Videogames I wish were real #97

A roguelike game that takes place in the world's biggest library, which has been overrun by monsters, where you play as a librarian determined to save it. You venture inside the library armed with your weapon of choice and two messenger bags you plan to fill with whatever books you can rescue.

After you clear the monsters in a particular section of the library, such as the Poetry section, you'll unlock a permanent buff that will last for the remaining of that run. For example: clearing the Travel section will help you map areas faster, and also unlock the bookworm railway system that will allow you to move more easily between certain parts of the library.

Besides section buffs, you'll also be able to learn all kinds of useful attacks and skills by finding specific books in the shelves, reading them and carrying them in your messenger bags. The more books you carry, the stronger your character will be, and the abilities each book will grant you will be on theme with the book, it's literary genre or one of its tropes: carrying with you a bestiary will allow you to quickly identify the weak points of monsters you've met before, a book with an enemies to lovers trope will allow you to turn a monster into a temporary ally that will fight alongside you, a botany book in your bag will let you gather medicinal herbs growing in the library, and carrying a potions book will allow you to prepare healing potions (more effective than just herbs), etc.

Not everyone believes the library can be saved, which is why during your expeditions your mission is not only to kill monsters, but also to rescue books and bring them to the new library. Since getting books out is one of your main priorities, starting your runs with your satchels nearly full of books that grant you useful abilities won't be very efficient, so you'll need to decide how many books you want to bring back with you to the library during each run.

Fighting monsters is dangerous, and sometimes you get hurt, but also, sometimes books get hurt, which why after some runs you might need to stop by your workshop to repair any damaged books. The hides of certain monsters are very sturdy, so using them to rebind books will make them more durable.

There is no respawning in this game. If your librarian dies inside the library, the next librarian that ventures inside might eventually find their body. If you're close to death and you have a particular book from the Travel section in your bags, you'll be able to use it to summon a bookwork that will take you quickly and safely back to the entrance with whatever books are currently in your bag.

You love your library, and you are determined to save it, armed with the greatest weapon in the world: knowledge (and a sword), even if it's one book at a time.

MMO thoughts.

About a million years ago, I was reading PVP-online and Jade was telling another character about meeting some player in game at the battle of someplace or another. The details are blurry (and I don't have access to the archive), but the underlying comment stuck with me. It implies a level of dynamic play that ... simply doesn't exist in MMOs. MMOs are largely static playgrounds for player avatars to accumulate power and cool stuff in. You'll never find yourself in a crowd of adventurers assaulting Crushbone Castle while an army of orcs gathers to defend their emperor. They're not programmed to do that, and you only need like 6 people to kill the whole area once you're level ... 12? Maybe 16. It's been a long time since I was in the Faydark.

Anyway, I wanted the reality that Jade sold with that comment. I still do.

Later, I watched some WoW machinima about a guild called Illegal Danish. Over the course of the videos, one of the guild members explains that the guild exists because some royal choked to death on a danish and they were outlawed. So the guild formed to protect the last danish. The Illegal Danish.

This, of course, is also not how MMOs work. Guilds form so you can have chat channels, and work together to kill monsters and take their stuff. I want the world sold by Illegal Danish.

The common trait of both of these situations, besides the fact that they were really just there to facilitate comedy, is they're the kind of thing that might work if an MMO was really a big tabletop RPG. It makes me think of the old "Living" shared campaign world (Living Greyhawk or Living Forgotten Realms). It might work there, or if your D&D game was run by several local GMs who coordinated their world states closely.

That's a lot of work, though. So I guess what I really want is a tool in my next MMO that lets me form better guilds. Let me have a guild with a reason to exist. I'm envisioning a tool like the clue/conclusion wheel from Detective Grimoire. "This guild exists to:" fight/protect/collect/discover/special interaction "the" Goblin clan/bears of surefall/mysterious coins/etc. I'd also like the ability to like... open a map and go "This guild exists for the sole purpose of keeping this specific hill free of snails." or whatever. Just "This is our cause! Won't you come to Danish Hill and help us proliferate baked goods across the land?"

