Create your own unique Universe/gameworld/setting

To be honest, a big problem is that the mechanics and setting need to complement each other. Sci-fi/fantasy settings have been used a lot, so they're very familiar with the players and you can easily create mechanics that complement both the feel of the setting and that are familiar enough with the player while still givin' you space for originality and a personal touch.
If you, for example, wrote a game with a 1984-like setting, how would you tailor the mechanics to that setting? You can't certainly simply put classes, you can't certainly just focus the game on combat etc… so it's really complicated.
Though, original settings have already been done in the past and I had a couple ideas in mind for a while, I'll post on that later.

Yep. I think a 1984-style dystopian game would be better suited to an adventure game format, which could, of course, be less linear than adventures usually are. It would have to be a morality play and to deal with the choices you make and the risks you take in navigating the System, and there's not a whole lot of stat-checking in that.
 
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You should never let criticism hit you too hard. I'm rough on myself actually. The game I've mentioned I'm developing I've restarted from scratch three times. Basically, I'm Cleve without giving concrete release dates. Or having the ability to make artwork that doesn't suck.

Thanks for your support.

Only a few days ago I had an idea for a small chapter for this story ... I think it's quite weird for anyone ... Yet it is my own style.
Just as a hint: I was thinking ... of something like what is described in "Dance on the volcano" by Genesis. Now, I was thinking, what if volcanoes are direct "outlets" of "mother earth" herself ? Or, even more, the earth -> "mother earth" being a manifestation of a volcano goddess ? And then: The Earth is nohing but a manifestation of her ... it's kind of they (in this story) believe they are living on her skin ...

This concepts reminds of the concept of Aventuria: The "creation myth" is that LOS one day saw SUMU, and ... well, I don't quite remember why, but he slayed her in rage. From her blood the TDE gods evolved, and the first living beings. And her body ... tht is Dere, with venturia being one of the continents ... Now, as the myth says, he's still dying, being so enormous, with LOS still weeping over her loss, because after he had slain her, he realized his BIG MISTAKE ... Some fractions want to heal her, others want to revive her, others believe she's still not dead, others want to speed up her death ...

The only positive myth they have comes from the church of Tsa, within their most sacred book called "A Look Over The Rainbow" it says that after the very last war of gods against demons, when the whole "world" nd everything has burned into ashes ... then LOS and SUMO will rebirth from the ashes again and "walk hand in hand" into a new being ...

You know, this sounds a little bit like the Tolkien myth. early TDE has been shaped to some parts with having Tolkien and (A)D&D in mind, with (A)D&D being influenced by tolkien, too ...
 
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Yeah, I would say Tolkien and Lewis have basically built the foundation of what is expected from modern fantasy. So it's pretty much expected that their works will be drawn on at least some; even if it's as a mark to avoid in order to make a unique setting.

I can see where what little you posted can create a bit of conflict as it is, possibly pushing the story itself. Or at least being used as a red herring. You should probably finish it up.
 
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I can see where what little you posted can create a bit of conflict as it is, possibly pushing the story itself. Or at least being used as a red herring. You should probably finish it up.

What exactly do you mean ?
 
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I had about 6 different ideas of where I could take the setting you posted, or at least as little as you had, and come up with plot hooks off of it.

Probably could have worded that better. Kinda tired the last few nights, between different things going on.
 
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Talking about new universe/gameworld/settings (mind you though, that there's a belief that game developers have no ideas : that's not true, it's the other way around, the publishers rarely let them use their whacky ideas because games based on too unfamiliar settings may fail badly… and unfortunately that's true), I'll throw a couple of rather underdeveloped ideas :
- a mix of a western and a fantasy, with the natives forced to awaken the monster-gods they sealed to fight their technological superior invaders. This setting would suit a lot of different genres, FPS (maybe playing as a 'native' that uses magic and gets weapons just late in the game for a change?), RPG, action-adventure etc.;
- a Renessaince-like metropolis that spans over an entire continent, full of different people. I'd imagine with a setting like that I'd go with a sandbox rpg, much like Bethesda's;
- a noir-ish action game set in the 30's with a couple of choices and consequence and a stealth/adventure element.

