What do you think about my game idea? prison escape

First of all, thank you for reading this.

So, I've been playing 'the escapists' these past couple of days and I enjoyed it very much, really a great game, the only thing I didn't enjoy as much was the fact that it was 2D. (I'm not a big 2D games fan)

I thought to myself: wouldn't be cool to make a 3D...well...similar game! I'm currently in the brainstorming and research stage. I'm aiming at a 'just cause 2' or 'csgo' level of graphics.

It's gonna be an FPS where you have to spend the days as a prisoner trying to plan your escape, you have cell shakedowns that are planned as well as random ones in high security prisons. You can do favors for people and get payed with money or items (trowel, screwdriver....). You can also sign up for a prison jobs (still thinking about them) to get more money.

I'm looking for a fully brain-teasing experience, where if you can think of an escape route, you can try it (so the player isn't stuck with the same escape plan for each prison)

I'd like to have a character editor (at least skin color, facial hair). Also, a full combat system with takedowns, crafting system. And maybe additional DLC levels and a map editor (though I doubt I can pull that off).

I'm still thinking about the specifics of this game, such as: items, jobs, favors for the prisoners.

I'd love to know:
- Do you think it's too similar 'the escapists'? (to the point that it's a copy)
- Would you play a game like this if it was executed well?
- Is the DLC additional maps a good idea or not?

 

Ahem.

Do you have the money? You're looking at something like 20..40 millions of usd in development cost.

That's the biggest problem with your idea.

Before thinking about that, you need to sit down, and jolt down the possible cost of every item you're going to need. Then you need to think hard whether it is possible for you to afford that.

With financial backing and with you alone this kind of game will not happen.

You might have the chance, if you give up on graphical fidelity. And that will be only a "chance".

 

If your idea is "[Game x] but better/different" it's doomed to fail

 

Any one else going to be shocked the day when this receives an affirmative?

 

"Why yes, I actually do have 40 million dollars! I keep throwing cash at my monitor, but my graphics still don't look like CS:GO, am I doing it wrong?"

 

well, thanks for the input,
I played both games at ultimately low and the graphics weren't all that good (believe me, don't play games at low graphics)
I'm well aware of the magnitude of those projects, I admit I chose a bad example.

the game is pretty closed enviroment, nothing other than the prisons.
All it takes for the game is about 50 models/props reused throughout the game. + there are tens of sources to get free assets that are still good quality, examples: mixamo animation store, mixamo fuse, blender, assets store

I can't argue with that philosophe, but, are there really any original ideas? most devs ride the same band wagon of zombie game or fps game.

hell no, I don't have that kind of money!!

Nice joke. But funding is not everything, funding a bad project is like poking a dead horse with a stick, it ain't gonna move

 

That doesn't QUITE work well, because you'll end up with lots of assets that may not fit well together. My own experience with mixamo store and animations wasn't exactly positive.

Funding IS everything. Skilled personnell has bills to pay and know what they're worth. The first sign that the project is not going to make it is lack of funding.

 

yeah, I experienced that too, but I'm not working on a AAA project, it's just a small indie/hobbyist game

 

You're not building a small indie/hobbyist game if your goal is to have graphics on par with Just Cause 2 or CS: GO.

 

Well, not necessarily. With tools like Substance Painter / Designer have now taken hours upon hours of work down to sometimes mere minutes depending on exactly it is you are texturing. It's definitely taken a payload of time out of the equation for me at least. But of course, I'm sure my experience has a lot to do with the artistic side of it. Starting off, never done something before, yeah it may not be so simple lol.

 

I agree, more tools and services push the indie games to the same standards AAA games had a couple of years back.

AAA =/= Graphics.
Indie games definition changes, look at 'the forest', its graphics are waaaayy better than just cause 2 and csgo but it's still considered as an indie game.

 

AAA = High Production and Marketing Costs. High graphical quality is definitely one of those big selling factors for people.

We've had discussions about this recently. Indie developers do have access to more tools, but the AAA studios have access to even more than they had before too. It's a constantly moving bar that an indie developer simply cannot reach.

 

In my opinion it's not so much that the art costs a lot, it's the experience you are purchasing.
I'd rather pay an artist 75 an hour an him take 3 hours to make something, rather than pay a freelancer 20 an hour to do it in 3 days (and most likely slacking to get more money) lol.

 

A AAA title isn't simply quality though. It's quantity too.

 

yeah that's what I'm saying. I'd rather pay 75 an hour (for the experience) to get it done in 3 hours so the next thing can get made.

 

@Ryiah Anyways, thank you for your input, I'll keep everything in mind and maybe lower my expectations. I don't even know if I'm going to do this project. But I'll see for myself

@N1warhead, thank you sir, for your input!!

