I am working on a new strategy game (Tactical Overload), but I want it to be unlike any other. I am wondering if any of you have any ideas or examples from games you like that you'd like to see in other games. I have hundreds of ideas myself, but I would like to compare thoughts. This strategy game is going to be different than others. Instead of concentrating on only one or two genres of strategy such as nation/city building, combat, economics, crime, construction, transport, politics, et cetera... I want to combine many genres into one game. Let me know if there's something unique you'd like to see.

EDIT: One of the main differences between this and other games will be interactive dynamic gameplay. For instance, most strategy games have a player managing some kind of large entity, usually a country. This limits realistic dynamics from simple things like different ambitions to more extreme events such as revolutions. An example of how I want to make it different is that in Tactical Overload a player or two may create a state, but within the state could be other players running businesses, families, political parties, et cetera.

This probaby belongs in design.

I just discovered Distant Worlds recently and I must say it's a very complete 4X games.

Like any 4X games - strategy is predominant, but this one (for now) successfully make me feel I'm discovering a whole universe.

I'm very sensible to any games featuring discoveries, myths, secrets and enigmatic stories. Specially if it's not tied to a classical RPG or Hack'n'Slash.

For quite some time I thought sandbox games would change that need but even if I like building and changing stuff, the more I play them the less I love them.

A game who successfully mix both sandbox mechanics and storytelling with a variety of victory conditions will certainly fascinate me. It doesn't necessarily have to be unique on each play as most of the time it's badly achieved.

You don't make a game different from other games by getting ideas/examples from other games, you gotta think of something new.

In general you want to only concentrate on a few aspects/genres in a game, else you're gonna have a hard time explaining the whole game to the player(we're not that smart)
while the player only wants to concentrate on that aspect he enjoys most.(You need to bring a consistent gaming-experience)

@powerneg, I agree, the design specification "different from other games" is doomed to failure. Looking at someone else and saying "not like you" is still living in their shadow.

Hundreds of ideas? It's sort of like the guy who creates a deeply structured drill-down website without any reason for people to read the page, or a highly detailed book outline that contains no paragraphs. Some Windows software Help files and Manuals have that look and feel, where the content is little more than a restatement of the heading. It's perfectly dreadful.

My suggestion is to build many small games, as a form of exercise in creating and throwing out. "Hello World" in virtually every language can be written in far less than an evening, so a good start would be to target finishing mini-projects in an evening.

Such approaches are usually doomed to fail, its not easy to create a seamless experience, also players rarely appreciate games with 32,485 features. No need to mention you'll quite probably end up with no time or resources because of greedy goals.

You need to test both your hundreds of ideas and borrowed and suggested ones in working prototypes; only the context of an actual game can show the value of a certain feature. Most prototypes will show that your ideas are bad or incompatible, but some experiments will be good, and some will be original; if you are lucky, both. High complexity and combining multiple aspects of strategy are features in their own right, and common sense suggests implementing them gradually, over the course of many prototypes, and stopping when complexity becomes cumbersome and strategic sophistication becomes frustratingly difficult.

Give us a starting point for the hundreds of ideas your working with. The initial foundation for the game allows the ideal mechanics to be matched with it. For example, if you want to explore a strategy game from the perspective of a single character (like starcraft II) as oppose to a "hand of god" style game (black and white) the ideal game mechanics would include more personal interaction with individuals and the impact the greater conflict has on them.

In short, what does your strategy game need to have in it as a foundation for your vision?

When it come to "loan" from other game, it's not that bad, just make it your own. If you look at succesful games it's never about who does it first, it's who does it best or who brings it out to the mainstream. The wheel has already been invented, try to make it "rounder". If you try to make a new wheel it will probably come out square, only hippsters uses square wheels. But what do I know, you might be a design God and prove me wrong ^^

Back on mian topic. What I love in strategy games is when you get a connection to your units, like X-Com. If you try that but put them in a large scale army it would be cool, but I don't know how to make the player feel a personal connection to the soldiers if you have hundreds of them :/

If you want it to be more then just a resource gathering game (even if you have hundreds of resources) I would recommend you check out Crusaders Kings II and look how they have done their diplomatic system.

My 2 cents

Cheers!

You don't make a game different from other games by getting ideas/examples from other games, you gotta think of something new.

In general you want to only concentrate on a few aspects/genres in a game, else you're gonna have a hard time explaining the whole game to the player(we're not that smart)
while the player only wants to concentrate on that aspect he enjoys most.(You need to bring a consistent gaming-experience)

I don't think I was clear enough, I do have original ideas but I am also looking for some mechanics that are already tried and true to blend them with mine. As for your second comment, I agree, but I am trying to do something different here. I think that it is time for at least a small part of the gaming community to evolve into more complex games.

Such approaches are usually doomed to fail, its not easy to create a seamless experience, also players rarely appreciate games with 32,485 features. No need to mention you'll quite probably end up with no time or resources because of greedy goals.

I agree with no time or resources comment (:

You need to test both your hundreds of ideas and borrowed and suggested ones in working prototypes; only the context of an actual game can show the value of a certain feature. Most prototypes will show that your ideas are bad or incompatible, but some experiments will be good, and some will be original; if you are lucky, both. High complexity and combining multiple aspects of strategy are features in their own right, and common sense suggests implementing them gradually, over the course of many prototypes, and stopping when complexity becomes cumbersome and strategic sophistication becomes frustratingly difficult.

Yes, I have been doing this. It is problematic because this is time consuming and expensive, but it is necessary.

Give us a starting point for the hundreds of ideas your working with. The initial foundation for the game allows the ideal mechanics to be matched with it. For example, if you want to explore a strategy game from the perspective of a single character (like starcraft II) as oppose to a "hand of god" style game (black and white) the ideal game mechanics would include more personal interaction with individuals and the impact the greater conflict has on them.

In short, what does your strategy game need to have in it as a foundation for your vision?

I edited by initial post to include one of the main ideas, I just don't want to tell too much at one time or people may lose interest with too much reading. But two mechanics I see as a necessity are the interactive dynamic gameplay I mentioned and entities that can change hands (such as the leaders of nations or the executives of a corporation).

What I love in strategy games is when you get a connection to your units, like X-Com. If you try that but put them in a large scale army it would be cool, but I don't know how to make the player feel a personal connection to the soldiers if you have hundreds of them :/

I'm glad you brought this up, because I find this important as a secondary feature also. For starters, the map will be more local and there will be more emphasis on using few game pieces. I really feel that it is an important mechanic to have players focus on fewer game pieces and make it so that many game pieces are too hard to manage. This can bring a more personal flavor to the pieces, create a balanced game atmosphere, and require more cooperation (or manipulation, and therefore strategy).