Okay, here’s what’s kickin’ around the old noodle:

Star Kittens

This will basically be Dungeon Keeper in space, with cute kittens taking the place of the monsters and the evil, evil, Chaos Dogs playing the roles of the “heroes”.

(I’ve mentioned before that the heroes in DK are the real jerks, right? You’re minding your own business, mining your own gold, building a little city for the oppressed minorities to live in, and then these guys come in and wreck it all and try to steal your loot just ’cause you look evil. Jerks.)

The kawaii factor will be turned up as high as it can go, and there will be lots of visual customization options for both your Star Kittens and the bases they build.

Target platform: PC, with possible Mac version if I can ever scrape up enough money to buy a Mac.
Target audience: Six- to eight-year old girls (I can’t wait to get them saying things like “cryogenic suspension”, “FTL drive” and “hydroponics”) and anyone who likes to play games with little autonomous people running around. (For some reason, Europe seems to be a big market for this type of game.)

PROS:

A unique space – nobody’s ever made a proper remake/ripoff of Dungeon Keeper. (Why? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYY?)
Six- to eight-year-old girls play lots of games. I’ve got one to prove it.

CONS:

Art heavy, which means lots of money up front (art is way, way more expensive than music).
I would want the game to be in 3D if possible, which will lengthen the development time.
I already tried making a 3D game in the same style (Planitia) and failed pretty miserably – BUT Star Kittens would actually require a simpler 3D engine.

The other game…

Clan Destiny (Possible working title if whoever owns Trilobyte’s IPs objects.)

Think for a moment about the first turn of Civilization. It’s 4000 BC. You’ve got a “settler” unit. You click “build city”. You hit “end turn”. The game time jumps forward by 20 years, and the city is built.

Clan Destiny is about what happens during that first turn. It will be a turn-based 4X game set in the stone age, with several different clans vying for supremacy. It will be completely 2D and sprite-based. It will also play FAST – the biggest game of Clan Destiny (large map, max number of enemy clans) should take no more than two hours to play. While it will be full-featured, with tech trees, different units to build and territory expansion through various means, all of these systems will be simplified and mechanics will be put into play to curtail the late-game, “mopping up” portion.

Target Platforms: The PC and Android phones, with a Mac version if I can yada yada yada.
Target Audience: Anyone who has ever looked at Civilization IV and/or Galactic Civilizations and said, “I’d love to, but I just don’t have the time…”

PROS:

If the game is even the slightest bit good, it’ll become an Android bestseller. Android users are dying for good games.
Much art-lighter than Star Kittens.
Possibly bigger market.

CONS:

Will almost certainly be harder to make “fun” than Star Kittens – lots of balancing will be required. And we all saw how “good” I was with that on Inaria…
A release of Civilization Revolution for the Android would kill this game. Star Kittens doesn’t have that problem.

So, which would you prefer to see first? And do you have any other ideas or suggestions?