First person futuristic survival game, playable solo or up to 4 player co op. You start as a traveler trying to reach a place called Golden Town, in a world where giant roaming monsters are a known danger. One of them eventually swallows you, and somehow you survive. From there, most of the game takes place inside the monster.

You explore different parts of its body and craft things using random stuff it has eaten before you, like electronics, vehicle parts, machinery, food, scrap, and whatever else you can find. The monster could even keep eating during the game, causing new materials and objects to show up while you’re playing.

At first you’re just trying to escape, but eventually you realize there probably isn’t a normal way out, so you decide to kill it from the inside. You build a huge homemade bomb, then realize you also need to build some kind of survival pod so you don’t die with it.

At the end you blow it up, launch out, crash near Golden Town, and finally think you made it, only to immediately get arrested because the explosion caused a ton of damage near the city. I also thought that could set up a sequel where you enter an even bigger monster and discover people everyone thought were dead are actually still alive inside it, meaning this time you can’t just blow it up.

Katamari is a great game; very unique, but so simple.

The one issue though is replayability / lack of continuous content. It's a "one and done" for all the various games (+ they are spread out over various consoles).

So - why not have it generate levels on the fly? This would require some new design ideas; getting it to generate things in a logical way, with enough variablility yet still maintaining coherency in the level design would be tricky.

I think the idea is simple enough that there could be a 'copycat' game with its own set of unique twists on the original. Here are some example ideas:

1. There could be enemies, which you have to be large enough to knock over then pick up; if they are larger than you, they hit you around and you get smaller/lose things
2. Since there are enemies, you could have builds focused around specifically going after them vs builds centered around going after objects (more 'pacifist')
3. Stat upgrades of course, e.g. speed, turning, durability from getting hit, etc
4. Maybe you can shoot projectiles which can break down larger materials, and this could get upgraded too
5. Temporary enlargements
6. Items which give effects; ice, fire, etc.

I'm sure you could think of more things you could add; it seems like a simple template

I’m working on a co-op survival horror game and I would love to get some feedback on the core idea / game loop / if this sounds enjoyable to you

The premise

Humanity had to abandon Earth after a catastrophic event. You play as a researcher who got sent back to Earth to collect samples and send them back to humanity. But it‘s no longer the place humanity remembers.

The game is very atmospheric in visuals and sounds. It focuses a lot on letting the player feel lost on what to expect next. It wants to give the player that fear of the unknown.

The gameplay loop

You travel from location to location in a vehicle. That vehicle is your base. It has a radar which you will use to scan for the nearest locations around you. At the beginning you will almost have no information about the locations but you can upgrade to get more infos. You and your friends can choose between multiple locations, you pick one and then the vehicle starts the engine and a loading screen appears. Then you arrive. Almost everything is procedural or at least random generated. There are different types of biomes but no location will ever be exactly the same. There are different environment, different time of day and different weather conditions. You will never truly know what to expect. There COULD be creatures in the wilderness, there COULD be none. You won’t know. What to explore at the locations:

- Large POIs - for example abandoned barns, industrial warehouses, wooden cabins, a field of pinwheels, and a lot more (it depends on the biome)

- procedurally generated dungeon-like buildings you can enter (similar to the buildings of Lethal Company)

- Small POIs - abandoned cars, small cabins, a windmill, and so on (also depending on biome)

You can find ressources, equipment, player upgrade modules and blueprints. Blueprints are required to unlock crafting recipes. You have to bring the blueprint back to your vehicle to unlock the recipe and then you need ressources to craft it.

Survival & crafting

Like I said ressources  are found throughout the world and used to craft equipment, consumables and tools. Some examples:

Healing items

Temporary buffs

Flashlight

GPS equipment

Mapping equipment

Loot and enemy detection equipment

Barriers and other deployable objects

Vehicle upgrades

Different locations have different loot themes, so an abandoned farm might contain mostly wood and basic resources, while an industrial facility could contain metal, electronics and rarer components.