 

You may also want to investigate/evaluate alternative engines like Unreal 4 and CryEngine V. You still need to have quality assets to make a quality game but they can often make life easier if you're developing a title that needs quality visuals. If I remember the discussions we've had on them in the past UE4 is primarily good at indoor and CE5 is primarily good at outdoor scenes.

 

yeah, I'll definitely check them out, maybe download one if I find it easy enough. From their website, I prefer CE5, oh my god, the graphics are absolutely stunning (way better than csgo LOL). Not sure though, I'm afraid, they'll be too hard for me.

I'll see if I'll stick with Unity or use another game engine. Thank you so much for the suggestion

 

Here we go again, $$$, AAA, etc.

Just make the game and post some screenshots/demo, and we'll tell you if it was a good idea to begin with!

 

LoL, for the record, I've never thought this post would go so funding based XD

I don't know if I'm gonna make the game.

 

To be honest, it sounds like a pretty hard to game to make. When you restrict the gameplay to the inside of a prison, with limited ability to do anything (can't fight, can't shoot, can't run around etc) it can get difficult to hold the player's attention - and the solution, which is to leverage to the extreme the more subtle aspects, such as the ability to communicate and interact with other people and your environment, scripting interesting events and calamities etc, is much, much harder to do than a simple fps with bangs, clangs and effects galore.

That's why I think you should simply try to make something - don't worry about the grfx for now. The idea is, if you really have the interest and game design skills to do it, you'll have no trouble spending an insane amount of time polishing the mechanics and player experience to milk everything out of it you possibly can, whereas if not, you'll quickly get bored and move onto something better suited.

And don't worry if for now the grfx look like something from 1998, if your prototype is good, you'll get great feedback here:




EDIT: Splinter cell: Double Agent has a pretty fun prison thing, might be worth checking out for ideas

 

You worry too much about graphics.
The difference between big and small studio is number of available people and quality of technologies.

Basically, a small studio can have 6 people. A big studio can have a thousand people. Needless to say, the studio with a thousand guys in tow will be able to make significantly bigger and significantly more detailed levels, they'll have better animation, music, and everything. Also, they'll be able to license more expensive technologies.

I'd advise to try to make a prototype and to create a list of all the assets you're going to need in your game. For 3d characters, number of animation clips alone can be quite high.

 

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE VALUABLE INPUT. But i think i'm gonna try my luck with another game engine, or maybe even another game engine

I was thinking about that, I LOVE that game. it's graphics are pretty good, I'd say a target for a lot of indie devs

yeah, gameplay is restricted, but not that much, you can run around, you can fight, but you still can't shoot. I was thinking of some boiler room fight club. taking down guards and stealing stuff but returning them before they wake up. quests to beat up fellow inmates.

I have literally tens of projects that I started but never finished because I lose interest quickly or I get into something hard and just quit. But, I want to start a project for real now

I think I'm gonna try my luck with another game engine, and maybe even another game idea, not sure

 

@abderrazak1307 : A different game engine isn't going to alleviate the challenges of making great art. Just remember that.

 

Amount of art-related work will not decrease with different engine. UE4, CryEngine, Unity, whatever - in the end you'll need same number of models, animations, sounds, etc.

 

@abderrazak1307 I think you really need to make yourself a plan of how you're going to get what you want, and stick to it. I've been there, starting things here and there and then dropping them, the funny thing is it becomes a habit and not surprisingly, happens again.

There's no shame in making something that isn't your dream game either, there is so much to learn and you'll be much better off for finishing projects and building skills, discipline and a solid work ethic that you can use later on.

So just do stuff. If your game is going to have stealth, practice building those mechanics in a smaller mobile project. If it's going to have nice graphics, practice making art in a similar, smaller project - make sure each project takes you one step closer to your end goal. And show it off here, people are always happy to see people actually doing stuff. What nobody likes is hearing game ideas, they want to see success. If game ideas were worth a penny, this forum would be glittering like the tomb of Tutankhamun ..

 

@Billy4184 - I agree as well.

Ideas are great and all, but they are worth absolutely nothing until put into practice.
But as Einstein says "Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge will get you from A to B, imagination encircles the world".

Which I've noticed a lot of people don't seem to agree with. Maybe they don't understand, I do not know, but I for one, do understand.

Your knowledge will get you where you can get, but not everything great came from knowledge and knowledge alone. You had to have an imagination to envision the future with said idea. Then to piece together the knowledge to make that idea a reality.

Everything starts with an idea, I do not care what anyone says, everything ever created starts as simple as an idea, which an idea derives around the imagination. If you can not imagine, you can not evolve the greater of mankind.

But anyways, this is not to become a debate, so anyone who tries to disagree with what Einstein said, don't even try to have a blown debate as to why or why you don't agree. This isn't the topic to do so.

 

@N1warhead, knowledge eclipses a few books, imagination eclipses the world, and stupidity eclipses the universe

But I agree, knowledge is what enables imagination to produce something. I think the OP has done plenty of imagining, now's the time to build up the knowledge to do it, by practicing.

