Your craziest ideas for a setting?

How about a game that revolves around dreams, where the player is part of a team of lucid dreamers who can enter people's dreams as a sort of experiment for treating disorders like PTSD, or solving crimes? It would probably be a story-based game as actual dreams are too random to actually make a lengthy game without a lot of resources. It'll be sort've like the movie Paprika, mixed in with a bit of Psychonauts and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

I sorta came up with this idea after spending around a week or two logging my dreams. My most memorable one was being stuck in Sasebo, Japan during a zombie invasion, where I'm trying to escort a mummy to Egypt with the help of 3 other people.
 
TheAdversary said:
My most memorable one was being stuck in Sasebo, Japan during a zombie invasion, where I'm trying to escort a mummy to Egypt with the help of 3 other people werwolfs in a dress.
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I also think there are not enough 'parody-settings'. Like games that take something that is very serious, like a high fantasy setting (think about Lord of the Rings), and just making fun about it. Mocking it. A form of satire.

In short, an RPG set in the Terry Pratchett Universe.
 
This falls under sci-fi, but it's an incredibly rare type so it should count. I want more realistic space warfare/travel sims where you can build your own ships, as far as I know the only game fitting this description for space travel is Kerbal Space Program and the only one for space warfare is Children of a Dead Earth. I especially want a 4x game like Children of a Dead Earth where you can build your own ships and battle for total domination of the solar system, with each planet/moon/asteroid having the same resources that they do in real life and the cost of those resources being calculated by how hard it is to get them up the gravity well and to your chosen factory.
 
I second Juza's suggestion of a Mesopotamian/Sumerian set game, it could be an RPG, or it could be a first person ancient-warfare open world sim (like Mount and Blade), or even a geopolitics game (akin to EU or Total War series), so long as it kept true to not only the geographical setting, but also the particular "atmosphere" that would have dominated Sumerian city states, such as "god kings" ruling cities, and if you go way back, cities having certain symbolic purposes, according to the temple/cult they centred around, like he goes on to suggest, having these cults offer different blessings (in an RPG setting), or in a political game setting, it could be to seek to dominate those aspects of a rivalling city.

I also would like to see some kind of fps warfare game, where patience is virtue. I know many do attempt this, some to more a degree than others, and I also know the logistics would be unrealistic, but like, ... wargame requiring you to sit in a transport plane, for a certain ammount of time - and I mean longer than it takes to finish playing a cut-scene, I mean, for a considerable ammount of time. In the same vein - truly limited ammunition and truly empty "post apo" scenarios. People said that "last of us" featured limited ammo, but I heard from others that you just had to sperg-nerd the game (as per usual) and end up swimming in ammo. Either way, I want a big dose of toning things down, no zombies, no ferals, no bandits, nothing BIG and tremendous, just vast landscapes, and a sense of uncertainty, a bit of survival element, scavenging, kindov like neo-scavenger but a little bit less of the pragmatic "you died of dysentery in day 3 lol" I'm sure plenty of us could last for at LEAST 30 days, so, yeah, a survival focused thing - where patience is key. There could be more climactic shit later, shooting, fighting, maybe even explosions, but it'd have to be far into the game, and something to wait for.
 
Almost realist space settings (still need to cheat a bit about travel speed) that try to exploit what is actually impressive about real-life space rather than make up their own things.
 
naossano said:
Almost realist space settings (still need to cheat a bit about travel speed) that try to exploit what is actually impressive about real-life space rather than make up their own things.
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So basically a video game of The Expanse?
 
Is there any actually "crazy" settings here or just preferred ones? :D

Just askin'.
 
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Kohno said:
Is there any actually "crazy" settings here or just preferred ones? :D

Just askin'.
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I don't think any actually "crazy" settings would prove very playable, most of us are probably just playing along with the premise as best we can.

I guess nonsensical absurdity holds a bit of untried oportunities, for example, GTA-type big world game, where protagonist POV randomly switches between the seeded civilian NPCs scattered around the city, resulting in something as simple as a car chase to take up several real life days of gameplay

Or an epic action adventure, where the player is constantly plagued by completely debilitating hallucinations - for example, in hallucinating state you might see a corridor, but half way through the corridor you get a sudden game over message, because your character was actually running straight off a cliff and to his death

Or, take it to a litteral extreme - actually play a sanatorium sim, with some sort of dualistic approach between padded cell environment and elaborate adventure game imaginations, different medications would have different effects, as well as interactons with the staff
 
Kohno said:
Without going too much into details... An "outer space" setting where Disney's Zootropolis (or Zootopia in US) meets David Lynch/Cronenberg style extremely violent, depraved and darkly humorous (but not over the top) stream of consciousness, and Fallout like RPG gameplay embedded in first person interactive scenes as seen here, or alternatively those scenes being situational and main gameplay working from topdown perspective like this. An open noir-like detective mystery storyline that makes you question your allegiances as much as what the fuck is going on in the world you're in.