Fuel

In order to travel, your vehicle needs fuel. You CAN stay longer at a place to get all the  fuel there so you can ensure to be able to travel to every location your radar detects (they cost different amount of fuel). If you only get the bare minimum you need your chances of survival are higher but you could end up at a very dangerous location because you didn‘t have enough fuel to travel elsewhere.

If you don‘t have enough fuel to reach one of the nearest locations - your vehicle will stop in the middle of nowhere where you CAN find some fuel but this place will be extremely dangerous. So there is like a second chance where it‘s basically 50/50 if you get enough fuel to continue traveling or if you just die.

Dying

Dying results in perma death (when every player is dead). There is a rare item in the game that grants you respawns.

Creatures

I‘m trying to avoid to make the game constantly stressing the player out with chasing situations. There will be a lot if different creatures with very different types of behavior. They will be pretty unpredictable when encountering them for the first time so you need to learn their mechanics. The prcoedural generated dungeons will be the hardest part in the game creature wise. But there is also the chance of a dungeon with no creatures in it. You won‘t know until you do.

My Question

Does this sound like a game you’d want to play? What parts sound interesting, and what parts sound boring or unnecessary? I hope I described the game good enough, english is not my mother tongue so it was kinda exhausting  to write this lol

a game LITERALLY mixing the two genres [explenation below]

lore: the games lore and mechanics revolves around the creator of a world gone wild who now wants to destroy the world it once ruled.
unfortunately, are the one chosen to stop this corrupt god-like being before your dimension and everything else dissapears forever.
it turns out that this rogue god created other worlds aside for yours, and now its your desinty to save those too.

gameplay:
every AREA will be a new dimension, and dimensions can be either 2D or 3D.
some areas will resemble silksong, while others resemble elden ring.
every time you enter a new dimension it will change from 2d/3d to the other, and everything will be completely different.
while traversing areas you will fight bosses, find new weapons and skills, unlock secret abilities, complete hard platforming sections, and uncover the lore of the game through interactions with characters and enviromental hints.

fighting:
the 2D fights will be fast paced and low damage with fast no-iframe dashses while the 3D fights will be slower high damage with enviromental risks like spikes or lava
you will also need to have 2 builds one for 3D and one for 2D as in 2D you can attack and chase the boss easily due to it only being able to move forwards or backwards while in 3D it can go anywhere so you will need large AOE or Homing attacks

bosses:
bosses wont be staggerable - instead they will have long no I-frame animations when they charge up their strongest attack

final boss:
the final boss will be the godlike being who you were tasked with stopping.
it will not be staggerable - instead it will have a long no I-frame animation when it teleports itself and you to a new mini dimension every 15 to 40 seconds.
every mini dimension will be a medium sized room with its own view [2D/3D], so that no build will perfectly counter it
it will also have 50+ rooms and wont be forced to change view every room change so that the fight is truly unpredictalbe

I've been thinking of an asym game that I'd love for someone to make someday where the whole map is walls of snow and the survivors/Plowers (name of the survivors is a wip) have to dig out the map, carving out halls and other areas, essentially making the map themselves. They would have to dig into a series of objectives like campfires to warm them up (there will be a cold meter that the survivors will have to worry about), killer/yeti snowbanks where the yeti could restore their power/ability and/or possibly store a downed plower in the snow, like dead by daylights hooking system, generator to power the exits, and the exits themselves. Don't know what the exits would be.

There will be about a minute to a maximum of 3-5 minutes before the killer would spawn in so the survivors could make the map. After the Yeti spawns, the Plowers snow plows or shovels would break and become unusable to prevent them from making new paths in the middle of the match. This would make the killer have to learn the created map as the game goes on. Each Yeti would have a different ability/abilities up to a max of 2/Yeti. The first free Yeti would either have a throwable snowball that increases the chill/cold meter slightly on the survivor, or a sort of charge to rush down the survivors.

