I'm putting out some blatant marketing feelers today because one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the type of games I want to focus on making the most but more importantly what type of games do I actually play the most? The thing that smacked me in the face a lot was how much I enjoy grand strategy type games.
The problem with that is of course, there aren't that many of them out there that I haven't played to death and the ones that do exist are created by companies that are trying to wring their playerbase dry as much as possible like Paradox Interactive and Creative Assembly.
So with that in mind I've been wondering about the type of grand strategy game people would want that doesn't have the DLC garbage spammed everywhere. What sort of features would you want to see? As for the setting, I'm kind of thinking of having a fantasy setting but allow you to control Romans as part of the main story.
Sort of like the anime GATE but in the reverse and I'd have it where Rome ends up invading a fantasy world which would be hilarious I think but also somewhat interesting. There are also frequently used features in grand strategy that I find very annoying which I would probably remove or fix somehow like diplomacy spam for example. I do know that Age of Wonders exists, don't get me wrong but boy did that game need to be optimised, don't know if they've fixed the issues yet.
Speaking of Romans in a fantasy word did you read Jim Butcher's Codex Alera books? If you did ignore the rest, but if you didn't I'll summarize. The fabled lost Ninth Roman legion gets teleported to a fantasy word where there are elemental creatures that they can bond with and gain powers.
Butcher wrote it because someone dared him to write a story that combined the 9th legion with Pokémon.
LOL I haven't even heard of those books at all but that's hilarious, I think it would be a potentially interesting twist on grand strategy and give me a way out to butcher historical character designs without getting the history autists mad. I've been pondering this a lot and I realised with the Godot engine a grand strategy would be surprisingly simple to pull off if I'm not being silly about the mechanics. I play Rome Total war to death as well so it kind of makes sense from my perspective to do it potentially. Just thinking about all the genres I feel like I'm badly missing out on.
The other stuff is space sims, good old fashioned normal FPS' and RPGs, I've got the code assets for all of them setup now so I'm having a deep think.
That sounds like the Visionaries cartoon from the 80s.
I don't remember that one, I have something to google now
Out of curiosity, since I've been reading his work for a while, is the Cinder Spires series any good?
I love it.
The first bit of the second book is a bit slow, but I blame it on him writing them years apart.
But his aerial battles are really great and I actually like his teenage characters. It also has talking cats, steampunk shit, all kinds of good stuff. It's good fun.
I've only read the first book and it was good
Personally, I'd say it's the least good of his works, but still enjoyable. His other two big series are better, and Cinder Spires is a bit too trope-y, without the humor to make up for it, but still a fun read. It's no Dresden Files, and it's no Codex Alera, but if you've already read those, give it a shot.