That went a bit further than just a setting, but... nah, it's fine.
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Blacksad RPG?

What about an open world RPG where you are a bacteria or another microroganism inside the body of a demonic creature? No anthropomorphism implemented either, you aren't a cute little blob who goes into bacteria shops and shit. You would behave like an actual microorganism and through skill choices and stat growth you become something bigger and bigger and because it's inside a demonic creature the stuff you could turn into would be crazy.
 
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Walpknut said:
What about an open world RPG where you are a bacteria or another microroganism inside the body of a demonic creature? No anthropomorphism implemented either, you aren't a cute little blob who goes into bacteria shops and shit. You would behave like an actual microorganism and through skill choices and stat growth you become something bigger and bigger and because it's inside a demonic creature the stuff you could turn into would be crazy.
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So you want the first part of Spores to be an RPG instead of an Osmosis Jones? Do want the cells to talk to each other using telepathy or something?
 
zegh8578 said:
I don't think any actually "crazy" settings would prove very playable, most of us are probably just playing along with the premise as best we can.
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Depends, take Planescape if you will as example that a "crazy" setting can work, if you have talented people behind it. In many ways Torment was not your typical fantasy rpg. Undead have been some of the most friendly NPCs, rats some of the strongest enemies you can encounter and so on.

It all comes down to the question, if the mechanics are fun. The Setting is even secondary if you think about it. As long it's somewhat interesting. But make the gameplay really fun, and people will play it.
 
Walpknut said:
Didin't I specificially state that there would be no Anthropomorphism?
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So just a survival game with a leveling system? That sounds more suited for some weird Metroidvania deal.

Crni Vuk said:
It all comes down to the question, if the mechanics are fun. The Setting is even secondary if you think about it. As long it's somewhat interesting. But make the gameplay really fun, and people will play it.
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RPGs rely a lot on flavor to inform their mechanics. Story is pretty important and helps gives in focus unless you planning to make a new RPG system like GURPS.
 
Microorganisms communcate through chemical releases and such. Also it would involve branching development based on stats and potentiallt choosing to develop into one kind of organism would let you visit different parts of the body, maybe even go outside, become a disease etc.
 
CaptJ said:
RPGs rely a lot on flavor to inform their mechanics. Story is pretty important and helps gives in focus unless you planning to make a new RPG system like GURPS.
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When it comes to games a setting and story are the icing on the cake, but not the cake it self. You can't just make a whole cake with just the icing. However, you can definetly make games, where all you have is 'gameplay' and nothing else, and it can still be an experience that is fun for years - see Tetris, or Pong or similar games.

So no, I have to respectfully disagree. The 'story' or narrative of a game, is important yes, but at the end of the day it just remains the icing. The better the icing is, the better the whole experience will be.

This is what seperates games from other forms of entertainment, like books or movies. Games depend on interactivity, player input, and many modern games try for what ever crazy reason, to emulate movies. And they become shorter and more cinematic in the process, it is an approach that can work for some games wonderfully, but when more and more games go down that route, they all tend to feel similar in their approach, be it Mass Effect or Call of Duty. It becomes 'action' oriented with a focus on dramatic cinematography. This is what happens when you start to see the icing as the main focus.

So no, the story is not more important than gameplay.
 
CaptJ said:
RPGs rely a lot on flavor to inform their mechanics. Story is pretty important and helps gives in focus unless you planning to make a new RPG system like GURPS.
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I have to agree with Crni here. It is possible to make RPGs without any story. For example Dungeons and Dragons started without any lore or story. It was just a pure combat RPG. You had your players with their characters (they were just stats and abilities) and would just use a grid and set some monsters (which were just stats and abilities too) on the grid too and fight. It was the first RPG and it didn't have any story or anything, just battles and stats (it was called Chainmail). Only later they started adding story and lore to make the game more interesting and attracting more people (so it could be commercialized and popular).

I have also seen a few indie RPGs (when flash games were popular) that used the combat focus. Story was pretty much: "there is this evil thing and you need to kill it or save someone/something from it". And all you do is have a battle and then access a town with shops or a camp to rest and then comes the next battle, continue this until you beat the last boss. Those are RPGs too.

Story and writing are elements that enrich the RPG genre, but they are not essential. As long as the mechanics/system are fun, then the story can be shallow or even non-existant. I myself prefer a good engaging story on my RPGs, but I know it is not essential for a fun RPG, specially if it is well made.
 
I want to see fantasy elements and monsters in the modern world. I don't want elves or orcs either. Have monsters and shit exist all along (traditional monsters alongside unique folklore monsters of other countries) and have the player hunt them down and investigate murders involving said monsters witcher style but in the modern world as a cool detective game.

Something like Nioh or Witcher 3 but set in the Safavid period. Medieval Europe and weeboo Japan have been done to death. I want a big ol historical RPG set elsewhere int he world.

Also sci fi horror in the vein of system shock and alien but with lovecraftian and/or supernatural elements?
 
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