I know this would result in dumb meme guilds. Someone's going to make the Goblin Slayer Guild, and they'll just murder low level mobs forever. And someone's going to make a guild where you have to dress like Pepe, and change your font to be green. But like... that sounds fun? Because someone's gonna get mad and go "This guild's purpose is to kill the Pepe guild!" and isn't that exactly the kind of thing that would happen if you ran a really big TTRPG? The Pepeists will be driven underground, and the Frog Slayers will eventually find other causes to champion, and all the rest of us can go "Man, remember the time when Pepe the Guild was the biggest thing happening on the server for like two months?"

I would probably actually sign up for an MMO again if they had that kind of creativity.

Videogames I wish were real #2

A farming game but it all takes place underwater. You play as a merfolk person. You cultivate corals and algae and some sort of underwater fruits and veggies. Your cattle are oysters and jellyfish. Your mount is a seahorse. Instead of the usual mining mechanic being descending into a mine, in this game you ascend through the mine. The higher you go the more monsters you find. Sometimes you'll also find land animals, and, if you're very very lucky, even humans! Your charming lil aquatic town is near an ocean trench. A very deep and very dark ocean trench. You descend there sometimes too. The deeper you go, the rarer the creatures are. They always fetch some nice prices back in town, because very few people dare to venture into the deep darkness, and the archeologists in the museum always pay well for some of the unique specimens. There's a reverse fishing mechanic. You tie something buoyant to your pole and let it flow to the surface. The things you fish in the surface range from surface trinkets to materials or trash. There's a tunnel that leads to an underground cave with air and good soil where you cultivate some surface fungi and plants that don't need sun. Pretty early in the game a human cruise ship sinks. You're the only one that dares to go near. While the exterior chambers are submerged, there's plenty of inner rooms where there's still air, and that's where you find a human hermit. Upon befriending them you learn they stole and sank the ship on purpose. The hermit is self sufficient, and you trade stuff sometimes. They don't speak of whatever happened to the surface people. You've been told there's no danger of the tragedy spreading to your people, so you don't ask. You tend to your farm and your animals and befriend and romance npcs and keep living your best life in your lil underwater town.

Similar videogames that actually exist: Stardew Valley, Coral Island, My Time at Portia/Sandrock, Story of Seasons, Harvest Moon... and any other farming sim you can think off, basically

Videogames I wish were real #88

A game that is Sea of Thieves meets No Man's Sky but with a Treasure Planet aesthetic. You sails through space and visit all kinds of planets in search of buried treasure and venture into uncharted regions of space searching for adventure.

Videogames I wish were real #85

Oh to live in play a pixel art Pokemon farming sim. You have a cute lil house you can decorate to your liking. Every day you get to take care of your berries and apricorns. You get to feed and pet and take care of your pokemon. There's minigames where you get to bath them or play stuff like hide and seek or tag or tic-tac-toe or with them. You can pick one pokemon to follow you around. When you reach a high enough friendship level with one pokemon they'll sometimes bring you gifts and you can ask them to help you with some chores around the house or the farm. You use the wool you get from Mareeps and Wooloos to knit sweaters and socks and blankets. You make cheese and butter with the milk you get from Miltank. Once you progress enough in the game you get to open a cute lil store in the town where you sell all your homemade wares to the townspeople and also items to visiting trainers such as the pokeballs you make from apricorns. Every couple of months you turn on your tv and hear about a ten year old saving the world and half the time you know the kid because they've been to your store. Sometimes you'll find wild pokemon you can approach and befriend. No combat mechanics, you feed the pokemon or pet them or offer them shinies and they usually leave you alone except sometimes they'll follow you home. The cute lil town you live in has a ton of festivities and charming npcs. You can ask npcs to be your (platonic or not) roommates, you can marry npcs, you can have kids or adopt them (without being on a relationship) or stay single. There's no limit to how many pokemon beds you can place inside your house. You can place pokebeds, food and water bowls anywhere in the world. You can also fish and dive and mine and forage. If you leave a bunch of berries in an ancient hidden shrine to Groudon/Kyogre you can ensure that the next day is rainy or extra sunny. One time you ran into Palkia and Dialga and offered them some really tasty pokepuffs so now you have the gods of space and time at your beck and call and you can basically time travel and teleport as long as you give them treats first. You like to stay up late on the nights when the tv says there's going to be Minior showers to watch the colorful falling stars with your pokemon cuddled at your side. Life is good.

