Hello world,

I have always thought it best practice to run by my game concepts on the forums. I think I have a good basis on an awesome game concept but the ideas really need to be developed. First just a little backstory:

(The good guys) year is 2500, and mankind is at war with some kind of enemy. In an epic clash between cruisers the good guys are almost all defeated. Everyone except the flagship, which is forced to retreat. The ship is damaged beyond repair and in a desperate move they crash land on a nearby planet. They crash on a planet used primarily for mining. After crashing, a team of specialist all come together to develop a strategy for survival and retaliation. An engineer proposes a last ditch effort in designing a suit that harnesses the power of the reactor core in the ship. The suit's exoskeleton would be made from some of the ship's hull (the exterior armor plating), metal that is surprisingly light but incredibly resilient to anything short of a large explosive. The suit will be energized by the ship's reactor core, which is converted into a form of energy that the suit can contain. The suit will most likely be worn by a marine who will be a main character.

This is where I get lost though...what exactly can the suit do on the basis that it can harness this incredible power?

My goal is to make gameplay fast paced and in the 3rd person view....but that is all I have right now.

Some thoughts I had where that the suit would enable you too move incredibly fast because it harnesses some of the energy that was used to move ships at light speed.

That's all I have though...please be honest with me if the idea stinks I am open to criticism. I am also careful not too turn this into a knock off iron man suit, or the chief's armor in Halo. I would like to create something that could in theory capitalize on both iron man and the mjolnir armor. But like I said, if you think it is a dead end please let me know.

You seem to be thinking of the game story-first. I've heard from a lot of people that this is generally a bad idea, unless it is the story you mainly want to focus on. (Some games such as point-and-click games and jrpgs are mostly content, not to say that there aren't 3rd-person games that are story-heavy *glances at Mass Effect and Dragon Age*).

I would recommend you decide on the core 'feel' of the gameplay and then decide on a list of mechanics that will support that feel. That usually takes care of the question 'What does X do?' because you will not ever add X to the game unless you already know how it needs to function mechanically.

Examples:

If you want the player to feel powerful for example, the suit would need more combat abilities like:

-Very strong melee combat abilities

-A grappling hook that can pull enemies to you or push them away

-A sword that can be thrown at super-sonic speed to knock enemies back and deal massive damage

-A beam that melts some enemies but not others

If you want the player to feel powerless for example, the suit could have utility/disabling abilities like:

-A beam that melts enemy weapons

-The ability to phase through or break through walls

-The ability to pick up really heavy objects and throw them

-A telekinetic beam that can be used to steal enemy weapons

-A computer system that can be turned on to alert you when enemy weapon are powering up to fire (so you can dodge them or something)

It's really hard to judge a game idea without much detail on the core mechanics and core features because those things usually determine if the game is fun or not. A third-person game in 3D is really general because it doesn't tell much about the goal of the game itself. The above is based on the assumption that the player will be facing some kind of enemy humanoids, but it is entirely possible that you want the player to roam the planet and raid it for resources to help stage the retaliation you were talking about. You could also want the player to contend with the local wildlife in which case the suit could poses to whole other set of powers geared around that.

Examples of different suit powers in other games:

The Metroid suit is given abilities that help it move through the environment and help it face new enemies. This is because a lot of the game is based on exploration and environmental puzzles. A suit that can be upgraded to change size, use different door-opening weapons and weapons that have different effects on enemies is perfectly suited to a game that needs to enable the player to solve puzzles with the tools at their disposal.

The game BlackLight: Retribution has a powersuit as well equipped with a chain-gun and a rail-gun, as well as a dash. This gives the player the ability to attack enemies at long or short-range and the ability to move around the battlefield in a clunky way. It's perfect for a game in which the player will be facing tons of other enemies with guns.

That is just my experience though.

Definitely start with a heavier gameplay idea. Any story can be good, especially when you've only got a few paragraphs to explain it, and tweaking a story as you go is much easier than tweaking the basis of the gameplay as you go.

It's hard to judge the initial mechanics much, too. Almost no shipped successful game has ever looked anything like its initial prototypes, unless you're counting "Call of Creed: Skyrim" or something. And yes, this applies to story as well as gameplay.

If you really want to know if a new idea is fun then prototype it out. Even if you don't plan to build the game with Unity or Unreal, prototype it in one of those engines and just see if the gameplay feels like it has any potential. That's also incidentally how you pitch ideas to publishers or get decent funding: show your idea, don't just talk about it.

First off, this post feels like it should be in the writing forums as it mostly goes over story and asks about what features the exo should have looking at it from a semi-logical story perspective instead of a "you know what would be f***ing awesome in game" perspective. Secondly, the concept sounds cool but not very thought out yet. I'm not sure if I would even consider it ready for peer analysis yet. If you need help working out details talk it over with one of your friends privately first or message me and I'll do what I can.

I am all for giving the player a taste of full power then taking it all away.

How about in the first level you give the player everything and the suit is an unstoppable killing machine capable if pulling star ships out of orbit with a tractor beam and levelling buildings.

Near the end of the first level the power are stripped away somehow and the player will spend the rest of the game building that back up again.

In my opinion this gives some encouragement to playing to the end to be able to be like that again.

Let me know what you think...

While I disagree with the idea that story should never come first (in all fairness, I'm not sure that anyone here is claiming that absolutely, although I think that I've seen it suggested on another forum), I do think that you currently seem to lack a gameplay concept. You seem to have some backstory; now, what experience do you want for the player?

You've said that you want the experience to be fast-paced, but do you intend pure action, action with puzzles (a-la Half Life 2), or even some sort of fast-paced space puzzle game? Does the player fly about (and if so, is this in space or atmosphere), or run on planetary surfaces?

If there are enemies, do you intend to throw armies at the player (a-la Serious Sam), or smaller numbers of (presumably more powerful or more intelligent) foes?

What about progression, such as giving the player new abilities as the game progresses, either RPG-style customisation or pre-determined abilities that open avenues previously closed to them, as in Metroidvanias?

Do you intend any exploration mechanics? What about variation in the gameplay? (For two ideas, take a look at the tunnels in Terminal Velocity, or consider giving the player's suit transformations.)

However, all of that said: beware of putting too much into your game. Feature creep can devour games, I fear.

(On starting with story: I feel that different things work for different people; if starting with story works for you, then I see no problem with it. Conversely, of course, if starting with story isn't working for you, then it might be worth exploring other approaches.)

Those are some great questions thaumaturge, definitely sparks some creative ideas. The game will be fast paced and the player will most likely take om armies of enemies. Like i said before, starting with a story does help me develop gameplay concepts and mechanics. I guess you could do it either way though. Right now I am just developing some mechanics so I can test them out in an engine. I'll keep you guys posted with some pics a long the way. Thanks for your comments!

This is called topdown design (mechanics being defined by lore) and I would only recommend this approach toa veteran designer to be fair.
But if this is a theoretical experiment, I hope it works out for you.