So, quite a lot of different ideas coming just from this forum (and I believe there a lot of creative people in the industry), the point is, how do you make them work? How can you market them? (a point I'd like to see addressed is the niche market though, there's really no reasons publishers have to leave that to indie developers only)
 
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Well, some things aren't even tried out on different platforms.

One of the most unique settings i know of is Oddworld; "Stranger's Wrath" is something that looks like a wesrern game, but it is set in this imho quite weird universe.

Unfortunately it's available only for console.
 
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Oddworld? Nice little setting you've mentioned there!
I remember playing the original Abe's Oddysee and the sequel on PSX, though the details are quite fuzzy. I quite clearly remember that I had a lot of fun with them. :D
 
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(a point I'd like to see addressed is the niche market though, there's really no reasons publishers have to leave that to indie developers only)

Actually there is. Publishers are (at least nearly all of them are) publicly traded. They have an obligation to the shareholders to pull a profit. In fact, if I'm not mistaken they could face legal action should they fail to act in the best interests of their share holders.

Thus, you get annual sequels of progressively worse quality and being stripped of features that competent developers had figured out in 1998. All to cut costs, get it out faster, and give the publisher more money. As Infinity Ward has recently shown, the Devs are lucky just to get paid. They're more likely to be fired and replaced, just so that the publishers don't have to pay them any bonuses owed due to employee contracts.

Indies are almost all privately owned and funded. Thus, they can take the risk of a innovative or niche product. They have greater risk of failure and shut down, in some cases, since they don't typically have the cash that a public venture can obtain.
 
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Actually there is. Publishers are (at least nearly all of them are) publicly traded. They have an obligation to the shareholders to pull a profit. In fact, if I'm not mistaken they could face legal action should they fail to act in the best interests of their share holders.

Thus, you get annual sequels of progressively worse quality and being stripped of features that competent developers had figured out in 1998. All to cut costs, get it out faster, and give the publisher more money. As Infinity Ward has recently shown, the Devs are lucky just to get paid. They're more likely to be fired and replaced, just so that the publishers don't have to pay them any bonuses owed due to employee contracts.

Indies are almost all privately owned and funded. Thus, they can take the risk of a innovative or niche product. They have greater risk of failure and shut down, in some cases, since they don't typically have the cash that a public venture can obtain.

No, you see, that's exactly the problem. The mentality that equals niche = no profit.
There are plenty of old-school gamers that would be more than glad to buy some old-school-like games (just see the success of the Etrian Odysseys on the DS), and we're just talking about RPGs. Set the budget accordingly, do some research, and voilà, you can have a moderate success that brings some nice profit to you without having spent millions and millions.
Though I'm not a market analyst so I may very well be wrong.
 
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It's not that niche = no profit.

It's that niche = too big a chance of no profit.
 
Actually there is. Publishers are (at least nearly all of them are) publicly traded. They have an obligation to the shareholders to pull a profit. In fact, if I'm not mistaken they could face legal action should they fail to act in the best interests of their share holders.

Thus, you get annual sequels of progressively worse quality and being stripped of features that competent developers had figured out in 1998. All to cut costs, get it out faster, and give the publisher more money. As Infinity Ward has recently shown, the Devs are lucky just to get paid. They're more likely to be fired and replaced, just so that the publishers don't have to pay them any bonuses owed due to employee contracts.

This is the main problem I also see.

Interesting that the basic producers get the lowest amount of money - although the whole industry would be nothing without them.

Unfortunately that's the case with *all* art-related businesses. Literature, for example. And even with other sorts of industry. The farmer always gets the lowest amount of money. The middle-tier companies try to pay them as little as possible - and at the am time they try to pull the highest possible profits from the ones they sell everything to.
 
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This is the main problem I also see.

Interesting that the basic producers get the lowest amount of money - although the whole industry would be nothing without them.

