So this is really simple and less of an idea for a game and more of an idea for how to make some money off of games.

Star Citizen made billions off of selling ships as copies of the game and other games in the industry are sure to follow.

But if you want to make a statement about digital licensing and the game and toy industry itself this seems like a really cool way to loop in the fans and collectors all the same.

Make your purchase of the game an action figure. A really finely detailed and over the top extravagant 60 dollar figure with something similar to a QR code.

Basically the game does not get sold on Steam, the Epic Games store or any online retailer. Instead people may order a copy of the game by purchasing an action figure of the character that they get to play.

You go to a local games shop and instead of buying a card you buy a figurine.

Granted this is highly likely to be abused but I thought I’d put it out there.

I think people more and more are wanting a way to purchase games and own their copy of the game. The social clout from having the entire collection of characters on your shelf is way more tangible than just opening the game and showing your roster.

You could lend your character out and so forth and so on.

Lemme know your thoughts on this approach. I fully expect there to be some underlying flaw in this idea. Let me know how to make it work or why it should never be done!

I’ve had this game idea stuck in my head lately and it’s keeping me awake at night, so I just really need to share it with you guys. Maybe some indie developer out there will see this and actually make it happen.

Imagine a hardcore SURVIVAL GAME built with hyper-realistic graphics and advanced physics—absolutely zero cartoonish or Roblox-style block characters. Pure realism.

The core mechanic would allow you to freely toggle between First-Person (for intense, claustrophobic survival) and Third-Person (to witness the sheer, terrifying scale of destruction).

Instead of one long story, it’s an anthology campaign where each mission casts you as a different character in a different time period. Your goal is simple: survive each catastrophic event from the absolute beginning to the very end.

Here is the mission lineup I envisioned:

• Mission 1: The Ash of Pompeii (79 AD)

• The Incident: The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

• The Gameplay: You play a Roman citizen navigating collapsing stone streets in the middle of the day as the sky turns pitch black. You have to manage suffocating air quality, avoid falling volcanic rocks, and make a frantic dash to the harbor before the final pyroclastic surge hits the city.

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• Mission 2: The Ark Valley Megatsunami (Modern Day)

• The Incident: A 2012-movie-inspired global megatsunami.

• The Gameplay: Fast-paced, high-tech chaos. You play a worker in a mountain valley when early warning sirens start blaring. You have to hotwire a heavy vehicle, smash through automated security grids, and execute a vertical evacuation up a massive structure or cliffside as a miles-high wave swallows the landscape beneath you.

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• Mission 3: The Torrent of the Himalayas (August 2026)

• The Incident: The Nepal Glacial Lake Outburst and Mudslide.

• The Gameplay: A brutal test of reflexes and agility. Heavy monsoons cause a natural glacial dam upstream to burst, sending a massive wall of liquid mud and boulders down the valley. The ground beneath you is actively liquefying, forcing you to scale vertical terrain as the village is torn apart in real-time.

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• Mission 4: The Death Zone (Modern Day)

• The Incident: A Mount Everest Blizzard and Avalanche.

• The Gameplay: Slow, agonizing survival focusing on resource management. Trapped high up the mountain, a massive avalanche cuts off your path. Your enemies are a freezing whiteout storm, severe frostbite, and a fading oxygen tank. You must use ice axes and ropes to navigate deep crevasses and find shelter before freezing to death.

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• Mission 5: The Shaanxi Midnight Cave-In (1556)

• The Incident: The Great Shaanxi Earthquake (The deadliest earthquake in human history).

• The Gameplay: Pure atmospheric horror. A massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake strikes in pitch-black darkness at midnight. The shaking is too violent to stand, forcing you to crawl through a collapsing ancient city. The main threat is avoiding mass entrapment as entire mountainsides slide down, burying thousands of cave homes (yaodongs) under tons of earth.

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• Mission 6: The Subterranean Trap (2009)

• The Incident: The Nutty Putty Cave Entrapment (Inspired by the tragic story of John Edward Jones).

• The Gameplay: The ultimate test of psychological horror and claustrophobic navigation. You play an experienced caver exploring a popular underground maze. After taking a wrong turn in the dark, you accidentally slide headfirst into a narrow, unmapped downward fissure.

• The Objective: The game shifts entirely to a hyper-realistic, inverted physics puzzle. You cannot turn around or back out. With your flashlight flickering and gravity working against your circulation, you must use highly precise body-shifting controls to inch backward, manage your panic and oxygen levels, and find a way to wiggle free before your body goes into cardiac arrest.

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• Mission 7: The Unsinkable Labyrinth (1912)

• The Incident: The Sinking of the RMS Titanic.

• The Gameplay: A brilliant contrast of luxury and absolute terror. You play as a third-class passenger or a boiler room worker deep inside the ship. The mission begins not with an explosion, but with a strange, heavy shudder vibrating through the steel hull at midnight after striking the iceberg.

• The Objective: You must navigate from the very bottom of the world’s largest ocean liner to the top deck. The core challenge is dealing with rising waters and locked infrastructure. As the bow sinks, the ship tilts forward, causing water to pour down the grand staircases and long corridors like an indoor waterfall. You have to navigate a maze of flooding hallways, bypass locked gates separating the passenger classes, and avoid floating debris in freezing, crystal-clear Atlantic water before the ship breaks in half and disappears into the abyss.

