Lifting The Iron Curtain

Yesterday I read a discussion on the XNA forums between the big wigs of XNA... at least according to anyone who might frequent the forums like me. The discussion, entitled I want to protect my valuable game ideas, but I also need help with implementation. What can I do? was quite thought provoking, especially me being an idea Nazi when it comes to my own ideas for my own ideal game. It made sense. I've seen many keen ideas perusing the XNA and other design forums but I have largely ignored them... honed in completely on my own dream game. I also believe it to be true that the major companies are largely too busy putting out clone games to make money to bother with interesting concepts and ideas. So I think I ought to raise the iron curtain, go into a little specific detail about what I'm going for here...

But first, an update might be warranted. It's been 2 months since my last post... sorry. Well, unfortunately I've been quite busy since then and haven't gotten a whole lot of work done. But, I HAVE made some progress. I was stuck on matters of animation storage and utilization last time I dug in, but I developed an animation manager that makes quick work of it now... providing rapid lookup and reference for skeletal animation. Niftay!

So what is it that makes this game (temporarily entitled Mastery) so interesting that it warrants it's own blog? Why should you care? Well, if you're another designer you shouldn't care (at least according to the logic of the aforementioned XNA discussion). If you're interested in games just so much that you enjoy playing them, perhaps you'll find it interesting what I propose. Perhaps you could even provide me some feedback about my ideas... yeah I know, that's asking a lot.

There are 3 main foundations for the game system I want to do (yes, my ideas are more gameplay focused than story specific... any number of great stories could be told within a solid framework). First, a good fun solid combat system. I would enjoy playing this and it would keep me coming back. Second, exploration/mystery/hidden secrets. Love it. Third, scope. It's been popular in recent games, and while playing them may have influenced my ideas a tad, the great majority of what I'd like to accomplish was established in my head well before I encountered the games, so... I have a unique perspective I hope.

I'll go into details how I will integrate this foundation in the following days. Thanks fer readin'!