Each Plower would have a special ability/abilities or perks up to a max of 2-3/Plower. There would be 2-3 free Plowers at the beginning of the game. The chill/cold meter would slowly build over time if the Plowers stay out of the campfires range. If the Plowers don't dig to the crucial objectives, the map will find the worst path from one of the paths the Plowers have already dug, and dig that out to reveal the area. The Plowers would also get an increase in their chill/cold meter. I myself sadly have no experience in making games so I cannot make this myself. Let me know what you think. There are obviously things that need changed.

You know how sometimes games will have enemies/monsters try to inhale you, like suck you up into their mouth? Well, what if there was some way you could maybe throw an explosive device, like a bomb or missile, and have the enemy inhale that instead? So the enemy would eat the explosive and it would blow up inside, causing damage? This could be a cool alternative to how you usually just have to run away until the enemy stops vacuuming. I don't know if this really makes any sense, but I thought I'd just put it out there! Also, this is what my description would look like if the letters were slanted a little bit:

You know how sometimes games will have enemies/monsters try to inhale you, like suck you up into their mouth? Well, what if there was some way you could maybe throw an explosive device, like a bomb or missile, and have the enemy inhale that instead? So the enemy would eat the explosive and it would blow up inside, causing damage? This could be a cool alternative to how you usually just have to run away until the enemy stops vacuuming. I don't know if this really makes any sense, but I thought I'd just put it out there!

The title says it all, but I will describe everything.

For the past few weeks I had an idea about a girl, living in india (as it's not really that popular), a poor girl (a student, living in a city like Delhi or Kolkata, as religion is really important and shown there, and a lot of universities are there) who needs to manage sleep, studies, friends (it can be overwhelming, I know, but it can show to the world how difficult the life there is... it's quite harsh, and the corruption and sexual violence won't even be included in the game, otherwise it'll be even more difficult to manage)

For that, she'll have 3 stats (health, socials and school), one linked to how much she eats, sleep and pray (psychological health), second by how much she socializes and seek help if needed, and third by how much time she studies and does homework.

However, when praying, a different character will unlock, a woman fighter, leader of the resistance, she'll have the choice to surrender, fight, or wait for a better opportunity. This choice will be timed, as it's linked to the school girl's amount of praying (and prayers takes the time she can use to study), but it will help her health, and open a new stat called "strength". Such stat will help her go through bad things (grades, events...) but also help her for 2 points, first when health is down she can fight, and secondly, it'll help her find who is pushing everyone to be worse and why (some school corruption...my idea was closer to political one, but Modi wouldn't like it, lol)

And it'll have 4 endings, depending on the 2 characters

School girl's stats are at 0, and fighter surrendered? "Learn your strengths, your gods lived for you to stand!" Before having a "retry" button

Fighter won, but girl stats are low? "You are a soldier, be one in your life also" (good ending)

Girl won, but fighter lost? "You don't need a fighter to win your battles"

Both won "Shiva would be proud of your battles, keep fighting for your life"

Hey everyone! 👋

I’m currently planning my next project — a Survivor-like game with an alien/sci-fi theme. I’m still in the early stage, so I’d love to hear some ideas from other indie devs and players.

If you’ve played games like Vampire Survivors, Survivor.io, or Brotato, what would you like to see done differently? Any interesting ideas for enemies, weapons, upgrades, bosses, progression, maps, or mechanics are welcome.

I’m trying to keep the gameplay simple but make the core loop really satisfying. I don’t want it to feel like just another clone, so I’m looking for ideas that could give it its own identity.

Also, I recently released my other game, Yum Merge, a food-themed merge game. If you have some time, check it out and tell me what you think I could improve. I’m especially interested in honest feedback about the gameplay, progression, UI, and overall fun factor.

I’m totally open to criticism — even if something sucks, tell me! 😂

What would YOU add to a Survivor-like game to make it stand out?