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.
One thing I've really begun to appreciate recently is that the best games are created by people who are very well studied in history/philosophy/mythology/mysticism and such. I feel as though one big problem with the modern games industry is there are way too many people getting into it while knowing little to nothing about anything other than computers. Whatever you decide to base your game upon, I would recommend devoting some time to researching relevant subjects to draw upon for inspiration.
But they can lecture us about the pay tree are key, systemical raycissisms, and a wide array of gender fluids.
Unironically, this is what made me actually gain a small amount of respect for Ken Levine years later with Bioshock Infinite.
Game is still trash, as is its writing. But the level of knowledge of history and American culture from history is astounding for a guy who is trying to shit on and mock it.
He, or someone, at least did their homework in actually learning about the time period and the obscure little forgotten details of it to make their stupid point about racism bad.
It's funny that the almost-angelic painting of John Wilkes Booth in Infinite is closer to the truth than Levine will ever admit.