I settled on the sensible name of “Twilight.” Literally a few weeks later the film came out in Theaters.
That reminds me of the comments on this Magic School Bus video
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To be fair, heists are perhaps the single most classic type of D&D adventure. “We need a way to get into Acererak’s tomb, grab his phylactery, and get out alive…”
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Yeah, I haven’t seen the movie yet (…I have an 18-month old, I pretty much haven’t seen any movie since 2021) but suspect by the time I get around to writing this it’ll be distinctive enough, or far enough away from the movie’s release, that people won’t think it’s too much of a retread. Worst case I just link to this thread in the ABOUT text to prove I called my shot 
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My games become white whales because I write so damn slowly.
I have an interactive toy of sorts called 3 pull poems which I started in 2020 or something, maybe 2019, lol. It randomly makes a three card spread of major arcana tarot cards. When you flip the cards over they have poems attached to them, and each card has 3 separate poems associated - one for each position it may be in the spread.
For 22 major arcana that’s 66 poems. The poems are less than 15 words each, and only three lines. I have been hovering around 40ish poems for maybe 2 years.
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So… at most you have 26 poems to go?
The submission window for SpringThing just closed, right? So, in about a year’s time, it’ll close again for SpringThing 2024, right?
52 weeks in a year, that’s about one 15 word poem every two weeks, or about 1 word per day.
Would committing to a word a day be too much with everything else you have going on? Even if you fell off the wagon for a week or two, a single afternoon would catch you right back up.
What do you think?
(Also, if you’ve completed 40ish poems in two years, this is the pace you were already working at, so you aren’t even committing to writing any faster, only to perseverance with a concrete goal in mind.)
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I should clarify - I wrote 30 poems in 1 or 2 years, and haven’t managed to write more than 10ish since
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If I came off as chastising, that wasn’t my intent. I was hoping to be encouraging, tbh. Regardless, it’s a cool idea and I hope you finish it.
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Same here, there’s WIP lingering whose have surpassed even Final Fantasy versus XIII/XV in dev time (some actually largely predating vXIII/XV, started in the mid-90s (Inform 5 and AdvSys…), when Final Fantasy was at VII/VIII…)
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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I’ve had a White Whale of a game idea for many years about the practical side (if one exists) of modern day witchcraft. It would take place over the course of 3 days or so, but there wouldn’t be enough time to do everything you possibly could. So you could replay it for kicks.
Anyway, what would a plausible form of witchcraft look like? Well, you’d have to cast your spells with a ritual from your Book of Shadows at night in your bedroom and you’d need proper ingredients (candles, stones, metals, symbols, colours, etc.) and some being from the person you are focusing the spell on. You’d have basic ingredients on hand in a wooden box by your bedside, but some might not be readily available and acquiring them is half the fun. After the rituals are cast (maybe you only have time for two or three each night or day), allowing some time to pass would reveal the effects of the spell. Maybe your money spell brought a bit of luck to yourself with a found $20 on the street that allows you to purchase something else that opens up more possibilities. Maybe casting it on another person brings some karma your way. Maybe that rude barista has a sudden case of the universe exacting justice. Could you bring two people together with a love spell? Would some spells take more than they give? Could you prevent a cruelty… or save a life even?
It has a bit of a Groundhogs Day vibe to it except that replaying the time frame is purely a meta-game thing. Still what would a weekend be like for a young girl, practicing witchcraft and hanging out with her friends? I just find it interesting to look at magic as a more subtle and perhaps, plausible concept. No hocus pocus stuff, just interesting ways to influence or gently nudge the world around you. It was more an idea around a point and click adventure at one time actually, but ain’t nobody got time for that. 
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I’ve had lots of white whales. For example a point and click adventure. Then I decided to approach small projects. For example IF instead of graphics, and a single chapter instead of a big game.
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Another white whale I’ve seen in the distance many times before is one of a dungeon crawler, but the focus is that of your relationship with your companion. I think it would be a fantasy, escape-from-prison scenario where you’re forced to work together, but ultimately choose to stay together the further the story goes. Sometimes the story would be out of your control at points and how you chose to treat your companion decides their choices and actions… and your fate. The same might go vice versa as well.
I imagined it as a third-person dungeon crawler where your characters are seen from behind as they protect each other, interact and overcome obstacles together. Kind of like watching a play (from behind) on a stage with the dungeon background moving and twisting in front of them as they traverse. They would only face ahead or face each other, so they never face you (the player) directly. You’d see full body shots so the opportunity for body language would be very rewarding, I think. I really like the idea of the characters being presented as loose, sketchy artistic impressions with very limited frames of animation. I remember being absolutely infatuated by the presentation of a DS game called Hotel Dusk.
