Any type of game (sandbox, RTS, etc) where the landscape changes dynamically.
All games are either player vs player or player vs mobs or player vs game-mechanics-that-affect-your-stats. But I have never played a game where I have to consider a river overflowing and destroying a village, or an avalanche, or earthquakes.
Even when there are environmental hazards, the base map never changes. Rivers never change their course, islands don’t appear or disappear, oceans don’t dry up, dams don’t burst, quarries aren’t excavated.
The world and nature are always dead and static.
Edit:
Actually, Dwarf Fortress does tick those boxes quite often.
Check out Timberborn, it doesn’t check all of your boxes but a lot of it revolves around water management - building dams and reservoirs, diverting rivers, surviving dry seasons, etc. At its core it’s just a fun city building game and I highly recommend it if that sounds good to you. It’s 20% off ok Steam right now too.
If you haven’t played it, Battlefield 4’s commander mode sounds kind of like what you’re describing. People are still online (at least on PC) and welcoming to commanders.
Warcraft III had maps called "RP Maps", which were kindof like D&D placing things, except everyone had the same control over the map. So it became more about telling a story rather than one person leading a group's game for them.
When wc3 kindof died off that kindof game along with many others didn't leave it. SCII mapmakers tried but it had issues with the complexity, and with SCII not allowing traditional saving for long sessions.
A lot of sandbox games are cool, but built around FPS engines instead of anything third person.
Hey I made a roleplaying inspired Starcraft 1 map back in the day! Player 1 was the DM, I had different ways to spawn and send units to various parts of the map, or resources to players. So I would do things like spawn in a neutral and a hostile faction and be like ‘there are bandits fucking with the locals’ or whatever. Whoever went in and saved them I could pop another trigger to gift the neutral units to that player, or I could gift resources. It was clunky but a lot of fun.
I remember some of the roleplay maps with automated ‘DMs’ were really interesting. I was much more interested in playing with a live DM though so I built that map in the hopes that the style got enough traction for me to be a player. It did not take off though compared to the auto roleplay ones
Social Anxiety Survival Horror. You’re a guy at a friend’s party trying to avoid conversations while putting in an appearance with your friend so they know you were here. You can deflect conversations with small talk you pick up by eavesdropping, but it won’t work on drunk people, so you also need to run and hide. Your ex-partner eventually shows up and is hunting you down to have a frank conversation about your relationship, which is instant game over.
I haven’t played it - and the “social anxiety as horror”-slant feels more metaphorical than literal in its marketing - but this makes me think of the game “Homebody” a bit
I had a very similar idea but it’s about avoiding contact and conversation out on the street and on public transportation. May or may not be influenced by real life experience.
Good. Someone, please make this. And make it first person for the full effect.
Other ideas for people to pinch:
You can only use each snippet of small talk once before collecting it again, because you’re afraid of repeating yourself.
The game is filled with collectibles, but they’re all located on the floor, so you’re more likely to find them if you’re in character and looking at the floor the entire time.
To pause the game, you have to look at your phone while standing in a quiet area.
Your ex-partner has a lengthy list of grievances you can hear when they’re hunting you. This includes “you always run away from me at parties”.
What about Panic Disorder Survival Horror? You have to get through a full week, including 5 work days, 2 social events, and an errand…except you can have a panic attack at any time but also have a heart condition, so you’re not sure if you’re really having a panic attack or heart attack. If you guess wrong, you lose. Also you have to have a completely empty bladder and colon so you don’t soil yourself at work and get fired or in a social setting and lose friends out of embarrassment if you happen to have a panic attack in those settings. Easy mode comes with a script for xanax. Hard mode comes with an abusive stalker ex and their family.
I’d argue twin stick shooters like this are VS grandpa. Random-ish waves of enemies, bullet hell, increasing difficulty… The main differences are the powerups instead of permanent level ups, usually the lack of autoaim (right?) and maybe lack of meta progression.
Crypt of the Necrodancer lets you add custom music. I don’t think it is able to handle music streaming though it is a bit of a manual process iirc. The gameplay is pretty different from Vampire Survivors. Basically enemies all move and attack in patterns that increment based on a beat, and you need to time your movement and attacks to the beat as well. Fun game
A realistic singleplayer shooter game with multiple settings from WW1 right through to the Vietnam war. Extensive maps, vehicles, and weapons. You can play anything from an infantry soldier to the captain of a battleship or pilot of a bomber.
Like 5 to 10 seconds for a turn, everyone lodges their turns and over the next 10 seconds the characters play out their actions with complex complications for unplanned conflicts. Like a guy running though someone elses thrown grenade or two guys trying to run through the same doorway.
A game where the main missions feel like the early Silent Hill games but there are parts between where you explore a densely populated urban area like Cyberpunk 2077
No Man’s Sky but with the combat of Everspace 2, the economy of Endless Sky, the base defense of 7 Days to Die and fully developed factions and species.
Additionally, Payday 2 oddly allows co-op between players on standard controllers and those in VR. That’s less interesting since they have the same abilities regardless of control method.
I’d love to see more games that explore asymmetry. Ever since Evolve ate up all my time for 2 years I’ve been looking for the next great asymmetric game and not enough devs have ventured in VR for that purpose.
There is a lot of potential in asymmetrical games in general with certain players having access to different information and strategies than others due to their perspectives… letalone adding VR to the mix. I am imagining that the VR players can pull out a clipboard or tablet containing secret info, in order to try to obtain separate objectives or even hamper the other controller based players with them having to ferret out the traitor or stop the VR faction from achieving their objectives!
Oh no for sure lmao. When I first started playing I would literally just exit the game if I heard a floorboard creak
But it gets sooooo good the more you play, especially on the higher difficulties where ghosts suppress some of their official “evidence” types and you have to rely on your knowledge of each ghost’s unique traits. Genuinely of the most rewarding detective style experiences I’ve ever played