In my opinion “you are the villain” is a difficult theme, for the three act story formula doesn’t work. If it’s a “introduction, everything falls apart in the middle, protagonist prevails in the end” kind of thing, then you are not really the villain anymore, but an “evil” hero instead. However, a narrative where everything goes well from beginning to the middle and then falls apart in the end strikes me as rather frustrating. Hmmm, what to do,what to do?

Perhaps it’s better to focus on what kind of game I want to create and what’s possible in the alloted time span.

The first thing that springs to mind is Grand Theft Auto, but something like that is too complicated to realize.

That dungeon game where you had to defeat heroes would be a possibility. Kind of like a reverse tower defense, but apart from the flavour you could easily interchange hero and villain.

Perhaps I could keep the disappointing reverse narrative to stay true to the “you are the villain” theme after all and then make this an 80s style game where it’s about obtaining a high score rather than winning, since the villain has to be overcome by the hero in the end.

Considering how many hours I’ve wasted with analysis-paralysis I might not finish at all…