Unfortunately that's the case with *all* art-related businesses. Literature, for example. And even with other sorts of industry. The farmer always gets the lowest amount of money. The middle-tier companies try to pay them as little as possible - and at the am time they try to pull the highest possible profits from the ones they sell everything to.

Well, it's not so strange really.

If you want money, all you really need is the ambition to earn it - and the drive.

It's my experience that "artists" generally don't have that ambition in big way, but rather have the drive to create something.
 
Well, yesno (or German: "Jein"). I recently saw a smll series of articles about the situation of screen play script authors for TV stations here in Germany.

The situation there appears to be REALLY bad. Because the editors of the TV stations hold the power - and thy can reject authors any time.

And THEN - this has actually happened several times ! - they (the editors, I mean) go on with the rejected works, re-work them a little bit, and sell them to the TV stations they work for ! As their on products !

This means nothing that theyare exploiting their power, their status. They are in this respect the "middle-tier" I meant above.

I don't have enough information on this, because the articles weren't too much in-depth, but it appars to me as if the original authors don't have any power at all, must be grateful they are payed for a small amount of money at all, because they simply have no other way of liing, and the "higher levels" exploit their sitiations.

They just make the original authors dependent from them. this can be achieved as paying as little as possible, so, that the authors - or, elsewhere it could be farmers, for example, hve no other choice at all. It's fairly easy, then, to keep someone depending on you if you pay so few money the person dependent from you simply doesn't know what to live from.

And that is imho the far biggest problem here, with all kinds of "productive artists", as we call them.
 
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I think most settings described here have been done. I think I can mention a game in almost all of them:

Azteca, Battle of Olympus, God of war, Assasins Creed 2, Assasins Creed, Mass Effect, Super Mario RPG ( Mushroom kingdom :D ) , Final Fantasy, little sampson, Rygar, KGB a spy story, Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Rose Tattoo, Tropico.....

etc, a long list not all RPG's but the settings has been done a lot....
 
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I think most settings described here have been done. I think I can mention a game in almost all of them:

Azteca, Battle of Olympus, God of war, Assasins Creed 2, Assasins Creed, Mass Effect, Super Mario RPG ( Mushroom kingdom :D ) , Final Fantasy, little sampson, Rygar, KGB a spy story, Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Rose Tattoo, Tropico…..

etc, a long list not all RPG's but the settings has been done a lot….

A lot? Can't say I agree, though there have been example of similar settings (then again, I still would like to know where you've seen continent-spanning fantasy cities or a setting like 1984...) they're MUCH MUCH less than the games typically set in modern days/ urban fantasy / medieval fantasy.
 
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I agree much much less, but not so few. There are tons of games, and all of us have just played a small part of them, for example there are lots of chinese games which has chinese culture. Lots of japanese WWII games, lots of japanese 1984 games too.....
 
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I agree much much less, but not so few. There are tons of games, and all of us have just played a small part of them, for example there are lots of chinese games which has chinese culture. Lots of japanese WWII games, lots of japanese 1984 games too…..

Example of 1984-like games?
 
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I think I gave an example in the KGB game... not that I am sure it is exactly 1984.. but setting is that you are an agent in cold war Moscow, I think it ended 1985, and memory tells me it was near the end of cold war... very good game too. I don't think it gives exact date in the game. Granted I might have misunderstood your 1984 setting thing as I did not read it all from beginning :)
 
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I think I gave an example in the KGB game… not that I am sure it is exactly 1984.. but setting is that you are an agent in cold war Moscow, I think it ended 1985, and memory tells me it was near the end of cold war… very good game too. I don't think it gives exact date in the game. Granted I might have misunderstood your 1984 setting thing as I did not read it all from beginning :)

Yup, you misunderstood, it happens.
We were referring to the 1984 book by the way, a literary masterpiece about totalitarism, cultural control and propaganda.
While a stalinist russian setting could be considered similar, it lacks the futuristic dystopic approach of the book.
 
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