In this game the player flies a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft around a scifi city as part of a dystopian law enforcement agency. An Alien cult has taken root in parts of the city and it is the player's job to support the local law enforcement in cracking down on it. If you are familiar with Warhammer 40K think Adeptus Arbites and Genestealer Cults, however to avoid legal issues we will not use Games Workshop branded factions. 

The game play will be similar to Sim Copter where ransom mission prompts will appear on the map. The player must fly their VTOL aircraft to the mission location and carry out what ever the task is. Completed missions will give the player requisition points with which to upgrade their aircraft or buy a new one. There will be bonus objectives to some missions that will give the player more points but require extra effort. Each mission will have a time limit and failure to complete it in the given time will result in the Alien Cult growing stronger. 

Unlike Sim Copter the player progresses in a mini campaign similar to a rouge lite. A campaign will start with the player flying a low level VTOL doing low level  missions. The Alien Cult will grow over time, but grow faster the more missions the player fails. As the cult grows the difficulty of their missions will increase and hopefully the player will have upgraded their VTOL fleet to react to the increasing difficulty. If the cult grows too powerful they will start sabotaging/destroying parts of the city. 

The final Tier 4 mission will take place in a state of open rebellion by the cult. Its members will be flying VTOL's and using MANPAD's (man portable antiair defense). The density of the cult's defenses will be determined by how strong the cult was when the Tier 4 mission finally triggers. Below are some of the mission types. The tier level corresponds to how late in the campaign these missions start showing up:

Tier 1

Clean Graffiti - Some one has painted cult / gang signs on part of the city. Get a maintenance crew  to the site or use a fire hose to clean it off.

Bonus - Catch the vandal before they escape

Medevac civilian - A civilian has been wounded and needs to be flown to a treatment center. Several local treatment centers are available.

Bonus - Some civilians will be infected cult members if the player takes a "civilian" who is really a cult member to the Central Police Lab instead of the local treatment center and it turns out to be a cult member there will be a bonus. Taking civilians there will result in normal mission success but no bonus.

Deploy Maintenance Crew - A piece of machinery has malfunctioned in a hard to reach area of the city. Pick up a maintenance worker and get them to the repair site.

Tier 2

Catch Ground Robbers - A recent heist has taken place and the criminals are running to an underground entrance. Deploy police in their way or capture them using onboard weapons.

Bonus - Capturing Cultists and dragging them to the central police station will result in a reward. The same mechanics 

Catch VTOL - Criminals are flying a stolen VTOL, force them to land and capture them. 

Bonus - a bonus will be given if the player forces the VTOL down without damaging it.

Rescue Stranded civilians - A civilian VTOL has crashed in a difficult location pick them up and take them to safety.

Put out fire - A building has caught fire and the player must bring a water cannon to extinguish the hot spots.

Bonus - Some fires are started by arsonists, catch the fleeing arsonist for a bonus.

Pipeline failure - A major resource pipeline has shut down. Scan the nodes of the pipeline to find failure points and drop maintenance workers on them to get the pipeline working again.

Tier 3

Cult HQ Strike - A cult headquarters has been identified. Load special Strike Team officers at local police stations and deploy them around the perimeter of the headquarters. Then support the assault with direct fire.

Bonus - The time between the first strike team officer landing and the last one will determine bonus. If it is too long some cultists may escape

Air Support Officer Down - A police patrol was ambushed by the cult drive off the cult members and take any injured officers to medical treatment.

Bonus - capturing cultists and keeping officer casualties will both give a bonus.

Train Hijacking - The cult is using several VTOL aircraft to hijack a train on the way to the city. Drive off or destroy the VTOL's and land officers on the train to recapture it.

Bonus - Recapture the Train before it gets to its destination ware houses.

Capture Cult leader - A suspected cult leader is traveling in the open. Identify and capture them. The player must have a scanner on board their VTOL. The mission will be an area search where there is one "civilian" that will show up as cult infected. After they are identified the cult leader will run for the nearest underground entrance. The player must capture them before then.

Tier 4

Power Station Assault - The cult has grown bold enough to attack major infrastructure elements like the power station. This will be a combination Fire Fighting, Cult HQ strike, and Air Support Officer down.

Governor's Mansion Hostage Situation- The cult is making a play for the Govenor's ball several people are injured and the cult is escaping with some high profile hostages. These hostages have access codes to vital infrastructure and can not be allowed to be interrogated by the cult.  This will be a combination Medevac civilian, Catch Ground robbers, and Rescue Stranded Civilians.    

Stop Sabotage - Bombs have been placed at several critical locations of the water treatment plant. Identify the bombs with a scanner and drop maintenance workers in to defuse them. The player and maintenance workers will come under attack by cultist ground and VTOL units. There will be several sabotage points that the player must scan. If bombs are detected the player must drop a maintenance worker on it like the  Deploy Maintenance Crew. However there will be cultists shooting back and the player must cover the Maintenance crew until the bomb is defused. Deploying police will help with this.