I actually generated a small spec for a game that I originally envisioned for an assignment, but would like to build upon it and flesh it out a great deal more. The original concept was essentially a PVP game, where you could build your own fighter and give it custom moves. Sadly, I'm severely lacking in the skills department, so for now my precious lil' game will be nothing more than a dream.

http://yourgameideaistoobig.com

unbeleavble numbers,

please add average artist salary in your country and your artistic-programing skills tables,

I got 400000$ and 19 years on my project, but in true it took me just one year and hired one artist...

I had a pre-alpha version of the biomes management, resources management, player skill trees, weapons and tools implementation, inventory management, skill based crafting trees, and a few other items in less than 2 weeks without using any kind of game engine or libraries.

Just... how? Did you reuse code from previous stuff. It took me about 1.5 years of intermittent work to get to where I am now, which is a fraction of what you managed in those 2 weeks

@Topic: Well, the dream game I always wanted to make is actually in the making right now at CIG ;)

I had a pre-alpha version of the biomes management, resources management, player skill trees, weapons and tools implementation, inventory management, skill based crafting trees, and a few other items in less than 2 weeks without using any kind of game engine or libraries.

Just... how? Did you reuse code from previous stuff. It took me about 1.5 years of intermittent work to get to where I am now, which is a fraction of what you managed in those 2 weeks

.

(( Creating a pre-alpha system - not optimized - minimal debugging ))

1: It's very easy to generate 2D custom perlin noise once you know the math involved

2: It's very easy to parse a list of biomes and the"stuff" that spawns in each one. It took me only a couple hours to come up with a weighted probability engine.

3: Creating events ( combat, skill gain, skill checking ) is not that difficult. Skill trees themselves are parsed from a file.

4: Carryable inventory objects, along with the stats and limitations are parsed from a file.

5: Crafting system recipes are also parsed.

6: 2D movement is super easy

7: Combat and tool usage use the same mechanics, which are not hard to program.

.

I have a feeling you are using a "slow development" language such as C++. Everything I mentioned above was accomplished in Java.

.

Here is the ( unoptimized ) probability mechanism for loot drops ( combat and resource gathering ) . This returns items based on the loots weighted rarity, and how much different loot is available for each event.

public class ProbSelect {
	Random rand;
	int qu; // < --- I hate java sometimes

	public ProbSelect(){
		rand = new Random();
	}
	
	public InteractiveObject selectItem (List<InteractiveObject> eo2){

		int ammount = eo2.size();
		int catche = 0;
		List<Integer> dump = new ArrayList<Integer>();
		List<Integer> low = new ArrayList<Integer>();
	    List<Integer> high = new ArrayList<Integer>();
	    
		for (int i = 0; i < ammount ; i ++){
			 
			 dump.add(eo2.get(i).getRarity() );
			 low.add(catche + 1);
			 catche += eo2.get(i).getRarity();
			 high.add(catche);
		}
		
		int pick = rand.nextInt(catche) + 1;
		int ii;

		 
		 for (ii = 0; ii < dump.size(); ii ++ ){
			 if ( pick >= low.get(ii) && pick <= high.get(ii) ){
				 return eo2.get(ii);

				 }
			 }

			  System.out.println("Error returning EnvObjects\n Total: " + catche + "\nPicked: " + pick);
			  return null;

		 }
//||\\	
	public Items selectLoot (List <Items> item, List <Integer> chance){
		int ammount = item.size();
		int catche = 0;
		List<Integer> dump = new ArrayList<Integer>();
		List<Integer> low = new ArrayList<Integer>();
	    List<Integer> high = new ArrayList<Integer>();
	    
		for (int i = 0; i < ammount ; i ++){
			 
			 dump.add(chance.get(i));
			 low.add(catche + 1);
			 catche += chance.get(i);
			 high.add(catche);
		}
		
		int pick = rand.nextInt(catche) + 1;
		int ii;

		 
		 for (ii = 0; ii < dump.size(); ii ++ ){
			 if ( pick >= low.get(ii) && pick <= high.get(ii) ){
				 qu = ii;
				 
				 return item.get(ii);

				 }
			 }

			  System.out.println("Error returning Loot Item\n Total: " + catche + "\nPicked: " + pick);
			  return null;

		
	}
//||\\
		public void say(String s){System.out.println(s);}
		
		public int getQuantity(List <Integer> quan){
			int tem = rand.nextInt(quan.get(qu) );
			if (tem == 0){return 1;}
			else{return tem;}
		}
	}

Oh I get 3 years and$174000 he he been at it for eight years part time. RTS multi player.

It turns out my dream game already exists and it's called TIS-100. It's everything I could ever want in a game - cool atmosphere, logical puzzles that you can reason your way through, a gigantic manual which you have to print out, lovely interface. I'm jealous I wasn't smart enough to think of it myself.

The specs of my dream game are hard to define, since around 90% of it changes every time I started thinking about it again. The basic idea was a game about exploring planets and with a branching story line. The rest of the features changed all the time, sometimes it was 2d, sometimes 3d, sometimes it had real-time combat, sometimes pokémon style, sometimes you had to fly to other planets, sometimes you could teleport using a map, etc. I even had extremely unpractical and not even fun ideas like having a dashboard computer on your ship that could do all basic computer tasks, including in-game mail, adds for in game shops, etc.

I actually started implementing it a couple of times, using whatever engine or tool I was into at that moment, but my goals increased exponentially as I was working on it, while my development speed was slowing down as my code became more messy, so I usually gave up after a few month.

The game I am working on right now started as another reimplementation of that big vision, only I ended up throwing out the 10% that kept the idea together out, so it's not really related to the original idea right now, only the 1% of still being a kind of RPG.

@Code Fox: I'm using C#

An "FPS" martial art game - like an FPS but all combat is hand-to-hand. Basically, like being Neo in The Matrix II - being able to control your limbs rather than bash combos, use swords/weapons, etc.

I still think about it some time, I never decided if the very nature of it means it would be impossible to play since most of us aren't martial arts experts :)