Similar games that actually exist: Stardew Valley, Pokemon, Moonstone Island, Ooblets, Monster Harvest, Critter Crops, Ova Magica

Videogames I wish were real #102

A Doctor Who game that is a mix between Geoguessr and a dress up game. Due to some malfunctions, the Tardis is unable leave Earth, and it's also unable to identify where and when it's landing. You play as the Doctor's current companion, a character that happens to be very passionate about historial clothing, so you decide to use this mishap to test your skills. When the Tardis lands somewhere, you'll get to step outside, and based on your surroundings, you'll need to figure out the time period and location in order to choose the appropriate clothes. The closest you manage to get to the exact year and region, the higher your score will be.

Videogames I wish were real #37

A cozy and laid back MMO game where instead of the usual battle classes, the classes are all about crafting, gathering or selling products or services. All the combat classes that would normally be available to players (paladins, archers, wizards, etc) are only available to npcs.

You can choose a crafting related occupation, such as the artisan class, and then pick a certain subclass and become a blacksmith or a tailor, or the catering class and become a baker or a chef or open a small café. In order to avoid unfair competition, when setting the price of a product there would a be a minimum and maximum price range for every product. You can also open a shop to sell your wares directly to customers, as well as hire npcs to help you gather resources or to manage the shop while you are away/not playing, although you will need to pay them a fair wage and they'll get a day off a week.

If you'd rather go for a gathering class you can become a miner, woodcutter, farmer, angler, etc, and sell your produce to shops and merchants. Since some of those occupations would require you to abandon the city to gather materials, if you intend to go to a dangerous area you can hire adventurer npcs to act as your guards, or if you want to venture into an unknown area, you could spend money in a map, or pay a cartographer to chart a map for you.

And if you wish for a more adventurous occupation that allows you to travel through the world, you could always pick jobs such as mail carrier, merchant, archeologist, cartographer, etc.

Besides hiring npcs to help you run your store or act as bodyguards when you explore dangerous parts, you can also befriend and even romance and marry them, and if you cultivate a strong enough platonic or romantic relationship with an npc, they might offer you discounts, sell you rare items, gift you stuff or even offer to help you for free.

Player level is tied to the occupation of a character, if you switch to a different job you've never tried before you'll start at level 1. Whenever you get bored of a certain life, you can just switch to a different one or create another character.

Similar games that actually exist: Fantasy Life and Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time (suggested by @fantasy-life-fan), Palia

Videogames I wish were real #68

A game about decorating haunted houses. You get to choose the type of house, design the layout, pick the furniture and place all kinds of tricks and spooky things to scare the visitors.

Videogames I wish were real #100

A game where you play as the cook in a pirate ship. After a crew of picky eating pirates had a bit of a scurvy scare they decided to splurge a bit and hire someone who actually knew their way around a galley. As the ship's cook, you'll not only have to cook meals for everyone, but also keep track in a notebook of everyone's diet to make sure they all stay healthy. The dishes you can cook will be determined by the ingredients you have in stock. If you're out of a key ingredient for a recipe, you'll have to shelve that one until you're able to buy more supplies in land or some produce "falls into your hands" during your ocean expeditions. By talking with members of the crew and getting to know them, you'll be able to learn everyone's likes, dislikes, favorite dishes and learn new recipes. As your reputation in the ship increases, so will your funds for acquiring ingredients. Your cooking skills will not only help the crew's morale and fighting skills, but also open some previously closed doors: an old sailor who refuses to sell a treasure map might be willing to part with it in exchange for a dish of his favorite childhood meal, the sea monster guarding a cave might be bribable with sushi, and the delicious aroma of your dishes might cause some mermaids to decide that instead of sinking your ship they want to trade some pearls in exchange for some food. As your crew amasses more wealth and fame, you'll be to buy better intel, improve your ship, and get the chance to sail uncharted seas full of adventures and... all kinds of new foods awaiting to be discovered.

