I have been stuck in coming up with fresh ideas for my next game and have just potentially found an “ok” concept. A few days ago when I was brainstorming ideas for my next game, a friend of mine told me to focus on a central theme that my game can follow. A theme that I always wanted to do was light and dark.
I like this theme a lot as not only can the gameplay surrounding this theme can be unique but also can allow me to connect personally with this theme. I have been playing tons of indie game lately and I noticed that most indie games portray emotion. Strong emotion that it actually allowed me to connect with the characters and story at a more personal level.
With the theme light and dark, I was thinking in creating a game where you play as like a light warrior or a chosen person of the light. As a chosen person of light, you are tasked by returning light to a kingdom that has fallen into darkness. I am currently writing the story of this.
Hi,
this theme is interesting but I feel it was covered at least hundret times.
This is bad but can be the foundation of a good twist. Let me explain.
Everone knows what to expect when a chosen person is heading out to bring back the light to a kingdom fallen to darkness. It sounds boring already. But that’s good too because you can play against these expectations. The truth is there is no light without darkness. Everything has to be in balance. The “chosen hero” could start as a naive, idealistic and cocky guy wanting to “smash the shit out of the evil and make everything right again”. On his way he meets some NPCs struggeling with the darkness but also NPCs using it to their advance. The latter comes step by step more and more into the story, so the player don’t get it right in his face. Later the hero accidentally kills a NPC because he brought back the light. In the middle of the story he notices that he was used by the king who now has more power than ever before. From this point on the hero needs to bringt back the dark in other places.
All these events can be the foundation of deep thoughts and story telling which I really like. For example the accidentally killed NPC could be an very old scholar fighting for the balance of light and darkness for his entire life. The hero first thinks he’s an old and crazy fool. After his death a gigantic chunk of darkness disappears and it feels like a massive victory for the player. Later it will feel the direct opposite when the player knows better. He just killed the only one taking care of the balance.
Another interesting point, if light and darkness need to be in balance in the first place, how was it possible to trick the hero to fight against the darkness? The hero could come from another kingdom outide this world. And as the hero (and the player) know or better said believe to know, darkness is bad and needs to be fought. That’s the entry point for the lies of the king.
The learning of course is that everything has it’s place in the world. Nothing is as it seems at the first glance.
Wow, thank you for the great suggestion! I know it’s not a lot right now but I just wanted to project my idea. Like the other day I was thinking to myself that the game should follow kind of like animal themed or something. Like Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight is a bug themed metroidvania which executes its environments perfectly.
So I am starting to design the protagonist and I quickly searched “light warrior” or “warrior of light”. The images I got was a figure with wings, which would make sense as like light is directed to divine or hope which was what I was going for. When the wings came up I was like maybe I could do the game bird themed. Maybe bird themed is a little cheesy at the moment but I feel that it could have a lot of potential gameplay wise.
A special and possibly mostly unused theme is also important for indie games, I think. You named a good example. As indies we can try things the “big players” wouldn’t dare.
Light and wings may be a little bit cliché (light > heaven > angel > wings). I would rather try to break clichés to make it more interesting and unique. As a simple example: instead of wings (direct symbolic association) the charakter could have giant eyelashes (indirect symbolic association) by which he could hover.
I love birds. The game I’m currently working on is bird-themed too, but not because they can fly (break clichés). It’s because I love them, their behavior, their looks. They can do things normal to them but funny to people which can be conducive for a special kind of humor.
However, birds in Jump’n’Run like games could be difficult if they can fly. Penguins could fit and they have a plumage resembling the main theme: light and darkness.
That was what I was thinking more of. Since the main protagonist is a light warrior, light mechanics could also make its way into there. There a few ways that wings can be a good mechanic.
I just wanted to say thank you for the views and comments on this simple post. I have posted this idea of mine as well on itch and tigsource forums and honestly godots community has given me much more feedback than the other two. For now I will continue to post more ideas on this topic here but will most likely make a devlog for this future game.
Thank you so much!
The game I’m currently working on is bird-themed too, but not because they can fly (break clichés). It’s because I love them, their behavior, their looks. They can do things normal to them but funny to people which can be conducive for a special kind of humor.