Hanako Games

Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#1 by hanako - Dec 15 2015

It was time for a fresh poll of heart-breaking concepts, right?

Let's be optimistic here - what might you hope that I'll be working on after Wolf Hall, even though you know you'll probably be disappointed?

(And as usual, you can ask about my vague concepts if you want, I always have more details in mind than I'm saying.)

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#2 by M_Keith - Dec 15 2015

Why must you taught me with a vampire raising sim, Hanako? That sounds freaking amazing.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#3 by Mir - Dec 16 2015

I'd be interested in hearing more about the last two options if you haven't already talked about them.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#4 by hanako - Dec 16 2015

The last one comes from a little quirk in history. (President, eventually) Grover Cleveland had a lifelong friend named Oscar Folsom, who had a daughter named Frank (later Frances). Mr Cleveland was a sort of uncle to this child, buying her toys and presents since she was a baby.

And then, when Frances was 11, her father died in an accident and Grover Cleveland became... not quite her legal guardian, she did still have a mother, but the administrator of her inheritance, and the director of her education...

... and then, reader, he married her.

(Well, not when she was eleven, obviously! She was 21 by then. He was 49. They were reportedly happy? And they did one of those things where they removed the word 'obey' from the marriage vows, too.)

So I've often joked about the Grover Cleveland Princess Maker game, in which you juggle trying to handle your own political career while keeping track of the upbringing of this little girl, and maybe you get to be president and maybe you marry her, or maybe you don't.

Unfortunately, this is a concept that is going to squick a lot of players, and an area of history that not that many people are interested in, so probably not much of a seller.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#5 by hanako - Dec 16 2015

The Revolution is a little more nebulous, as there are a couple of related ideas that might be involved, but I haven't quite settled on how to meld them together.

One is a very Les Miserables sort of thing, where you're trying to rally the people to rise up against their rulers, so you're running around the city splitting your time between trying to educate and strengthen possible revolutionaries, trying to undermine the people in power, and trying to get the people in power to lash out against the peasants just enough to make the peasants angry so they'll follow your lead, but not so much that they panic and lose all morale. Absolute bloodbath a very possible ending.

The other case is a more personal-level story in which you are a lowly servant for some sort of force of evil (evil prince? evil corporation?) finding ways to subtly ruin their lives by messing up small things that will snowball and eventually bring them down, while not getting caught.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#6 by aolbain - Dec 16 2015

hanako:

The last one comes from a little quirk in history. (President, eventually) Grover Cleveland had a lifelong friend named Oscar Folsom, who had a daughter named Frank (later Frances). Mr Cleveland was a sort of uncle to this child, buying her toys and presents since she was a baby.

And then, when Frances was 11, her father died in an accident and Grover Cleveland became... not quite her legal guardian, she did still have a mother, but the administrator of her inheritance, and the director of her education...

... and then, reader, he married her.

(Well, not when she was eleven, obviously! She was 21 by then. He was 49. They were reportedly happy? And they did one of those things where they removed the word 'obey' from the marriage vows, too.)

So I've often joked about the Grover Cleveland Princess Maker game, in which you juggle trying to handle your own political career while keeping track of the upbringing of this little girl, and maybe you get to be president and maybe you marry her, or maybe you don't.

Unfortunately, this is a concept that is going to squick a lot of players, and an area of history that not that many people are interested in, so probably not much of a seller.

Oh Grover.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#7 by MintChoco - Dec 16 2015

hanako:

The Revolution is a little more nebulous, as there are a couple of related ideas that might be involved, but I haven't quite settled on how to meld them together.

One is a very Les Miserables sort of thing, where you're trying to rally the people to rise up against their rulers, so you're running around the city splitting your time between trying to educate and strengthen possible revolutionaries, trying to undermine the people in power, and trying to get the people in power to lash out against the peasants just enough to make the peasants angry so they'll follow your lead, but not so much that they panic and lose all morale. Absolute bloodbath a very possible ending.

The other case is a more personal-level story in which you are a lowly servant for some sort of force of evil (evil prince? evil corporation?) finding ways to subtly ruin their lives by messing up small things that will snowball and eventually bring them down, while not getting caught.

Oh, I'm actually quite interested in the servant game. I hope that one gets made one day

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#8 by FantasyFan - Dec 17 2015

I'll keep voting for that lesbian steampunk VN until it actually gets made, although the idea of a vampire raising sim sounds awesome too.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#9 by TheBetterStory - Dec 17 2015

I am also dutifully voting on the yuri steampunk game, but I would play the heck out of a game where you're a rebel servant of the villain. (Also, the Grover story actually sounds pretty cute to me? But I am a terrible person, so...)

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#10 by bookworm37 - Dec 18 2015

I also voted for the lesbian steampunk VN because I voted for it last time and I still would play the heck out of it.

