Damn, that's a lot fucking darker than I'd thought it'd get on reading the title of the fable.

I know it's not the point, but I love the completely arbitrary bit where they're walking down a road together, and has absolutely no bearing on anything the happens.

It is, in fact, very easy to code a game!

from pygame import game
game.load_player()
game.load_enemies()
game.load_audio()
game.run()

It's like scope creep, but where the demanding client is also your boss/coworker.

Not to mention that an idea is not a game, not even conceptually. There's a reason it's called game design and not game turn-idea-into-code.

I got asked by a team of first timers who have never done any professional coding or design if I wanted to chip in on a competitive MMOFPS they want to make.

That's not going to happen. Between the rise of cheating, the insane hardware and optimization requirements of an MMOFPS, the general lack of interest in the genre (most have died due to low player counts), and the sheer amount of time and effort involved in designing and balancing the game even after it's largely feature complete? Forget it, I'm better off buying lottery tickets than hoping for anything to come of that.

I had a guy whose pitch was "Ok, you're the president."

That was the game idea. The whole thing.

"games out there that don't exist" how high r u rn

I can code but I can't do art. I can make a game, but it will look ugly as fuck.

You mean like an MMO where different maps are arranged in an infinite hexagonal pattern that's randomly/procedurally generated based on different biomes, that also keeps track of how many players have entered/completed each hex and begins scaling down the difficulty in said hex and evolving it into a more peaceful zone, that way the higher traffic areas eventually form safe zones/towns for low level characters while low traffic areas encourage high level characters to visit and explore, with the highest level characters able to survive unexplored areas and expand the map for all players, all while having developer tools to specifically add unique dungeons/events/items directly to tiles so that the game doesnt feel a mile wide and an inch deep but instead as if the whole world map is alive and constantly changing?

Yea... That'd be cool.

You know what's ironic about all this is, as someone who has seen game dev pitches (not good ones), they arguably had their shit together more than most aspiring game devs. Looking back at the skeletals, ya know they actually may have had a chance of getting somewhere. They knew absolutely nothing about the technical side, but hardly any game devs actually do. They probably still stand a better chance today of developing this than some game studios asset-mashing in Unity or Unreal. That's the true state of game dev.

I envy you in some ways, recognizing your limits is something I wish I would have done. I came from a coding background, spent like 2 years learning unity, then eventually realized much of the cool stuff for games happen on the art side. So I learned blender... the whole pipeline- modeling, sculpting, materials, animations, each piece had it's own challenges and quirks.

It's been like 15 years since I started, I still haven't released a game... but I do have a collection of neat prototypes that no one has played. I often wonder if I've wasted my time with the whole thing. If I could go back, I'd choose one niche, specialize in it and find a team to collaborate with, but there are trade offs with that too like giving up a lot of creative control.

You can have someone else do it for you. You just need the money. Give yourself Executive Producer credits, tell them your vision and pay them to make it happen.

"Sure, we'll pay you 2% of the profits"

I have this idea of how to solve the world's energy problem...ok ok just hear me out... nuclear fusion....just need some smart science nerd to figure it out. Any volunteers?

Have you considered making your deck building game an mmorpg?