Project H.O.P.E.

#1 You might want to think a little more over what your entire project will be about rather than just a small paragraph. Large projects tend to have multi-page design documents about every part of the game, so that you know what you're doing.


Help One Poor Executioner? I don't know, I hate acronyms

SBOALMASTICGSS...

#2 Home On Point of Existance

best i got hope this helps

#3 I prefer the idea of an alien planet being invaded by parasitic humans who have destroyed their own homeland and need another place to suck dry.

But that's just me. And a whole sci-fi subculture.

#4 @David - I like it. I was doing to say something similiar but you hit it. Tired of "Aliens" on their Home World being called... "Aliens". They're not. The Humans are!

@ Idiot - IMHO, if you can't describe what it is you're trying to do in a paragraph... NO ONE is going to read your design document. Ben is good to start this way and then develop a design doc based on feedback.

@Ben - I'm with David. You're doing a textbook FPS and using the typical way humans (in games, movies, etc) deal with being on/in a "hostile" environment. Space is a hostile environment. 2000 metres under the sea is a hostile environment. Creatures are sometimes hostile - if you piss them off or threaten them. Why must the "aliens" (more correctly the inhabitants) of this world be automatically hostile?
How about a survival game. A clash of cultures as in Foreigner series by C. J. Cherryh. Much more interesting.

Just my 2 cents worth since you asked for opinions :)

Whatever, just do it and have fun learning and doing it :)

No idea for an acronym. Sry

James

#5 Ya i thought about why attack the aliens last night

my team is also planning a survival game in an alien city after multi player mode is finished

O.K. your searching for a planet you crash theres is an alien(inhabitants) war because an alien(inhabitants) leader got killed one race of aliens acuses the other. one side is willing to let the humans(aliens) come there if they help them win the war

#6 @ Ben - LMAO! - now that's the ticket!!! Gulliver's Travels in Space!!!
Perhaps the war is long over (could be hidden tech all over the place), the inhabitants (aliens :) are in a "low-tech" recovery phase and unaware of what the "old tech" does. Here your humans can salavage parts/tech for their own ends. There can still be feuds and small scale wars going on to make things interesting but perhaps more on a skirmish level. Again, just some quick thoughts. Ignore if they suck :)

Still no ideas on an acronym...

Good Luck!

J.

#7 Thanks ill try were going for creepy and a full scale war isnt exactly that but with we can

#8 Ben, that sounds slightly like the game I'm making right now (and have developed for the last two years); well, at least the main plot seems similar. In mine, the sun dies and Earth is obliterated, and massive colony/warships have been sent out to find new planets, and the last ship does crash, but does not land on a planet--it is attacked by aliens, too, but this happens in space. Also, the game is broken down into three parts...the first part is repairing the vessel and driving off the aliens onboard, then getting back on course to the planet selected for resettlement. =)

Anyway, I strongly believe in originality and would never knowingly copy someone else's work or ideas, and would hate it if anyone did the same to me; in an effort to see how closely our games resemble each other (or not), would you be willing to email me so that we could share a few notes about our projects?
My game is by no means in any final stages of development, so I am prepared to change some things to keep our games from looking too much alike--if they in fact do in any major way.

Well, please let me know. Thanks.


Thomas.

BTW: the only thing I came up with for that acronym is Human Operations Protecting (or Preserving) Earth. Or maybe Human Objectives for Post Earth? Seems that the 'H' could be used for humans or humanity, and 'E' could be used for Earth...

#9 Hell On Planet Earth. Humanities Only Possible Escape. :) You could make the first part be where you must race to escape the planet before it explodes. You can make it pretty long too streaching your game out for more replayability. Oh how about this... This is pretty good. :) As the game starts it shows a massive ship being built, hovering robots with welders, jet packing mechanics and crew flying around fixing or building parts of the ship. As the camera looks down you notice that the ground is shaking and it fades into the FPS mode. From there you could take a mulititude of directions to get your people into space. Just my thoughts.

#10 How about Homely Old People Eating?

#11 @Ben

If you are going for creepy, then how about having the marines, scientist, explorers (trust me you need a diverse set of people to search for a new world), botanists etc. etc. Crash on a world that is just recovering from a war.

The original inhabitants are dead or changed in some way. The bio-weapons used by the original inhabitants are still active (no-one left alive to switch them off!). So while everything looks lush and welcoming and the team think they have had the biggest stroke of luck imaginable. It is only after the advanced exploration team goes missing that they realise things are far from what they seem to be.

I guess HOPE can be just that Last Hope of Mankind. A mission that has no failure option!

#12 I'm with David...

Make the humans the badguys... You are sent to fight on the alien planet and slowly understand that the Humans are actually intruding in their space! Slowly uncover the Humans' bad intentions and start fighting for the Aliens...

And maybe meet some hot alien belter along the way ;)

EDIT: HOPE... HOMELESS ON PLANET EARTH :-P

#13 I like davids idea too but it might be hard to change evryones mind.

#14 Sorry T G i havent started were still preparing

#15 People are extremely good at suspending their disbelief in games. Look at Katamari Damacy. It's a game where you roll around a ball and collect crap. That's the whole point. And it's fun. Switching perspective to humans as an invading force is a cool story twist in a tired genre of "world at war" games.

#16 Ben:

No problem. Just thought I'd check. There's so many similar games out there, and I want to make sure mine is unique--as much as possible.

David, I agree completely. I'm incorporating two separate storylines into my game; one is pro-human, the other is anti-human. So, the player has the choice to either support the human effort for survival of its species, or else the player can subvert it, playing as an alien or a machine.
I got thinking about this concept a year ago, how there hasn't been very done in the way of being able to *be* an alien (or something non-human), from the perspective of fighting a human invasion in its home territory. Usually games consist of the opposite...and you're right, it is a very tired theme.

#17 TG that sounds very much like Halo2 as far as playing as the alien... It did have a switch to it though by forcing you so if you were able to choose one or the other to finish the game it would be very unique yes. You could do some very interesting plot twists with using different species or characters to make the game different. Maybe unlock new technology for using the alien race hence better weapons.... I like your concept though. if you can flush it out into a smooth flowing game you can have a good winner.

#18 How about

Humans
On
Pink
Elephants

The humans invade a planet with pink elephants that shoot pink lasers!... I could even see a movie deal in that!!





ps.. no i'm not insane. (not yet anyway)

#19 How
Old
People
Eat

A game entirely devoted to getting the old man to eat through a straw.

*Instant Winner*

#20 Hmmm...the game I'm working on also has a crash landing on an inhabited planet.

Not hostile residents though, just protective/inquisitive/experimental : )

Mine does not start like that, but evolves to that in it's 2nd sub-plot shift.

More a ThirdPerson/FirstPerson RPG than Shooter though.

I wonder how many more are out there? I guess as long as it plays out differently....