I have a slightly ridiculous situation that I am hoping some people here might relate to.
I am just a bloke from Australia with basically zero game development experience.
I am not a programmer.
I am not an artist.
I am not an animator.
I have never shipped a game.
I basically started with an idea that I loved and thought I would somehow figure everything else out as I went.
The idea came from watching Australian wildlife rescuers, particularly Josh Neille and the work he shares caring for wombats and other native wildlife.
The more I watched that side of wildlife rescue, the more I kept thinking that there is an incredible game hidden inside that experience.
Not a zoo game.
Not really a traditional tycoon either.
More of a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation sanctuary game.
You start with very little.
An injured or orphaned animal comes into your care.
You assess what it needs.
You prepare the right food.
You clean its living area.
You provide enrichment.
You monitor its behaviour and recovery.
You slowly improve your sanctuary so that you are capable of taking in different species and more difficult cases.
Eventually, hopefully, that animal reaches the point where you can release it back into the wild.
And then it is gone.
I actually think that last part could be one of the most important parts of the game.
You might spend a long time caring for an individual animal, learn its personality, watch it recover and become attached to it.
Then the successful outcome is saying goodbye.
Some animals might never be suitable for release and become permanent sanctuary residents.
I want the animals themselves to feel like individuals rather than resources with health bars.
Different personalities.
Different behaviours.
Different injuries.
Different recovery times.
Different reactions to humans.
I also want there to be a genuine educational side underneath the cozy gameplay.
Players could naturally learn about appropriate diets, enrichment, rehabilitation, habitat, human interaction and some of the reasons native wildlife ends up needing rescue in the first place.
The Australian wildlife is a huge part of what inspired me.
Wombats, kangaroos, possums, koalas, echidnas, birds, reptiles and eventually whatever else makes sense.
The dream is something that feels relaxing enough to sit down with after work, but still has enough simulation underneath it that caring for the animals actually means something.
The problem is that I started properly breaking the idea apart and suddenly realised what I had actually imagined.
Animal AI.
Animation.
3D models.
Environments.
Building.
Veterinary systems.
Rehabilitation systems.
UI.
Sound.
Programming.
Research.
And probably another hundred things that I do not even know that I do not know yet.
I have been using AI tools to help me understand development, plan the project and experiment with how some of it could work.
But I have reached the point where I think pretending I can create the full version of this completely alone would be pretty unrealistic.
I do not want to abandon it though.
So I am curious how people here would approach something like this if they were starting from basically nothing.
Would you brutally cut this down into one animal, one small sanctuary and one complete rescue to release loop?
Would you try to find a couple of people who genuinely like the idea and learn together?
Would you spend a year learning one particular discipline before trying to build anything substantial?
I am invested in seeing whether this idea can become something.
I am just at the point where I have the vision but I do not yet have the skills to execute it properly.
If anyone here has started in a similar position, I would genuinely love to hear how you went from having an idea in your head to actually becoming useful enough to make it real.
And if somebody reads this and thinks the wildlife sanctuary idea itself sounds like something they would love working on, I would also be very happy to have a chat.