Coming up with a good idea for a game is easy – anyone can do it. Hell, I do it on a more or less weekly basis while working on something else. There’s a reason why everyone seems to have an idea for the game they want to make – the problem is that they also need someone else to write, code, and do sound and art for it.
Which is all to say that coming up with ideas is easy. It’s also fundamentally useless on its own.
Good ideas are not completed games – any more than they are completed novels, films, or paintings. Because they take so little labour to produce, they are common, and therefore by either the definition of the labour theory of value and the theory of supply and demand, are fundamentally worth very little. What makes them worth something is the work needed to turn them into something tangible, something which can be read or seen or played. It is that work which is the hard part – as well as the part which needs to be taken into account when considering which good idea for a finished work is worth pursuing as a good idea for a project to embark upon.
So, what do I mean by this? Simply put: every idea requires different amounts of work, different amounts of time and resources, and different skills to pull off in a way which fulfils that original vision. While your imagination might be limitless, your ability to convey the contents of your imagination to a wide audience is not: that requires text, images, music, sound, and code – not to mention the time and the money needed to implement those things or hire someone else to implement them. As a result, the key consideration here is the amount of time and money you are able to budget to a project. How big of a scope will a given idea require to be viable? How much in the way of resources can you afford to spare? What parts of that vision are you willing to compromise if your resources can’t match up to that scope?
Likewise, who is this new project for, and what is it for? If you’re doing something for yourself, as a passion project with no expectation of getting a wide audience, then it’s fine to just do whatever you feel like doing. That’s how I got started, and as it turned out, enough people liked that very narrow niche to keep me going. At the same time, if you want to maximise exposure or commercial success, you might want to pick something a bit wider in scope. There’s nothing selfish about doing this – you are going to be committing an unspeakable amount of time and money towards even a small project, which means that it’s perfectly fine to want to get something out of it, whether that be fame, or money, or both. That means it’s important to ask yourself just how broad of a segment of society you want to appeal to, and what balance you want to strike between writing what you want to write and writing what other people want to play or read or see.
These are the questions you need to ask yourself when you consider the ideas you have sitting in front of you as you contemplate a new project. Personally, I try to make this easier on myself. When I get a new idea (usually when I should be working on something else), I take a few hours to write that idea out in a set of notes, considering basic mechanics, required resources, and general scope. By the time I’m done, any creative zeal I might have felt towards that idea would have faded, and I’ll be able to go back to working on what I should have been working on. In the meantime, I’ll have had a new idea written down and filed away, something I can easily grab a hold of and evaluate when I do have time for a new project.
So what does this process look like in practice? I’m glad you asked, because I’ve got a few ideas I’ve saved up over the past few months, which means I can go ahead and show you what they are, what they’d require, and how I choose which one to go forward with.
At this point, you might be asking why I’m not opening the floor to outside input on which thing to choose, given that this will basically be a Patron-funded project. There’s three reasons for this. The first is that I know my own resources and my own skills best, and that means I know what I’m going to be capable of with the time I can spare for this project. The second is that I want to make sure it’s a subject I have an interest in, so I can motivate myself to finish it. Lastly, there’s the fact that demonstrating the process of picking one of these ideas also means demonstrating the rationale behind the choice I make, and I can’t do that if I let you all make that choice for me.
So, the ideas I’ve been considering:
BERLICHINGEN:
Core Mechanics: Character Management, Roguelite, Settlement Management, Political Simulator.
What is it: Control a noble family in the Holy Roman Empire through the tumultuous era between 1450 and 1650. Guide successive generations of minor aristocrats through the Burgundian Wars, the Reformation, and the cataclysm of the Thirty Years’ War. Develop your estate, develop your character’s skills, raise their heirs, and pick up where you left off when you retire and those heirs inherit. Garner influence with the factions within the Empire, fight as a mercenary captain, amass wealth and prestige, and maybe change history one way or another.
