Game Idea

This was an idea I had way back. It's in a cyberpunk setting, where a lot of countries are totalitarian, poverty and polluted. Some governments have become corrupt and you can protect the innocent. Some governments have been dealing with other criminals and have limited freedom and even spiritual practice, calling it a fraud and unnecessary. You find refuge under resistance groups you find groups that want to help restore freedom and not only use advanced technology but also have spiritual magic powers, able to contact tree spirits, devas and angels as well as use spells to help them with their mission. Over the course of time, you encounter enemies that take form as gang members terrorists, drug cartels, evil cults, robotic drones corrupt police but also creatures that people thought were myth like imps, some jinn, ect.


You also find out that the main villains are in charge of some of the governments who want to rule and also find out that they are actually very spiritual and religious and are cult-like. They denounced magic because they realize that those who use it have an advantage and if they got rid of it, they'd have the advantage. This would be a First person role playing game and with the character creation design, it'd be on par or surpass the sims as you can have just about any kind of human you want like a white person, black mulatto mexican asian or a mix of them. Or you can just post your face on the character. You can have a wide variety of technology as well as spells and magical practice too involving nature orientated and holy practice.

You can also use chi to enhance your physical strength, heal yourself and make contact with spirits as well as blessing others and making yourself less noticeable among enemies.

Wouldn't this basically be a first person Shadowrun game?

In a sense but it would have a character creation system that's on par with the Sims on how you can design the character. I'd also try to make magic more realistic one what actual magic would do since we know magic won't let you throw fireballs or have a cherry tree bear tomatoes or something like that. This would involve real legends like the Golem, Holy Grail, ect. It would also involve aliens and the world in basically a one world government and is already taken over.

Shadowrun talks of the emergence of magic, but this would involve magic being heavily suppressed and purposely kept that way so others won't know about it. It would involve being in contact with resistance groups who want their freedom. It'd be similar but very different.

Sounds more like an idea for a setting, that might be good for a variety of media, rather than necessarily a game.

Something I've had to learn in my studies is that a "game idea" starts strongest with underlying gameplay mechanics, not the story or setting which are ultimately just flavor text (unless you're making a visual novel).

So, in this hypothetical game, what would be the "core" mechanic that defines it and binds together the rest of the mechanics?

If you're not sure how to answer than question, consider this: if you were given a month to create a prototype in Unity (or some other free engine), with no real budget, and only using assets that you can obtain freely (and possibly from other games), what would this prototype play like? If it would take more than a month to make a prototype with these constraints, remove various features until you can; this will help you zero in on the core mechanic. (You can also assume you just know how to use the engine). Keep in mind, it probably takes well over a year to build the character creation systems in The Sims.

The reason is because core mechanics transcend settings and stories. Super Adventure Island 2 is the spiritual sequel to Zelda II: Adventure of Link, because it refines the same core mechanic into something significantly less frustrating. For the same reason, Bioshock is spiritually System Shock 3 (or at least System Shock 2.5), despite having an entirely different story and setting.

I'm not trying to discourage you; I'm trying to help.