Refining an Idea

I now have 2 broad concepts.

1. Base a game off Viking mythology - either a broad story like Ragnarök (the final battle in Norse mythology between good and evil) or a more specific myth (such as Beowolf, but something that hasn't been done before). This could be similar to "God of War", but I am reluctant to just do a game based solely off mythology due to the heavy influence of God of War's character designs in terms of Gods. Mythology has been designed and illustrated for centuries, so it'd be hard to do something completely original here.

2. Put the vikings into another age/context so you have viking design mixed with another theme.

For concept number 2 there are a few separate snippets of ideas:

• Vikings in space - futuristic
• Vikings in North America - the Vikings were the first European race to discover north america - it wasn't Columbus! Imagine how different America would be today if the Vikings had colonised the country rather than Columbus and his people.

I really like the idea of Vikings in America - it would just be a matter of figuring out which time period to put them in. Considering:

• The year 1000, near the end of the Viking age when North America was discovered by Vikings
• The explorers era - when Columbus comes to America (1492)
• The Colonial period (1587 - 1739)
• The American Revolution (1772 - 1786)
• The American Civil War (1861 - 1865)
• The Industrial Era (1865 - 1897)
• The Depression (1929 - 1938)
• World War 1 (1914 - 1918)
• World War 2 (1939 - 1945)
• Postwar America - current day America
• America in the future (Space travel etc)

The eras that really jump out to me are the Revolution period, the Civil War period and the Industrial period.

The Revolution would be fun to play around with - how would the Revolution have been different had the Vikings colonised America rather than Columbus? Would be interesting in terms of history - The English could invade America and want to take it over from the Vikings. The Vikings and the English have a very rich and interesting history and didn't have the best relationships during most of the Viking Era. This would be a Vikings vs English war in North America.

On the other hand, I really wanted to create a longboat steam train since the start of this project and to play around with a lot of the technology that wasn't available in America until the Civil War and Industrial Era. I think I might stick to these two periods and eliminate the Revolution idea.

I think I will need to do more research into the Viking discovery of America as well as on the Civil War and the Industrial Age.