Hi there, I saw the front page gif of that platformer game using FOV and it triggered me, so I wanted to make a list of all of the terribly unoriginal ideas I see or hear about when people present their game projects/ideas to me.

I'm specifically focusing on gameplay related ideas that I know, from either first or second hand experience, are never going to work out for the average hobby/indie developer. If any of these describe your current game and it concerns you then hit me up in the comments and I'll discuss my reasoning further and try to be helpful and/or positive. We're all friends here! For the unfortunate soul (and there probably is one) who matches several... good luck.

Please add your own in the comments, preferably with embarrassing anecdotes (you can assume I at least thought all of these ideas were great at some point). Without further ado, rant and hopefully discussion start!

"I'm making this really cool game and..."

It’s a 2d action/platformer game using FOV.

Outside of turn based or RTS games, this has been done well exactly once to my knowledge (Monaco). The game draws a blueprint version of the map, which makes perfect thematic sense as a heist game, and there are also a ton of indicators for guard positions and cameras even when you can’t actually see them.

Even then, the game suffered in promotional material because it was hard to see what was going on; it’s an example of a game that was so fun otherwise that it could be forgiven for this (but you should never rely on this).

I kid you not when I say that more than half of the game devs I know have tried to make a 2d game with FOV before. It’s a fun programming challenge but it is not an easy game mechanic to design with and is especially not unique. I’ve had this argument too many times with hobby developers and never with real game designers. If it’s not fun without FOV then it’s just not fun.

It’s a dungeon crawler.

If your main feature is that the game is set in a dungeon then you are just resigning yourself to blend in with the literally countless other games that are also dungeon crawlers. Even if you have a twist, you better have the best graphics in the world otherwise I just can't be interested in your game. A good example of this being done right is Endless Dungeon (but obviously you can't just copy that!)

It’s a bullet hell game.

I’ve never seen anyone I know do a good bullet hell game. It’s incredibly hard to come up with imaginative and readable attack patterns and balance the difficulty around new players. This also encompasses open-screen top-down run and gun games in general; once you’ve played one, you’ve played them all.

It’s a Rogue-lite/it’s all procedurally generated.

Do you actually know what makes a good rogue-lite or are you just afraid of having no replay value? Are you just bad at level design or lazy?

You don’t need to provide more than what a player is going to play. It's far better to leave players wanting more of something you've polished to an incredible shine than experiencing a tiny part of the rough gem.

A game doesn’t need to be infinitely replayable in order to be enjoyable (and if it isn't, it's probably an issue elsewhere in your design than replayability). Once you take the plunge into level design and start running some real playtests things actually get a lot of fun, so don’t shy away from the idea. It really is easier to design for the player, the ultimate variable, if you aren’t fighting your temperamental generation algorithms every step of the way. Like FOV, this is one that entices developers because it’s a programming challenge. The real challenge is clearly not wanting to make everything procedurally generated though.

It has a shape based inventory system.

A very specific pet peeve of mine.

If your game has enough emphasis on inventory that it warrants more than a second thought of attention then your players are not going to enjoy being inconvenienced by your clunky shape based system (hell, people complain about weight limits all the time already). Give them an easy to use system and let them focus on the actual fun parts of an inventory, such as devising resource management strategies, hoarding loot and crafting stuff. Grid based minecraft-esque inventories are forgivable for a very specific subset of games, since it's now so ubiquitous that people are more used to it than a list approach

It’s also a rhythm game!

Admittedly this is much less of a issue and much less common, I just find that most developers don’t know enough about music and how rhythm games are actually tuned in order to make good ones. If you are planning a rhythm hybrid game, just realize that it’s not actually that clever of an idea. Same goes for any other music related game unless you’re actually a musician or you're going in with a very open mind. This is one that concerns me more than annoys me.

It’s a platformer/action game where you switch gravity/colours/universes to solve puzzles.

It’s been done well once or twice already but nearly everyone I know has come up with an idea like this at some point. I ran a game jam where 2 teams independently decided to do a portal-esque first person platformer where you could switch universes to enable and disable platforms on a whim. Neither of them were fun to play. I feel like this mostly boils down to unimaginative puzzle design and a complete disregard for other mechanics.

(On a side note, Celeste is astonishingly good at designing challenging and interesting levels around simple mechanics. Keeping it topical!)

It's an MMO...

...you all know this one already I'm sure.

Anything you'd like to add?