What games have you played that have inspired your own

What games have you played have inspired your own creations?

Iā€™ve taken a fair amount of inspiration from Thief/Thief 2 while working on Spamocalypse. Mechanically, I borrowed the use of shadows and lights in line-of-sight checks and getting units to notice the playerā€™s footsteps or react to noisy decoys, along with making objects glow if the player can use them. Artistically, some of the NPCs in Thief inspired some of my NPCs (e.g. the Hammer Haunts inspired these guys).

Starbase Battles was a key inspiration for Pond Wars. It got me thinking a lot about indirect movement and aiming.

http://www.gamesbygreg.com/starbase-battles/

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Almost every game inspires me in some way

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I think that you get naturally inspired by any game you like and you will use that inspiration once you create a similar game.

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My new game (havenā€™t yet presented a WIP, its coming), is inspired by a lot of my favourite old games like Way of the Exploding Fist, Karateka, and also a Price of Persia.

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I really liked how simple and fun the Gwent sub game in Witcher 3 was so in my free time Iā€™m working on a project thatā€™s a mix of Gwent with the old Gameboy Color Pokemon TCG

I just tried Marvel Adventures Academy and it has great graphics but surprisingly whole sections of mesh flicker between being drawn, black, and even transparent. This is on a Acer Iconia Tab 8 and Android 4.4. I think itā€™s Unity bugs although Iā€™ve found many Android ā€˜Unity bugsā€™ are actually Android bugs that Unity creates workarounds for.

Iā€™ve been running the gauntlet of infinite runners lately as they are indirectly related to my current project.
Canabalt and Vector have been particularly inspiring, but the entire sub-genre as a whole has been inspiring to me - to create something ā€˜differentā€™. :eyes:

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D3 inspires me in a big way simply because to me it represents the ideal for games. Lots of interaction (although in a simple manner) with breakables, the combat, shrines and merchants. Lots of interaction / depth for an action game with all of the gear, skill and attribute upgrades. Always growing more and more powerful and always a challenge waiting somewhere no matter how powerful you become (well so far at least).

Beyond that as others have said many games inspire me. Games from folks around here and games from folks ā€œout thereā€.

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C&C series was a big inspiration for infernoā€¦

I was never a big fan of Flappy Bird, but I canā€™t deny that when I designed the movement mechanic, I did have Flappy Bird and itā€™s simplicity in mind. Akiro, my current game in progress, is inspired a lot by the atmosphere of ikachan, and Iā€™m hoping the music and energy will reach that of Super Mario Bros 2. Apart from that, itā€™s mostly just exploring game feel until I hit something I think suits the game. :slight_smile:

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When I was at school, I played Diablo quite often, I really liked. Then when I found Unity3d asset samurai, I decided to make something like Diablo, and something is working already and I am happy with that (though it is more kind of demo only)

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Realm of the Mad God is my inspiration, pre-Kabam! decimation. Lots of influence from a MUD I owned/admined/coded for 10+ years, and MUDs in general (Rom 2.4b, dreams of scrolling text, and simplicity of coding a text-based game: I miss you). Every other game brings some sort of influence. It seems most games I play a little to see the mechanics and view fresh ideas if theyā€™re there then delete them, well, besides my Dark Souls / Bloodborne addictions.

My current base-building WIP was inspired by Starflight, Dwarf Fortress, and Rimworld.

All the games I play influence my style a little. This is the best way if you donā€™t just wanna make clones of other peoples ideas, especially if you play lots of unusual games and let some of their ideas influence you in unorthodox ways

Like for example, everyone loves the Limit Break/Trance/Overdrive system in the FF games. But I also like the way the Gamebreaker system works in NBA Street Vol. 2, so I always let both of those influence how I think about those kinds of mechanics, because both FFVII and NBA Street Vol. 2 have a suprising amount in common if you really think about it.

Other weird games that I like that I feel should be more influential are Brave Fencer Musashi and Toejam and Earl (Yes, I am old, how could you tell?)

The game Iā€™m working on right now was influenced by several games, each placing their own brick.

  • Movement: is like many FPS games (wsad moves/strafes, while mouse operates camera that obeys playerā€™s wishes)
  • Artstyle: was inspired by games such as AlphaWaves/Continuum, Stunts and Skyroads, i.e. untextured, lowpoly 3D.
  • Gameplay: was inspired by 3D platformers such as Rayman 2, DK64, Banjo-Kazooie and more.
  • Map design was inspired by both 3D platformers (mostly collectathons, though game itself probably wonā€™t be one) and early FPS games such as Doom or Duke3d (many secrets, explorative design and so on).

Devlog is here.

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