 

Yup yup haha.

 

Thank you

yeah, I'll try not to eclipse the universe! no promises though LOL

Yeah, I know, but I heard unreal's marketplace has better quality models, maybe I can relieve myself a bit.

yeah!!! I know that

 

It does have better models, however everything costs more, and there is less content in general.

Speaking of which, Unreal 4 does not have mecanim, and that could cause issues for you in the long term. Mecanim is Unity tech that allows you to reuse animation from one humanoid on another.

 

Comment was not referring to you! look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

Unreal does support animation retargeting though.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/AnimationRetargeting/
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/RetargetingDifferentSkeletons/

 

I don't know about that, I'm mostly getting my 3d models online (.fbx), so I don't think it'll be a problem, also, I'm planing on learning 3d modeling.

oh cool.

oh haha, I knew it, it was just a joke.

 

I didn't know that, that's definitely something to look out for.

oh cool.

oh haha, I knew it.
I was just joking.

 

Have you worked with that? I have. It is nowhere close to mecanim, and doesn't work like mecanim.

The most amazing retargeting result was "sheathe the sword" animation magically turning into "tilt your head 90 degrees and use the sword to commit suicide".

Basically, for practical purposes you can consider retargeting mecanism to be nearly completely broken.

 

Only briefly around the time it came out.

 

Well, I worked with it on a project that was supposed to be a unity to ue4 conversion.

Unreal's system is potentially good, but it doesn't work nearly as well as mecanim does (mecanim glitches a lot, by the way and is quite far from being perfect). Another issue is with unreal's philosophy. In Unity humanoid animations are pretty much interchangeable. Any controller works on any humanoid. In UE4 they're tied to specific skeleton, and even when you retarget something, you get a copy of animation. That's very inconvenient, but it is just what someone with AAA budget would want.

 

If you're doing an FPS, the production values will need to be top notch, it is arguably the most competitive game genre when it comes to production values. Usually if its not AAA and big budget its going to fail.

You're better off doing an isometric/top down 3D game, you can get away with a much lower art budget while having the game looking good.

 

yeah, that's true, FPS is dominated by AAA and big budget games.

yeah, probably, but I wanted to do a First person stealth kind of action

 

Which is exactly what I am trying to do, after dabbling with a Third person perspective game for some time, trying out all the tools out there to speed up Texture creation (DDO, Substance Painter) I had to come to the conclusion that I rather go with lower resolution textures seen from further away than try to go through this detail-arms race and LOD-Nightmare that is FPS and TPS games with realistic(-ish) graphics in the age of Full HD and above resolutions.

 

Are people still really obsessed with amazing graphics? I thought that indie games had proven that style beats out technical prowess any day of the week. It's also why people are much more likely to go back and play SNES games than they are original Xbox (assumption).

 

Just a few minutes ago I stumbled upon this amusing advertisement and it leaves me wondering if we didn't get obsessed with graphics back in the early days of computer gaming too but simply forgot or chose to view the past through rose-tinted glasses. Or maybe I'm just rambling because I felt like linking this image and needed an excuse.

 

I remember how even the Atari 2600 had games touted as having "awesome graphics." We've ALWAYS been obsessed with them, even when the statement meant little more than "holy crap, I can actually tell that's supposed to be a human being."

 

Are you kidding me? Have you even seen the graphics in Minecraft, Undertale, Stardew Valley, Fez, Super Meat Boy, Monaco: What's Yours is Mine, Sportsfriends, Monument Valley, Prison Architect, Thomas Was Alone, VVVVVV, and N+? They're so realistic and phenomenal!

 

Yeah, when I first saw gameplay of Papers, Please, I thought it was a biopic about a real life country. I was shocked when the score screen showed up!

 

Of course people always obsessed with graphics. The only difference is that in 1995 you couldn't really fool yourself that 'photorealism' had anything to do with what you were looking at. But you'd better believe that devs pushed those poor little 133mhz processors for all they were worth!

I think a lot of this (foolhardy imo) attempt to run back down the escalator is a reaction to the difficulty of competing with modern AAA budgets. Fair enough, that's up to you ... but take your time machine back to your golden era and you'll find devs struggling to squeeze every bit of graphical fidelity out of what they had.

History always looks like it basked in contentedness and simplicity (before some awful intervention ruined our perspective!) but unfortunately that's just a product of our own insecure imaginations.

 

I'm very interested in what you are reading / where you saw that ad? Are you reading an old gaming mag?

I once had over 1,000 of them saved. When I moved to Missouri unfortunately they were lost. I might still have a few dozen out in the garage from the early to mid 80s.

 

Browsing reddits related to computer tech (/r/homelab, /r/pcmasterrace, etc). I don't remember the exact one.