Aged Based or Generational Game - Feedback?

Hey guys, Derek here, just thought I wanted to let you know that I’m still working on my idea development for my WW2 French Resistance and Super Hero/Spy games, but lately I’ve been giving some thought towards something a little more unusual and perhaps slightly free form. I’ve had two basic game concept ideas and I’m curious as to what people think is the more interesting to work on? Here’s the two ideas…

a. A game where you start off as a baby or young infant and effectively in each chapter you play at a key age of development like 10, 18, 25 or 40 years old, all the way up to old age or retirement. The idea being that in life we make seemingly small choices which can have big consequences later, and I figure a game which touches on that, not to mention touching on an array of genres would be fun. The way things could go I could imagine about 100 different endings, varying from believable (you got married, became a dad/mum, got an awesome job) to more zany (you invented time travel, became a vampire, made world peace or landed on Mars) and it’s up to the player to figure out what ‘little things’ effect their characters later on. So maybe something between Paradox Factor and Life of a Wizard here.

b. A generational based game. Effectively in each chapter you play a descendant of the previous, and the choices you make will affect the station, location and role of your next character. Right now this would definitely be Earth based as I like the idea of your character getting involved in human history. Possibly this might mean being a direct descendant like a son or daughter (gender in theory would be able to be selected in each chapter) or it might go further and cover a wider berth of history. I can’t say right now what time periods or key events I could feature but I would ideally not want it to be confined to just Europe or America if I could help it. I kind of feel I was inspired by the Choice of the Vampire series for this one, though this is quite different and you would always be human, though I guess the future could appear as well!

So which of these sound the more interesting, if either. Right now they’re very generalized and I’ll be likely working on Marquis and Silver Age more, but I would still love to know what you’d think! :slight_smile:

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B. Seems more creative and interesting out of the two, I never seen anyone do that style and I would be very intrigue to see it.

B, would probably be the hardest to make, but potentially more satisfying. I could see myself enjoying either though, but A would likely have to go deep and focus on character relations to hit home. The thing about B though, is that it would need to let me make a real impact on history, not just cruise along.

A sounds like Alter Ego – maybe with slightly zanier options.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys! B actually sort of formed from ideas I had regarding A, and I have to agree with Haven that Alter Ego might be considered something of an inspiration, but I have thought that I wanted to touch on several types of Genre within it were I to tackle A. Character Relations would definitely be key so who you react with your parents, any siblings, other family, friends, possible lovers turned romantic partners and possible children. Clearly inputting that might be tough, though I thought how Life of a Wizard handled things with your friends, family and lovers made it not too demanding, but then they didn’t have a great an impact as they might here.

The big questions with B would be how many characters or eras, where to begin - and if to give players a selection of starting points - and the means by which to determine where the player ends up. I could imagine who the player romances or where they go affecting their descendant, direct or otherwise. And also if a player can move back to another thread within reason - so if a Stuart British character moved to the United States in that time, that shouldn’t mean they lose the option for a descendant to return so they can have a wartime character in the Blitz, for example. And the biggest question is whether to cover the majority of human history - prehistorical or ancient culture on - or just more modern history, like the 1700’s or 1800’s onward. The later would clearly suit direct descendants better.

If you want to make a single game, having a shorter time period and direct descendants is better in my opinion. If you want to cover millenias of history, you should better make a series of games, with the later working either as stand-alones or with stats based on the saved results of the previous game(s).

Depending on your choice of spaceship design, option B is the route we are taking in Colonising Kepler 62e. Depending on the decisions of your predecessors, your life on the spaceship could be very different!

Ok, thanks for the feedback guys! I think after some consideration I’ll be going with B, so I’ll consider game design and see what I can devise which would work and feel influential under that.

Since you’ve already decided to go with B, I won’t bother you by telling you that your “A” idea sounds really good, kind of like “The Butterfly Effect” movie.

B also sounds great. There’s a game on Steam called Rogue Legacy that I saw my friend playing. He loved it because you only got one life as a certain character to get as far as you could into this one dungeon. When you die, your “child” succeeds you, inheriting traits and part of the treasure that you accumulated with your first hero. You even get to choose your heir, after a fashion, when a few randomly generated “children” with different traits are shown. Perhaps you could incorporate a “nature vs. nurture” aspect, making your children be either ever more successful or ever more failures.

You might want to check out the trailer for a little inspiration; I don’t know if it’s your style of genre, but every little bit helps. http://store.steampowered.com/app/241600/

@CitizenShawn reminds me of Infinity Blade. Every time you die, you restart the castle playing as your previous character’s son, who wants to avenge his father. Except you keep all your gear and XP.

@gkkiller That’s insane, I had no idea Infinity Blade had that as part of a story! I keep seeing ads for it, I just thought it was an action RPG, I’ve never played it!

B sounds like Piers Anthony’s historical fiction series.In each book he creates a man and a woman who are the main characters. The first book keeps the names the same for the characters and in the second book he makes the names based on a sound like for the guy Hg and the girl An and then as the book chapters go on the names changed into Hugh and Ann.

@Markel1970A You have been warned before. Please look at the date of a previous topic before replying to it. If it’s over a year old, and concerns a work in progress, reconsider reviving the topic.

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