This game concept is kind of inspired by Ico (which I’ve never played), but it would be a little more intimate, I think, and with less focus on difficult puzzles. Kind of a relationship simulation, I guess, under the guise of a medieval fantasy dungeon crawler, but without blatant romance. Yuck! That romance stuff can be the ruin of a lot of great stories in all forms. Gross! 
As a side note, I’ve noticed a majority of comments in this thread sharing their white whales without saying much of anything at all. Very vague stuff. I think this topic was supposed to be about elevator pitches. C’mon. Share something with substance, people. Sell the pitch!
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Some of us still think our white whales may yet be possible, and want to keep some surprises armed for future audiences!
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We are all delusional 
(me included)
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Yeah, definitely true for me! There are some classical books I want to transfer into adventure games. I mean really old books. I have lots of ideas, I’m an ideas millionaire!
One less realistic white whale for me is a MMO a bit like Neopets. With forum, chat, strategy game, deckbuilding game, RPG, pets (all MMO). There, now it is public!
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That, or worried the person next to us will steal our idea and do it much, much better.
Maybe the person next to us is worried about us stealing theirs, though. We all care about the same things deep down inside, amirite?
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That’s definitely my fear!
If I had the money for this, I’d pay someone to do it, if it was assured it would be better than anything I could do.
I just want the ideas to exist; my name is not required to be on it. It would be one less project for me to worry about, too.
However, it’s more fun for me if I make it, but that’s the only motivation I still have. If it seems truly impossible devoid of fun for me, then you will absolutely see me writing and posting a public project document, so someone can “steal” the idea freely, lol.
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YES! ALL THIS!!!
Honeslty, even if I fail to make it good, or if someone made it better than me, I wouldn’t deprive myself of a fun experience by trying to make the idea my own! (or give myself the dumbest challenges…)
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I had an idea for a game set in a school, where the point system worked as follows:
- When you get points, they work as “minutes” which have passed.
- Except that those aren’t the real minutes.
- So you have to constantly keep up with the 1 turn = 30 seconds, even if you don’t know what the real time is.
The thing is basically set in a school (I think I’ve already said that) where things are seeming a little odd. For example, the clocks show a random time and if you’re not even in the classroom, the teachers act as if you never existed (as in, don’t care).
Your friend has recently told you of a place under the school which he heard about through rumours, but then he also said that at the end of the week, somebody’s coming to close it off. He doesn’t know what that really means, but you want to take a look at the place.
And over the course of 5 school days, you must accomplish 5 missions in an underground maze which change your life permanently. You don’t have to finish them all, but they do advance in a specific order.
Like, one of the missions would take a whole day, and is set in a 6 x 6 x 6 maze, and you skip between 6 different years using time machines. The story is that an old facility used to work at making time machines, but it was abandoned as they were not safe and they didn’t have the money. The maze would mostly just be corridors, being 216 rooms, and I’d just use one room that changes exits.
The one thing these time machines affect you with is that for about 10 turns afterward, any text displayed would just return blank, as in replaced by a space, until you leave this blank phase. If there are any rooms that could make you go crazy if you looked at them, or are too scared to enter, could be entered because you don’t know you’re going in there, kind of. And if there was a drawer with a lock on it that you could see inside, and you know there is a book in that drawer (maybe seeing somebody put it in there in a previous year?), you can get the book.
…This adds the ability to have an extra puzzle (going back to see which book in the drawer did the owner put the note in - you can only hold one of them cause it’s too heavy), and also a memory thing of what to do next when in a “blank phase”.
…Oh, there are another 4 or 5 sections to complete. Anyway, this would be too much (Collab?) so I left it for now.
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I understand where the hesitation to share intimate ideas for games comes from. I just think it’s misplaced, is all. By posting only vague game ideas, it’s like you want to share, but can’t come to terms with it. So what’s the point of being vague in a topic about sharing grand ideas? That’s the crux of my observation.
If intfiction.org was a place where ideas were stolen and dreams were dashed, there would be a lot more amazing games out there. This place attracts thinkers… maybe over-thinkers, but thinkers nonetheless.
Anyway, I have this other amazing game idea where you hit things and they die and you get gold so you can buy stuff to hit more things. I can’t divulge much more than that because it’s going to rock the gaming world! I’ve probably already said too much!
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