But I'd also love to play that servant one. Even more so after the Les Mis reference (I love that musical so much).

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#11 by Darksilverhawk - Dec 19 2015

hanako:

And then, when Frances was 11, her father died in an accident and Grover Cleveland became... not quite her legal guardian, she did still have a mother, but the administrator of her inheritance, and the director of her education...

... and then, reader, he married her.

I'm having The Door Into Summer (the Heinlein novel) flashbacks. Though, I have to say, a princess maker where you are also having to run your own country/political career sounds fascinating. I think it'd be cool to see it applied to a less... controversial... situation.

I voted for the revolution because it sounds fun, but honestly all of them sound fun.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#12 by Blue Rose - Dec 21 2015

Asylum. So much squee for the redheaded girl you posted at the end of the last thread!

Also, regarding Grover Cleveland? Yeah. Squick. So much squick. O.o

Though I would like to hear more about the vampire raising sim. How does one raise a vampire? They generally don't, y'know, grow. Up or otherwise.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#13 by hanako - Dec 21 2015

You are the loyal servant of a vampire master, your natural human lifespan extended by regular infusions of his powerful vampire blood. There's a little accident and your master ends up dead. That's okay, he has a vampiric childe who can just take over! ... she's a Really Seventy Years Old little girl he's been keeping like a doll, who doesn't even know what a vampire is, and just likes to bite things.

Your job is to run the household and train your new mistress in Being A Vampire in time for her to renew the blood bond and keep you alive.

"This is a telephone. No, don't bite it, that's not how you use it!"

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#14 by Blue Rose - Dec 21 2015

Huh.

That's interesting more in the, "That's weird and kind of cool," sense, but I'm sticking with the yuri asylum VN because that's interesting in the, "Ooh! Ooh! Grabbyhands! Take my money!" sense.

And that's before the cute redhead!

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#15 by Mir - Dec 22 2015

hanako:

The Revolution is a little more nebulous, as there are a couple of related ideas that might be involved, but I haven't quite settled on how to meld them together.

One is a very Les Miserables sort of thing, where you're trying to rally the people to rise up against their rulers, so you're running around the city splitting your time between trying to educate and strengthen possible revolutionaries, trying to undermine the people in power, and trying to get the people in power to lash out against the peasants just enough to make the peasants angry so they'll follow your lead, but not so much that they panic and lose all morale. Absolute bloodbath a very possible ending.

The other case is a more personal-level story in which you are a lowly servant for some sort of force of evil (evil prince? evil corporation?) finding ways to subtly ruin their lives by messing up small things that will snowball and eventually bring them down, while not getting caught.

If either of these ever went from games you're not making to games you are making, I would play the heck out of them/it. Especially the second one, oh my.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#16 by katicflis - Dec 24 2015

Space LLTQ should be getting some votes! Also, I loved FTL, so I represent the only vote that game got. Damn. Why am I a fan of the unpopular options? >.<


Can you tell me a bit more of the FTL-themed game?

And honestly my interest in your Yuri stories skyrocketed with Black Closet. Black Closet was so damn well done, and quite fun to play. So I could totally go with the Yuri Steampunk VN.




Your description of the vampire-raising wasn't what I initially imagined. I was thinking you actually would be a vampiress and seduce your preferred males to create paranormal infants and raise them and construct a massively powerful vampire family for some dark purpose.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#17 by hanako - Dec 24 2015

The FTLish game is a game I'd really like to play but may not be the right person to create.

It's very slightly inspired by an old 80s french cartoon called Les Mondes Engloutis (Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, if you were watching it on Nickelodeon, but it's not available *anywhere* in English anymore, so my memories of the whole thing are a little hazy. My French would be good enough to follow along if there were French subtitles but alas, nothing.)

The general concept is that you live in a weird city somewhere far, far beneath the surface of the earth, so much so that the surface itself is considered a myth among your people. For some reason you decide to lead a group of pilgrims on an expedition to try and find the the surface. You're exiles, or runaway slaves, or you had a vision, whatever.

As you travel, every layer you visit is randomly generated and bizarre, and you have to explore and try to figure out how to find your way to the next layer, while dealing with limited resources and your party which may not always get along with each other. You need to keep finding food and supplies, you can't go back home, you don't know where the next waypoint may be, and there are monsters out there. And you don't really know what you're going to find if you ever do get to the surface. Is there a surface? Is it paradise? Or is it hell?

Depending on which elements of FTL you enjoy, this may be nothing like it at all

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#18 by katicflis - Dec 24 2015

Maaaaah that sounds entirely awesome. *.* Why is no one else asking about this one?!


Ignore the poll -- make the FTL game. <.<

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#19 by Foelhe - Dec 24 2015

...That does actually sound really good. I'm all for it.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#20 by Ayanni - Dec 24 2015

No Cute Knight style game this time?