Why I’m not doing it: Simply put, this project has too many moving parts, most of which require a level of graphical interface that I’m not confident in developing myself. Some of the mechanics will require artificial intelligence mechanics which I don’t think I can handle yet, and I don’t have the time to learn – or the resources to hire someone who already knows how to do it. On top of all of that, the time period and setting are niche enough that it’s unlikely to appeal to a wide audience. I still want to do this at some point, but I suspect if I ever do, it’ll be after I get the resources to handle a much more complex project than the one I’m contemplating now.
TSAR AND AUTOCRAT:
Core Mechanics: Party Management, Political Simulator, Epistolary Narrative.
What is it: Step into the boots of the last Emperor of Russia as you navigate two decades of his tumultuous reign. Balance the interests of your ministers, your family members, the common people, the aristocracy, and other more enigmatic figures as you try to keep the Empire from revolution, disintegration, or the prospect of an unwinnable war. Give the people what they want by giving them reform and representation – or do exactly what Nikolai II did in real life, listen only to your bad advisors, ignore your good ones, make only bad decisions, and end up shot full of holes in the basement of the Ipatiev House.
Why I’m not doing it: At first, I thought this would be the perfect concept, both in terms of scale, and in terms of resources. It’d be a relatively small story game focused around the experience of a single human being for which an immense amount of documentation exists, set in a period of history a lot of people are probably interested in. Yet as I read more into the topic, I realised just how many moving parts there were in the imperial inner circle during that period between 1895 and 1917 that I’d have to juggle. We’re talking a dozen or so close relations, a procession of informal advisors and radicals, and a continually revolving door of cabinets and councils. On top of that, by committing to the narrow perspective of a single man (and not a particularly pleasant one at that), I’d be limiting my audience to the kinds of people who’d be willing to engage in that perspective. It’d be more work than I was expecting (especially since I’m not exactly an expert in this particular time and place), and arguably not worth the narrow appeal of the story I’d be telling.
And finally, after those two rejects (and a few more which I put aside because I was able to realise that obviously didn’t have anywhere near the time and resources just as a glance), I settled on this one:
SHADOW OF THE EAGLES:
Core Mechanics: Character Management, Political Simulator.
What is it: Take the role of a new volunteer recruit in the armies of the French Revolution, at the very beginning of the War of the First Coalition. Win glory, treasure and the favour of your superiors through the Wars of the Revolution and Napoleon. Make your decisions carefully to avoid wounds, privation, and the blade of the guillotine. Meet, befriend, or plot to ruin figures from one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Rise through the ranks in a series of campaigns and historical battles. Become a general, a Marshal of the Empire – perhaps even Emperor yourself as you march in the Shadow of the Eagles.
Why I’m doing this one: There are three reasons I ended up choosing this concept.
The first is that it’s simply something I want to do. This is a sort of setting and style I have experience writing in, and I already own a whole bunch of useful sources which cover the time period.
The second is that it’s mechanically simple enough to make for a relatively compact game, while providing enough complexity as a concept to make it modular enough to expand out of. It could very easily be all-text, but at the same time, I can see where I could include music and sound and all kinds of other bells and whistles.
The third is that I know the audience is there for it. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars are pretty popular as historical settings go, and I know there’s plenty of people out there who love the idea of playing through a soldier rising through the ranks to a position of power and influence. The Dragoon Saga already provides some of that experience, and I know that brings people in – this is perhaps a more distilled version of that experience, without as much in the way of politicking or character interaction as there is in my “flagship” series. You’ll be able to rise from volunteer to Marshal of the Empire in the space of a single game, in a few hours, instead of having to wait for years for me to finish the Dragoon Saga.
Though, of course, if this brings in more Patrons, then it’ll let me finish the Dragoon Saga faster.
Next time, I’ll be talking about some of the sources and inspirations I’ll be using for this project, as well as how the things they do right (and the things they do wrong) can be iterated into some basic gameplay principles, which in turn can be assembled into the mechanics which will serve as the bones to put our narrative meat onto.
Paul Wang 