Skatered... My dream video game....

The idea remains in my head, but I'll explain it a bit in detail for fun~

So, the general idea is a 3D skating game. The premise: Red, a teen girl who wants to leave her mark on the world after being out of commission for a few years since a middle school competition went wrong and she lost her legs. However, now she has the hip new thing, Snark legs- shapeshifting parasite things that act as her new legs and skates, as well as enhance her in other ways. She's aided by her best friend who is essentially her sister, her true girlbro, Yell-O, who is her comms, her voice of reason and eye in the sky. Red stays with Yell-O and her family inside of a radio tower in the center of the island they live on, a mostly isolated island that acts as a haven for those who love skating, punk culture, etc etc. Red goes on a journey to become the queen of the island, meeting a variety of characters along the way, along with the impending urban development that looms over the culture of the island as well as the true meaning of the snarks~

So, the important thing: Gameplay.

I want the main priority to be the movement. I want it to feel good to skate around in. There's games like Tony Hawk and Jet Set Radio with a similar vibe and definitely strong influences, but I want the movement to be faster and fluid and give the player more control- more like a 3D platformer like Mario Sunshine or A Hat in Time. The game will essentially be divided into two ways: The big island hub, filled with things to grind on and explore in a variety of ways and little side things to down at your leisure. The other half of the game are inner levels- A sub area on the map with a more linear challenge, ending with a boss fight. Boss fights I want to mostly test different aspects of the game, like say a boss with a focus on you dodging it. The general layout I compare to No More Heroes as an example- there's the hub city, and then each level is more linear and focused and ends with a boss, but I'd like it to be more of a mix of platforming with light combat elements (like how Mario jumps on stuff, except you can hit stuff with a hammer instead). Each boss will give you an upgrade that aids the player with things like exploration- the classic grapple hook in the form of a yoyo for example to help reach more vertical heights and cross greater gaps. Also, I think of F-Zero GX a lot when thinking of this game... It won't be insanely difficult, but I love how precise GX's movement is, how fast it feels like you can go (which the player can train themselves to go fast and fluid in this game ideally), and how the Story Mode, while insanely difficult, also challenges elements of the game like I want the sub levels to- Chapter 1 teaching you pinpoint pathing precision, Chapter 2 teaching you to dodge obstacles and boosting, Chapter 4 all about killing enemies, Chapter 6 about maintaining your speed, etc etc... I really admire that kind of game design.

In terms of aesthetics and other things...

I have the entire game's story outlined in my head, and it's mostly "listen to music, imagine random things to the song, and if it's cool, add it to the game". Ideally, I'd like to have a bunch of licensed music, but legally speaking that's a nightmare, so I may just opt for the good ol' "release the game underground or with a separate patch that just so happens to have a bunch of licensed music that fits in perfectly with the game files." I don't like making art for money, and even a game like this, I'd want to try to release for free with the source code freely available. If people like it they can donate to me or whatever then sure but I don't care about that, I want the game to be accessible and for anyone to modify it and learn from it and make their own things at their own whims and leisures~

Or I could just finish the game, then make a Kickstarter for it with a complete demo to try and have the funds go to acquiring decent contracts for licensed music and release the game in a reasonable time frame once all the legal stuff is out of the way, but who knows~ I could also find a talented musician who'd want to do music for my game and be cool with it being mostly nonprofit and completely open source too and understands exactly the style of music I want and where I want it....

Anyway, yeah. I think it'd be cool to say make the game in Assembly and program it directly for stuff like the GameCube or other 6th gen consoles, but I think that's for insane people and probably something to worry about as a port after the game's released and has crazy enough people who'd want to help. But I do want the game to be a stylized looking game- flat colors, angular style, something that uses the strengths of a lower poly style that can work on a toaster. I'd probably use a game engine like Unity or Godot, but ideally it'd be something with all the fluff cut out, I don't want any bloat or nonsense in it, I want the game to be like 1GB in size, 2GB max.

I have a lot of thematic elements in the game as well in mind- "Trying to fit into a definition rather than just letting the definition define you afterwards" is one of them, like "oh I have to do this to be punk" vs "oh I do this thing and people call me punk for it", if that makes sense? Another big theme is life and death and how it impacts the actions of characters in the game. I like writing Red, she's a character that on the outside is a snarky quippy teen, but she's mostly putting on a front, and internally she's struggling with "is that the right thing to say, did I screw that up royally, do they hate me, god I hate myself" kind of thoughts in a desperate struggle to chase a goal she's not even entirely sure why she's chasing it.

Anyway that's my dream skating game and it'll probably never exist but maybe one day I'll become a god programmer and tools will be super accessible and I can lock in for ten years and make it happen... one day.......