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#21 by hanako - May 8 2016

The vampire raising sim is the closest in this batch, since there would be little RPG-ish sections where she goes out hunting for people to bite, and she would have different futures based on how you trained her.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#22 by Pace - May 9 2016

You had me at yuri.....although the vampire one sounds interesting.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#23 by Fairyjade - May 20 2016

I will munch up on anything you make . . . I love you folks ^-^

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#24 by CrimsonDX - May 29 2016

Princess Maker. That game was one of my favorite games ever, and I have sadly yet to play another game that captured its magic for me, so I would love to see an attempt at that one.

If it had lily princess or LLtQ style graphics that would be even better.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#25 by Yuki - Jun 30 2016

hanako:

The FTLish game is a game I'd really like to play but may not be the right person to create.

Why not? I'd have though this would have been right up your alley.

As you travel, every layer you visit is randomly generated and bizarre, and you have to explore and try to figure out how to find your way to the next layer, while dealing with limited resources and your party which may not always get along with each other. You need to keep finding food and supplies, you can't go back home, you don't know where the next waypoint may be, and there are monsters out there. And you don't really know what you're going to find if you ever do get to the surface. Is there a surface? Is it paradise? Or is it hell?

This could be difficult if you're trying to tie everything that happens into a coherent story, but It depends. If random stuff just happens through the level and the story only kicks in when advancing to the next one, that should be easier. I'm currently working on something with similar mechanics (although the setting is completely different) and coming up with and implementing scenarios and events can be very time consuming if there are a lot of them; I've currently got several hundred entries at the moment. Unfortunately, it has to be that way with randomly generated stuff otherwise it can get repetitive. If you've got the time to kill, go ahead. It would be interesting to see what you do with it.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#26 by hanako - Jul 1 2016

Yuki:

If you've got the time to kill, go ahead.

Look at how few games I manage to finish and release as it is. I NEVER have the time. That's why these topics exist

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#27 by Yuki - Jul 2 2016

In that case, I'd do something else.

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#28 by Anonymous - Aug 12 2016

hanako:

The last one comes from a little quirk in history. (President, eventually) Grover Cleveland had a lifelong friend named Oscar Folsom, who had a daughter named Frank (later Frances). Mr Cleveland was a sort of uncle to this child, buying her toys and presents since she was a baby.

And then, when Frances was 11, her father died in an accident and Grover Cleveland became... not quite her legal guardian, she did still have a mother, but the administrator of her inheritance, and the director of her education...

... and then, reader, he married her.

(Well, not when she was eleven, obviously! She was 21 by then. He was 49. They were reportedly happy? And they did one of those things where they removed the word 'obey' from the marriage vows, too.)

So I've often joked about the Grover Cleveland Princess Maker game, in which you juggle trying to handle your own political career while keeping track of the upbringing of this little girl, and maybe you get to be president and maybe you marry her, or maybe you don't.

Unfortunately, this is a concept that is going to squick a lot of players, and an area of history that not that many people are interested in, so probably not much of a seller.

As described, it has a bit of ick factor in that it seems to me that you're raising a little kid in order to have sex with them later, even though that's obviously not what actually happened. And yeah, that sort of impression is not going to be very helpful for sales, obviously.

However, here's an idea that I hope might make it more palatable for folks who might be interested:
Your character is the leader of a sci-fi republic, the Stellar Federation or some equally vague and grand-sounding government (think along the lines of the Federation from Star Trek or the Alliance from Babylon 5), and during his/her term, he/she has to decide the course of events for the alliance/republic/whatever as a whole (classic kingdom management game, right?). When you first take office, you're assigned an intern who just turned 18 or the equivalent for his/her race, and you need to train him/her into the ideal personal assistant (Princess Maker-type raising sim), but at the same time, you're also trying to persuade this assistant to fall in love with you and hopefully marry you once you leave office and retire from politics or whatever (typical dating sim).

By making your assistant/future significant other of legal age at the start of the game, it removes the squickiness of raising a little kid into a love interest, IMHO. By combining kingdom management, dating sim, and raising sim elements, it makes it interesting to more than one group of players, plus adding unique challenges to players as well--do you forgo love in favor of being the best leader you can, do you train your intern to be your successor, do you try to win his/her love, or do you somehow manage to balance all three conflicting goals at the same time? Not to mention the crazy wide-open range of endings you could have for such a game.

Of course, if it sounds as though I'm possibly nosing about for a freelance job as a game designer, well...

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#29 by ThePokeGirl - Aug 12 2016

While I'm very intrigued with how you would do a vampire raising sim, I'm going to sit here praying that you don't because I'm currently trying to make one and yours would blow mine out of the water.....but I'd still totally play it anyway ......