Videogames I wish were real #101

A game takes place in the Lord of the Rings universe where you play as the One Ring. Somehow, you've ended up on the western shores of Middle Earth, and you want to make your way back to Mordor, so you'll have to convince someone to carry you. However, the last sapient being that carried you nearly chucked you in the ocean, so instead of risking that again you decide to go for a slower and safer route: sapient species aside, you're willing to corrupt any other candidate: seagulls, worms, squirrels, any animal will do, and even plants or mushrooms if you're desperate enough. Once a new host picks you up, you'll have to convince them to carry you where you wish to go, and the way to do so will be choosing the right dialogue options to bend them to your will, which will vary depending on the creature and their personality. Sometimes, despite having a firm hold on a host, the best course of action might be to switch to a different one: switching from a deer to an ivy will be a quicker way to climb a cliff, a turtle will be faster and safer than a hare in an area with lots of eagles, etc. In a corner of the screen there's a counter of how much time your journey to Mordor is taking you.

Videogames I wish were real #86

An open world survival game set in a desolate world where the only food and resources left grow on colossal kaiju beasts (imagine Godzilla with a forest on its back. Also, I know what you must be thinking: wait, if it's a desolate world what do kaijus eat? Well, they get their energy from the sun and sometimes if they get a craving they eat other kaijus). After a kaiju dies, the resources they were sustaining quickly degrade, so the best bet is to harvest resources from live kaijus. The best way to do this is to climb the kaijus, since their skin is thick enough not to notice a thing. No two climbs will ever present the same challenges, since there are many types of kaijus, and you never know what might happen: it could start raining, or some of the creatures living on the kaiju might see you as easy prey and attack you, or the kaiju could decide to run, sit, sleep, or even fight or fuck another kaiju. Once you manage to climb on top of the kaiju, you'll need to gather resources: wood, fruit, plants, flowers, mushrooms... instead of forests, some kaijus might have rocky formations full of metals and minerals on their backs, or other types of biomes. The only animals that are still alive on this world also live on the kaijus, so if you feel like hunting, you can also take out your bow and arrow or your handheld weapon and get some fresh meat or hides. Once you're done gathering resources, you can take out your glider and fly off to safety... although, in a world populated by kaijus that love to fight each other, safety is always relative.

Similar media that actually exists: The Wandering Village (a game suggested by @thebazilly), The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (the book that partially inspired this post)

Videogames I wish were real #39

A life simulation game where it's made explicitly clear that the characters are aware of your existence. They consider you an unfathomable eldritch being and fear and revere you because they know that you are always watching and that you have the ability to take control over their lives whenever you want, like an invisible puppeteer. A sort of mix between The Sims, Cult of the Lamb and Lakeburg Legacies.

Depending on how often you take direct control over them and the kind of stuff you make them do, they will react differently. If you force an npc to go to bed because it's very late and they should get some sleep, they'll roll their eyes and thank you for looking out for them. If you remove the ladder while they are swimming, they will beg and plead you to please put it back and stop messing with them.

Once you start playing, your npcs will be aware of your presence, whether you do something or not, and will eventually start building altars to make offerings and pray. They will ask you to be kind with them whenever you take control, or ask that you don't make them do stuff they don't want to do, such as marry a certain person. Frequent interventions will cause your npcs to despair and spiral with worry about their free will, but ignoring their pleas won't stop them from asking you for stuff, and will make them resent you for ignoring them and worry that they might have done something wrong. If you focus too much on always controlling the same characters, your npcs will notice. If you play favorites, they will try to be nice to those npcs, give them special treatment and revere or resent them. If you seem to particularly hate a certain npc, some might choose to show them the kindness you refuse, while others might think they will gain your favor if they torment the same people as you.

