lot of WATCHING and not enough PLAYING.

[Majexto]

Tag mode in THPS.  When the first one came out and I got it me and my friends use to hit eachother in the game and play tag.  Then it came out in i think the second one.  It was soo cool.

[Hostile Creation]

No, actually.  I have many potential game ideas, but most of them are excessively original and no one has come close to imitating them.

[Dirk Temporo]

Dynasty Warriors engine with a Japanese setting. That's the first thing I thought of when I first played DW3.