I’ve got an idea for a non-violent 3D FPS shooter game, set in a snow-covered winter landscape, with no campaign, focused mainly on multiplayer, but with the option of bots for offline play. The essence of the game would be a ‘snowball fight’, hence the non-violent nature. The player models (which you could choose from in the menu, with models for both genders) would take the form of small till teenage children who would throw snowballs at each other in the game. The camera should have two modes, depending on the game settings: whether the player wants a first-person view or wants to see the entire back of their character’s model (third person view). Perhaps it would be possible to switch between these views using a button during gameplay.
Various snow-covered parts of modern-day cities, as well as rural villages from past centuries (ancient-themed), would serve as maps. However, the maps shouldn't be too large, so that players don't have to search for each other too much in case there are only a few of them playing.
In addition to the snow texture, the floor should feature patches of ice on the sidewalk; if the player were holding the sprint key (with the default movement being a walk— albeit a slightly brisk one), they would slip, causing the camera to jerk upward toward the sky and slowing the player down as they slowly picked themselves up after the fall. If player was holding a ball while running, they drop it upon falling and must make a new one.
Each player would have only one ball to throw; after throwing (or "shooting" if you want) it, they would have to press a button, which would be followed by an animation of the player crouching, the animation would stop once the player had crouched, with the player looking down at the snow on the floor, and a bar would appear on the screen where the red colour at both ends of the bar would fade into green in the middle, and a line would move from one end to the other, then in the opposite direction– the player would have to mouse-click on the green section in time to make their snowball properly- if they were to click anywhere outside the green area, the ball would crumble to dust mid-flight and wouldn’t hit anything– just like in real life. Reload would be possible anywhere there is snow, which would be most of every map in the game. However, if the player were standing on a sidewalk with no snow, for instance, it would not be possible to reload.
↑(To clarify this further: the player always forms the snowball regardless of which color they click on— but the snowball only reaches and hits the target if the player selected the green color.)
If a snowball hits a model, it might fall over and make "snow angels" moves or something similar, until the game puts it back into the match after a few seconds (maybe 10?)
In single-player mode, the player could specify map settings before the match— such as choosing between daytime, an evening with a sunset glow, or nighttime— and toggle/disable snowing. This setting could be refined individually for each of the maps.
The game modes would be as follows— I envisioned:
- Free For All
- Team Skirmish
- Capture the Pot
- Freeze Tag
The minimap located in one of the screen corners would be designed so that only players from one's own team are visible— enemies never— except in "Capture the Pot" mode, where the exact location of the moving stolen pot would also be displayed. But the location of individual enemies would once again be hidden in the minimap and that’s because it would also allow for a bit of stealth gameplay.
So I’d appreciate it if someone could write in to say whether they understood the individual mechanics as I intended and whether they like the concept... I’ve been thinking about this concept for quite a few years now.