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Hi Evolutionary Games,

You are right..! 
I hope to capture that casual gamer audience (although I wouldn't classify myself as casual, I find that the older I get, my taste in casual games seem to grow).

Thank you for the recommendation, my intention is similar to yours - I was concerned that creating a more mechanics-heavy game would be impossible and therefore opted to have simple mechanics and systems to detract from the technical side of game development and focus on the artistic side. 

The only issue is as you correctly point out is graphics... I am not sure what artstyle or what it will look like but I will continue to practice with what I have now and see how far it will go.

Thanks again!

Hi Mild_Iron,

I appreciate the feedback and your advice on placing a strong emphasis on engaging characters.
I will be honest that this is probably the most worrying thing in my mind, as the systems are basic I will need to rely on this aspect.

I really enjoyed games like Disco Elysium, The Forgotten City, Hotel Dusk - where dialogue was an extremely large part of the experience.

Thank you, and I will try not to let you down!

Hi Ingwer,

Thank you for the time to reply and provide some amazing and detailed feedback!

Now that you mention it, I agree that Simulation should not be the genre.

Indeed... I should have been more clear that the character is an ex-doctor, who is now sent as an investigator to the hospital - the background of being an ex-doctor helps with narratively explaining why the character is able to join a hospital and work with (initially) no suspicion. I do agree that there is a large amount of details that I will need to iron out, and this point also applies to side quests - thank you!

I will work on refining the 'big feature' within the systems... I am thinking of something to do with the dialogue system, particularly about diagnosing patients / interviewing a person of interest.

I will also have a think about what to prioritise (or perhaps it will come natural at what I am better at) - either gameplay flow or narrative... This will also inform me on whether I should separate Day/Night sections or implement both routine and investigation together.

Thanks again Ingwer!

Hi everyone,

I'm an aspiring game dev who is in the process of creating my first game, but I want to check if this concept/design is even a good idea before I invest further time into it - it is currently in the very early stages of development so I do not have anything to show other than some very poorly designed models and rough systems in place. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

- Basics -
Genre: Simulation, adventure, mystery, story
Players: Single player
View: First person
Art style: Undecided
Engine: Unity

- Premise -
You play as newly qualified Medical Doctor who begins his/her first day in a hospital that rumoured to have an abnormally high serious incident/critical incidence/death rate recently over the years.
Although you really are a Medical Doctor, you have been previously removed from ot left the medical register/board after an incident that occurred years ago, but an organisation that you now work for has been tasked to investigate this hospital.
The issue is that every investigation returns with a suspiciously unremarkable report, therefore this organisation has sent you to infiltrate the hospital to gain evidence and an explanation of these abnormally high death rates.
You have to balance your daily duties as a new Internal Medicine physician to avoid suspicion from an unknown perpetrator(s), whilst simultaneously investigating the secrets that this hospital hides.
The choices you make will lead to different endings that reveal different details of the staff and hospital. With each 'run', the knowledge gained by the player will help access other endings that require knowledge from 2 or more endings to achieve (a branching progress system  inspired by games similar to The Nonary Games).

- Systems -
- I intend for this game to allow players to pick up and store items in a simple inventory (e.g. notes, clues), that can be reviewed at any time.
- Simple pick-a-response-from-a-list dialogue system to speak with NPCs
- Use item from inventory on a person or object (to administer medication/perform a minor procedure/combine something/use a key on a door etc.)
- Quest/job system to track short-term jobs (from daily duties of a doctor - e.g. emergency calls, reviewing patients on the ward and the emergency department, diagnosing patients, attending clinic), and long-term jobs (from your investigation e.g. finding a key to the medical directors office to find clues). There will also be 'side quests' that players can chose to do that is not necessarily important to the main story.
- Interacting with computers to look through emails, patient records, download files (appears in your inventory and information can be accessed with loading it onto another computer)
- A bleep/pager system where there will be scripted / random paged numbers that players can use a telephone to 'call' back the number
- Interacting with telephones to call extension numbers
- NPC schedules: there are core NPCs that will have a schedule they follow and for the player to learn if they wish (e.g. a suspicion of guilt, a time-dependent item that they require)
- Day/Night cycle: This game has a finite time to complete. There are 5 days for a player to complete, each day with a 08:00 - 17:00 working day. If the player does not find the secret of the hospital, then the game ends with a 'bad' end (they are caught by the hospital)
- Multiple endings/branches: Depending on the choices the player makes, determines what the next day will be.
E.g.
Run 1: Day 1 -> Help an important NPC -> Day 2a -> Pick up important clue -> Day 3a -> Correctly diagnose a patient -> Day 4a -> Opened a locked location -> Day 5a -> END.
Run 2: Day 1 -> Do not help the important NPC -> Day 2b -> Clue is not present to pick up/important NPC is found dead -> Day 3b -> Correctly diagnose a patient -> Day4b -> Location remains locked -> Day 5b -> END
This means each day has a few potential branches that can lead to a lot of endings.

What do you all think?
Is there potential with this idea or does it seem boring as a game concept?
My particular worry that this game would essentially be a 'walking sim' with some extra features that may not appeal to a lot of people.
Another worry is that this game is heavily reliant on a succint and solid story which is hard to test without actually commiting and developing the game.

Any comment would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks for your help,
Keimu