So I thought of a game idea...

[_echo]

Randomly playing Dragon Age, I thought of a game idea. I have dubbed this idea, "Golem Construct".

The general setup of this game is you take the role of a stone golem. You make your way though a 3D side-scrolling world, though different regions. Throughout the world, you will come across different materials you can use to replace sections of your body, granting you special abilities, more toughness, of just for looks.

Your origin as a golem is unknown. Your role in the world, unknown. You seek out information about who you are, where you came from, and more importantly, why you are here.

As you progress through the game, you may be required to use specific matierial body parts to get from one place to another. For example, you might need to venture into the crushing depths of the core, and to do so, you need to seek out a full set of Diamond to withstand the pressure. Or you may need to get from one island to another, in which you could walk, or use wood parts to make yourself float. Or, you may use a vine hand to shoot out a vine to grab on to something and swing across a gap.

The world will be divided into load zones for performance, but it will be entirely persistent. Actions done in one end of the world could reflect changes on the other.

This is all I have come up with thus far.

Thoughts?

I am still looking into a better name for said game. Any other ideas are welcome to help flesh out this idea. A friend and I are looking into actually developing it.

[Citizen86]

Sounds like it could be a cool casual game. I always end up buying those side-scroller games for cheap from Steam or other online distributors, but never actually get to play them really...

You said it could be divided into zones for performance... if you were to make this game, what engine would you use? It's just that side-scroller games are almost never too graphically or CPU demanding. Sounds like a cool idea though.

[InsanitySorrow]

a 3D side-scroller will need a bit of power behind it, I would suggest OGRE or if non of you are experienced with C++ there is always XNA Game Studios which is quite powerful, free and only requires C# knowledge.

[Citizen86]

The Unity engine is also free now for an "indie" license, and relatively powerful. If you are feeling ambitious, the Unreal 3 engine is available basically for free as well. That could make a side scroller with AWESOME graphics

[InsanitySorrow]

UNreal engine is supposed to be difficult to use, well thats what I have heard. Apart from that you will need some really good modelling and texturing skills to make use of such an engine. I would not say its a practical choice.

[Citizen86]

Exactly, that's why I said if he was feeling ambitious. I've opened it up and fooled around with it a bit, and it certainly is no cakewalk. Even just importing textures and getting them to work right require about 6 different maps and connections... it's crazy. Oblivion is so much easier and nice to work with... I never would have thought so, lol.

[_echo]

You all never heard of Trine I take it? 3D side scroller with great graphics. And I plan different maps to be really big so theres not so much loading.

The UDK is designed for FPS games only basically. My friend already tried to make a side scroller with it but the guns are coded to fire at the center of the screen. Currently theres no way to fix this.

Unity is for Mac and the iPhone only. You have to buy a license to get a windows able version.

ORGE might be good, ill look into that and see how my friend likes it. Hes the real brain of the operation, im just on the development side.

[Citizen86]

Unity used to be for Mac only, but it's available now, for free, for Windows: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/

And I have heard of Trine, I played the demo for a good 5 minutes, but never bought it. I was tempted when it on sale a week or two ago, but didn't get it. It got pretty good reviews though, so maybe in the future I'll pick it up.

I just downloaded Unity today, so I don't have much experience with it yet. It seems really versatile though, you are able to create stand alone Mac and Windows apps, or you can create pretty decent games to stream within a web browser. FusionFall and the Star Wars Lego game are a few examples of full 3D games that are streamed within a web browser. I'm pretty impressed TBH.

The free version lacks a few things from the Pro version. The two biggest ones I see are post-processing effects and dynamic shadows. I figure though that for a first game those probably aren't all that necessary. YMMV though. I still have to learn how to use it, but from what I've seen, I'll make due if it really is that much easier to use than the UDK.