Lots of great stuff everyone :)!

Rather late to the party, but still I thought I would jump on board...

I'm working on a small classical rogue-like game with a funny (weird?!) inventory system + besides a written journal I'm documenting its progress and development with video log entries:



Journal: Part 1, Part 2

Keep that spice flowing!
Br.

The FrancoisSoft project is what I work on. Basically FrancoisSoft is a game development studio for creating 2D games like Mario or snake. Games are fully tied to the environment and cannot be removed from the FrancoisSoft app. Games can also be interleaved which means that you can have different kinds of games sharing characters. Been working on this since the beginning of last year and experimenting with a number of different prototypes for the past couple of years. It was not until recently that I was able to complete the app and start work on some games. So far this app is all I work on in my free time. This is a serious app and has great payoffs.

http://www.francoissoft.net

I'm looking into doing a live Q&A group regarding what gamers actually want today. I feel like if I make a game that a target group actually want, then there is much more likelihood of them actually playing it!

I hope that goes well, and that you get a good group to pull input from. It is however a rather dangerous road to walk down as far as game-design goes: "I want that, this, that other thing, all these cool things, AND a kitchen skin!" are all too common for inputs on such things.

It may be far more reliable to focus the group's attention on something along the lines of "Why don't you like X, what is the problem with Y, how do you feel about Z" kind of dialog. You also have the fun issue of balancing expectations with reality. Ask a dozen gammers what they want made, they'll give you a dozen answers, and then all complain that what you make out of it "Wasn't what they wanted".

I've spent the past two weeks collaboratively writing lore for a 2D singleplayer openworld RPG. :) Creating that traditional JRPG feel without straying into cliche is a balancing act, and then trying to combine this paradigm of instanced turn-based party battles with a more interactive-story outside-of-combat experience inspired by Skyrim and Fallout... it's a great challenge, it has been a ton of fun so far.