The game can be either be cozy and wholesome or take a dark and twisted turn. You can intervine as often as you want, or even give them free reign and simply sit back and watch. You can make your npcs live their best lives or their worst.

Similar games that actually exist: you can just play The Sims and pretend they know you are there

Videogames I wish were real #94

Once upon a time, a mermaid refused to abandon her home in the ocean and exchange her tail for a pair of legs so she could be with the man she loved. The human prince, affronted by what he perceived as a betrayal, declared war upon all merfolk as his first edict as king. Ever since, humans and mermaids have been at war.

In this open world game you'll play as a mermaid, and get a lot of freedom about how you wish to spend your time: be in living a peaceful existence in the ocean tending to your algae farm, hunting dangerous deep sea predators such as krakens and leviathans... or by sabotaging or sinking human vessels. However, not all human kingdoms are at war with merfolk, and even the citizens of those kingdoms that are at war with you might not wish to fight you, so you may end up striking unlikely friendships and unexpected alliances: merchants might offer you bribes, pirates might wish to team up to take down common enemies, and there might even be humans who wish to become mermaids and request your help to become part of your world.

This VIWWR was inspired by a comment @guppygirl made in another one of my posts (VIWWR #2)

Similar games that actually exist: Siren

Videogames I wish were real #95

A cozy game with great soundscaping about preparing backpacks for all kinds of heroes and adventurers. You can pick the color, style, shape, size and material of the bags, and as you level up you'll learn to sew extra pockets, false bottoms, apply fireproof spells, etc. Each order will come with certain information about where your client will be heading, and what weather, enemies and challenges they think they will encounter. After selecting the ideal backpack you'll have to fill it with food supplies, potions, weather appropriate clothes, a first aid kit and all kinds of fitting supplies. Sometimes clients will have special requests, such as that the backpack looks like a realistic spider, or asking for a double sided one, or that you don't make it too heavy, or that you somehow find space for their childhood teddy bear that they take everywhere with them. You'll also have to place the items inside, and make sure it's properly balanced, or that nothing squishy ends at the bottom. Your foresight and organization skills might be what makes the difference between a completed quest and a total party kill. It's a heavy burden to shoulder, but that's your specialty!

Similar games that actually exist: Backpack Hero

Videogames I wish were real #96

A life simulation game where you play as a character that loves to write fanfic but keeps it a secret, so you have to help them manage their double life. You'll be able to decide what media your character consumes, and depending on the traits they have, they might be interested in writing certain fanfic genres or ship certain characters. You choose what they'll write, it's length and rating, and after they post it, the kudos and comments will start coming in. You'll get to make all kinds of decisions, such as whether your character should go to bed or stay until late writing the next chapter, or if you want to react or put on a poker face when somebody at school happens to mention a fandom you are a part of, or choose if you want them to write something for a small fandom or obscure ship that they really like and will make them very happy or something from a more well known media that will get more clicks. Sometimes, your character's interest in a fandom might start to dwindle, and they might wish to move onto working on other stories and leave a certain project unfinished, but worry not, because eventually you will get as a option to make your character go back and finish some of their abandoned fics.

Videogames I wish were real #3

A cozy fishing videogame where you fish EVERYTHING. You live in a cute empty void (yes, they can be cute). It's just you, a fishing rod and a tiny pond. The first thing you fish is a little sun. Then a stool and a radio. You sit down, put on some music and keep fishing. Sometimes you fish actual fish, other times its books, plants or seeds, furniture, food, tools, building materials, clouds, stars... Eventually you get to choose where to place other bodies of water where you can fish in: lakes, rivers and even a beach. You get to use all the stuff you fish to build and decorate your tiny world.

Similar videogames that actually exist: Moonglow Bay, Luna's Fishing Garden, Fishing Paradiso, Dredge