Well, the problem at the moment is that I’m not very inspired. When my ‘oomph’ comes back it could take off in any direction. There’s a few things I’ve been thinking on over the last couple of years though…
Team Action
I’ve really gotten into the idea of team mechanics, rules that promote the players working together to solve problems, to give each other buffs, to think tactically and to ensure that all players can contribute to the action. I’ve experimented with this in the game Kagai! and I intend for it to be integral to a couple of other ideas I’ve been working on, a tribal/savage/barbarian game setting, and a survival/technohorror series. This isn’t something that’s really that well explored in game mechanics, other than fulfilling ‘roles’ in a team (Fighter, healer, rogue, magic user).
Grimdarkness
I’m interested in the aesthetic of all-out horror, not just splatter but hopelessness, death, decay, surreality and so on. I like the idea of horror, but horror films never really do it for me unless there’s something more cerebral or genre-bending going on. Not many modern horror films really do that for me, though short films focussed on ideas are interesting and there are gems amongst the dross when it comes to things like creepypastas. I’ve enjoyed The Void, the music of Primitive Knot and the aesthetic of games like Kingdom Death, Darkest Dungeon and Bloodborne while considering this.
Green Apocalypse
The aesthetic and idea of a ‘green apocalypse’, life after a collapse, is appealing and integral to my post-apocalyptic game idea. I was first struck by the beauty of this aesthetic while playing Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, but a similar style has shown up in games like The Last of Us and, to an extent, in movies and TV like The Road, The Walking Dead, The Girl with all the Gifts and Revolution.
Postmortem Studios 