I’ve dabbled just enough with Unity to know that I don’t have anywhere near the skill I need to make the games I long to play. I have two games that I dream of playing. Had I the skill (or the the team, or whatever) these are the games I would make, because they’re the games I want to play.
1.) For a frame of reference, think The Guild series as a jumping-off point. There were a lot of things I like about those games. But here’s how I see it: You start like as a lowly tradesman. In my head, your choices are roughly a.) criminal - thief/swindler type, running cons and theft jobs to get your start, b.) soldier, working your way up through military ranks, and c.) merchant, obtaining resources and crafting goods, starting various shops, etc. (Pretty much The Guild, so far.) But we have bigger goals. Through a combination of wealth and influence, we are trying to elected mayor of our town, at which point the game shifts somewhat. Now, you’re dealing with the town at a macro level. All of that phase 1 stuff is still happening (and ideally, you can zoom back in to that at any time) but now you’re looking at securing resources the town needs, negotiating trade routes with nearby towns, and passing ordinances to keep your local economy healthy. Eventually, the goal of this stage is to be elected (or acquire via conquest/takeover) sort of a regional governor position. At this point, we’re transitioning to sort of a 4X style game, but I’d like to be able to zoom back in to the micro level at any point. (At this point we’re kind of Grand Ages: Medieval, here.) And unsurprisingly the goal here is to manage regional resources/economy/industries to move to more of an emperor scale, with the ultimate goal of world conquest (or negotiation, etc.) I take a lot of inspiration from The Guild 2 here, but it needs more Big Picture.
2.) Basically – and this is a game I will build if I ever get the programming skills – this game is a Firefly tactical RPG. Fallout meets Xcom in a Firefly-esque universe. (Obviously, I have no dreams of acquiring that license, and it’s not necessary, but that’s the feel of the setting I want.) You start out as someone running odd jobs locally (and of course there’s a background selection here,) until you’re loaned a ship to run an off-planet job. In progress of this, you learn of an old [army?] buddy who has been imprisoned and you need to secure his release, legally or otherwise. (Persuasion, bribery, jailbreak.) Job leads to job (and we have a thriving economy, so some of these jobs can just be "buy low, sell high, smuggle goods, ala Patrician games) leads to you assembling a crew. All combat is tactical (including, ideally, ship combat.) Ship is upgradeable, pilot skill grants new perks in ship combat. Big picture is probably some civil war or another, or maybe it’s a very personal journey, I haven’t worked that out yet. But it’s very much a ‘Space-western tactical RPG’ and I want it very, very much. @divedivedive apparently doesn’t, but I’m sure plenty of people do.
Oh, and naturally, an open-world Star Wars RPG, but I wouldn’t even DREAM of trying to develop that one myself.
What are your gaming Holy Grails?