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#30 by Anonymous - Aug 15 2016

hanako:

You are the loyal servant of a vampire master, your natural human lifespan extended by regular infusions of his powerful vampire blood. There's a little accident and your master ends up dead. That's okay, he has a vampiric childe who can just take over! ... she's a Really Seventy Years Old little girl he's been keeping like a doll, who doesn't even know what a vampire is, and just likes to bite things.

Your job is to run the household and train your new mistress in Being A Vampire in time for her to renew the blood bond and keep you alive.

"This is a telephone. No, don't bite it, that's not how you use it!"

Does it have to be a vampire, specifically? I can see how this idea could actually work in several different scenarios, making for a much more interesting game:
1) Mad Scientist and servant--your character, the servant, is a Frankenstein-type monster whose last master was killed by an angry mob, and you've discovered that he/she has one last living relative, a brilliant scientist who just needs a few little pushes into "the madness place" to become a brilliant mad scientist and your new Master/Mistress (possible endings include Mad Scientist, Sane Genius [Master/Mistress keeps you, but instead of you turning him/her to the dark side, he/she persuades you that being nice is more fun], Master/Mistress Committed to Asylum for Life [need to find a new potential Master/Mistress to serve...], etc.)
2) Vampire and "Renfield"--as you described; you have to train Master/Mistress into the perfect new Dracula/Carmilla-type undead fiend
3) Kitsune or other yokai and human love interest--similar to #2, but with an Asian/anime twist, maybe? Could also lend itself to dating-sim elements (i.e. you have to persuade the yokai that you'd be the perfect human bride by guiding him/her through Yokai Court events, learning how to use supernatural powers properly, etc.).
4) Evil Sorcerer/Sorceress--similar to #1, in that you've found an apprentice sorcerer/sorceress and need to guide him/her through the creation of the perfect killer dungeon by hiring (or creating) monsters, learning new spells, turning unsuspecting peasants into monster slaves, etc.
...and so forth.

This would definitely make a fun Comedy/Horror genre raising sim game, especially with a few dating sim elements (i.e. working to get the Master/Mistress to trust you enough to listen to your advice, maybe even helping him/her create a harem of vampire "brides"/army of monster minions/etc.). Along with the Steampunk lesbian games, this is one I'd like to play, actually!

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#31 by Spiky Caterpillar - Aug 16 2016

Kitirena:

Of course, if it sounds as though I'm possibly nosing about for a freelance job as a game designer, well...

Hanako requests we please avoid posting game ideas for her, because she can't read 'em (they can lead to legal complications, she'll explain in more detail when she's back at a Real Computer.)

If you have a detailed game idea that you want to flesh out, you might want to grab an appropriate engine and start making it. Ren'Py is good for visual novels and raising sims in the LLtQ style; Game Maker is good for more actiony games - Cute Knight, Cute Knight Kingdom, and Fatal Hearts were are all written in GM; when I'm doing a non-Ren'Py project I usually use Pygame. (Which can be embedded in Ren'Py with a bit of extra work)

Re: Games that AREN'T being made (but you wish they were)

#32 by hanako - Aug 22 2016

(I'm home, still quite sick but at least I have a keyboard now)

In general it's not a good idea to try and hand game ideas to me. For one, I have a zillion of my own already (which is one of the reasons these threads exist, just so I can tell y'all about a tiny fraction of the ideas I'm thinking about which will probably never go anywhere). This brings up a couple of problems. For one, I have so many ideas that it's not impossible for any idea someone suggests to be very-vaguely-similar to something I was thinking about already. If I eventually make that game, and then someone is all "That was my idea! I suggested that!" when it's not true, that can lead to a lot of hurt feelings and disappointment, even if it doesn't lead to lawsuits (There have been a few cases where people have tried to sue authors for supposedly stealing their ideas, leading to some writers being even more paranoid about the whole thing than I am.) The other problem, of course, is just that I have too many ideas already and don't want more added.

There are a few times when I'll reach out to the board for suggestions, usually in updates to particular games, but those come laden with caveats about how any ideas posted are being given away, and since they're specific to the existing game, there's less likelihood of confusion.

If you want to post game ideas that are free for ANYONE to use, it's fine to go ahead and do so in the fan works or make-your-own-games section, just stick a note on it that anyone is free to take your idea and run with it. There's an Ideas Dump thread on another forum I go to that's for exactly that reason. I used to dump a lot of crazy ideas out there in the past. I don't THINK anyone ever made full games out of them, but I'm not sure. And then, one idea I posted to the dump I eventually decided to go back and make the game myself.

But please don't post them here in the secrets area or email them to me. When I get those emails I have to basically delete them without reading the rest of the mail at all, which means I'll miss out on whatever else was said. I'd prefer if it you snipped those bits out of your posts here so I don't have to avoid reading that page.