Lately I've been working on a game using flash the game started out as a GTA clone driving, shooting all that good stuff with a top down 2D prespective like the classic GTA games but now I've reached a point of asking myself is this too much like GTA? is that a good thing? is it enough to get people's attention??

So I am asking what can I do to make it more unique?

For now I added a more RPG-ish mission system with many NPCs belonging to different factions all at war with each other and you choose who to side with killing one NPC means he's long gone all the missions that he might have provided are now gone
Which means more freedom but more responsibilty on the player you have to be careful

The other unique thing is a more FairyTale story telling but in a modren city the girl that wants to be the only beautiful girl in the city ... That sort of thing BUT when you look at the game and play the game it still feels very much like a GTA sandbox game
Which is good but I still want the game to stand out

Do you think that the features I listed make the game unique? Is it enough? What do you think a game like GTA is missing that I can add?

Personal opinion alert!

I would start making your game unique by moving away from referencing as "GTA clone", or trying to retrofit a "FairyTail" story to it. Come up with your own ideas, and see in what direction they take without worrying if you "stray away too much from the roots".

That said, as long as you are able to inject your own "DNA" into it, it often doesn't matter too much that a game might look or feel like smoething else... I never heard people complain too much about RPGs being too similar (safe the RPGMaker Spam which newadays floods Steam... kinda hard finding the non-spam among it because of the amount of titles).

Yet if we start comparing RPGs, the differences beside Story and Setting are often subtle.

The thing is, if you start coming up with a UNIQUE story (if you base it on something, like "FairyTail", make sure you iterate enough on it to make it something unique), you might start to change the visual style to fit the story... you might change or add mechanics that fit the newer theme better (like including magic isntead or in addition to guns).

Work long enough on it this way, and your game will no longer look and feel like GTA... Maybe your game now has a dark horror fantasy theme, like gothic fantasy-scifi looking buildings, freaky looking vehicles right out of some bad Heavy Metal Album cover, your character is clad in gothic attire and a vampire or ghoul?

It might technically still be a "GTA Like" game gameplay wise, but no player would say "that is just like GTA, meh!"... you certainly will have found your own unique selling point.

Add some additional game mechanics (Freaky guns on your freaky rides, making the city itself dangerous as buildings might swallow cars that get to close, or crush them in narrow streets by moving their walls, make your character be able to drink blood (or even needing to drink blood) of his enemies or civilians), and people might not even notice anymore where the roots of the game lie...

Now, what will be your unique story, how you can make that story stand out and how it could affect game play or visual style only you can tell. But I'd say work on it more, until you don't think "GTA clone" any longer when looking at or playing your game.

Making a game that's just like the original top-down GTA games wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It's been a long time since I've seen a game like that, and if it was well done, I would be happy someone brought it back instead of accusing the game of being unoriginal. I had that feeling when playing x-com clones like UFO: Aftermath before XCOM finally came back. While it didn't copy x-com 100%, it was clear that they were trying to bring back a game that many people wanted to see again, and copied a lot of what the original game did.

Castle Crashers also comes to mind, bringing back the old side scrolling beat em up genre that was gone. I think Castle Crashers is a good game to look at for how to modernize an old genre. They stayed true to the core of the old games, but added RPG elements like level ups to unlock new abilities, a bunch of different swords, unlockable characters, little pets that gave a bonus. Adding stuff like that could be very fun to include in a top-down GTA style game.

You can make the game about a beautiful girl who like her lifestyle. So [somehow] she became a driver (like Fast and The Furious) and gets paid that way. So you have your top-down GTA like driving with your fairy tale, beautiful princess story all wrapped into one.

Personal opinion alert!

I would start making your game unique by moving away from referencing as "GTA clone", or trying to retrofit a "FairyTail" story to it. Come up with your own ideas, and see in what direction they take without worrying if you "stray away too much from the roots".

That said, as long as you are able to inject your own "DNA" into it, it often doesn't matter too much that a game might look or feel like smoething else... I never heard people complain too much about RPGs being too similar (safe the RPGMaker Spam which newadays floods Steam... kinda hard finding the non-spam among it because of the amount of titles).

Yet if we start comparing RPGs, the differences beside Story and Setting are often subtle.

The thing is, if you start coming up with a UNIQUE story (if you base it on something, like "FairyTail", make sure you iterate enough on it to make it something unique), you might start to change the visual style to fit the story... you might change or add mechanics that fit the newer theme better (like including magic isntead or in addition to guns).

Work long enough on it this way, and your game will no longer look and feel like GTA... Maybe your game now has a dark horror fantasy theme, like gothic fantasy-scifi looking buildings, freaky looking vehicles right out of some bad Heavy Metal Album cover, your character is clad in gothic attire and a vampire or ghoul?

It might technically still be a "GTA Like" game gameplay wise, but no player would say "that is just like GTA, meh!"... you certainly will have found your own unique selling point.

Add some additional game mechanics (Freaky guns on your freaky rides, making the city itself dangerous as buildings might swallow cars that get to close, or crush them in narrow streets by moving their walls, make your character be able to drink blood (or even needing to drink blood) of his enemies or civilians), and people might not even notice anymore where the roots of the game lie...

Now, what will be your unique story, how you can make that story stand out and how it could affect game play or visual style only you can tell. But I'd say work on it more, until you don't think "GTA clone" any longer when looking at or playing your game.

WOW

thanks a lot ... reading this alone planted a bunch of ideas in my head and how much I can take this and expand it with all my "DNA" thanks sooooo much you're awesome