*** Note: I'm now the owner of a shiny Nintendo Wii (at long friggin' last) so not only is this a note to say "I'll be playing the Wii a lot instead of updating regularly like I'm supposed to" but also to say "look out for Wii-related ideas in the future now I know how the technology works first-hand".***
So, this is a new section where instead of taking a genre or license to build a game idea around, I take a single element of.. well, anything, really. Generally pop-culture related, but often just a setting or item pulled out of thin air. I then try to craft some sort of newish game idea around that element. It's sort of like an Iron Chef (Steel Designer?) ingredient, if you will.
I'll just do a quick summary of dinosaurs in video games first of all. Usually standard fodder in various RPGs and Prehistoric-themed Action/Adventure games, dinosaurs are just mindless beasts that happen to be really friggin' big. Games that have put a little more focus into Dinosaurs include the Jurassic Park series of games (especially the Genesis version of the first movie, which allowed you to play as "the Raptor" following a storyline mirroring Dr. Alan Grant's) and the Res Evil-esque Dino Crisis. Tomb Raider is another series that likes to give you dinosaur-related challenges when you least expect them, including a T-Rex that comes out of nowhere midway into the first game. Turok was a famous console FPS series which identified the eponymous hero as a "dinosaur hunter", and so dinosaurs were regular enemies in the games.
You usually get the antagonistic and intelligent Raptors as common but dangerous adversaries in these games, whereas the gigantic and considerably more powerful T-Rex-types usually only show up as supertough bosses or as a challenge you cannot defeat with force alone and so must find another way of getting past them.
For this game idea, I'm considering taking the raptor protagonist idea and taking it to the next level: a game that utilizes their hunting pack structure. Half RTS and half squad-based strategy/action, your job as alpha raptor is to procure food for your clan/group by organising hunting parties and defending the creche (nursery) from harmful predators. As the younger raptors grow up, you can select them to join you in taking down bigger prey more rapidly. As your numbers grow, so too will the size of the dinosaurs you will be able to defeat as a group.
Your first task is to set up a nest in your beginning area and then scout around for smaller prey. This exploration is done on a scaled map, and functions in the same way as a map in an RTS game does. While exploring you can scroll back to the base to see how they're faring (and you'll receive warnings while away from the nest if something happens to it). Though limited in what you can effectively "build" (raptors aren't known for their technological prowess: opening doors is pretty much it), your nest area will advance as you naturally discover ways of protecting the eggs using the nearby geography. For example, you could block off one path heading towards your nest area by employing a gang of raptors to push a boulder from its place on a hill onto the offending path, protecting it from wandering predators.
Like most RTS games, you'll only grow as far as you need to to achieve the goal for that map/campaign; this goal condition may be increasing the size of your nest area to cover a certain percentage of the screen, or to have a large army of hunter raptors under your command, or even destroying one particularly deadly predator nearby thereby guaranteeing safety for all nests in the predator's territory. Once this goal is complete, you can move onto the next map and start anew.
The combat in the game will be squad-based, as stated previously. You'll need to scout a potential target and its movement patterns to find out when it is at its most vulnerable and then take it down with your raptors. Most prey in the game have a certain raptor requirement for you to defeat (which is given as an approximate number of raptors needed), but like the measures you can take to protect the nest, you can also employ tactics to take down huge creatures or at least injuring them for your raptors to finish off. If pressed, you can drag down the creature's energy with constant quick hit-and-run attacks (though be careful of retribution) or flank it so that your raptors can attack from an angle where they are safe (usually best to avoid the target's tail or mouth). Since the RTS map is out of scale, the game will "zoom in" on a target as you approach it so you can more effectively mount an attack. Like with most real-time squad strategy games, your raptor will be able to bark commands to his subordinates, instructing them to stay clear or attack when it is most opportune.
Though the game loses something in the strategy area by doing away with building, it also adds a pure strategic feel to the game in its place. You have nothing but your wits and your instincts to help you in this ancient world full of danger, and there's no excessive amounts of power plants or tanks in reserve there to save you. If the squad-based raptor combat system ends up being as fun as I visualise it (sic-ing half a dozen hungry raptors on an unsuspecting triceratops at a watering hole, for instance) then this could be something worth spending an inordinate amount of time on. But then the chances of something like this being made (if it hasn't already; I don't follow the RTS market that closely) are pretty good already, so I shouldn't worry.
