I agree completely and I've been saying for a long time that the increasing cost of making games will just lead to the further homogenization of the industry. Risks are too costly when one failed experiment can lead to the collapse of a company. That is why indies often feel like they are the only ones trying things new, although often they don't have the capabilies to make a game with the scale/budget of large development companies.

I would love to be able to make games, because one of my favorite things to do is to ponder game design, but there is just such a huge barrier for entry and I know it would be pretty much impossible for me (as one person) to create any of the game ideas I have... I am interested to see what you are making though ^.^

On the note of alien design, I agree that "humanoid" is far too common. Looking at my game shelf, I can't see any games which really gave me something truly foreign to fight. Xenoblade did some interesting things, but even most of those monster designs were based off of animals (with some exceptions). However, creativity is a lot more difficult than doing what you know...

but there already are non humanoid creatures smaller than humans.

e.g.

or the swarm in mass effect.

or the insects in the jungle level in killzone 3.

They dont get much attention because simply, they can never be interesting as humanoid creatures.

Anyway, theres a scientific basis to assume that a creature will gain or adapt (through evolution) certain limbs and organs in the same period of time it gains intelligence.

You could also argue an alien race millions of years older than ours could wipe us all out within a few minutes, but again, that wouldnt make a great plot for a game.

How would it? we wouldnt even see them because they would kill us before we leave the atmosphere of our own planet.

The classic grab like / scuttler creature is overplayed, the reason they dont get much attention is because theyre used as "bullet sponges" a design element to distract you or depleat your ammunition and give the sense that a primary target is harder to kill than it really is, just because a creature is small should not mean its of no interest or simply cannon fodder, you only need to look at spark from the halo series, or the spheres in portal.

The scentific basis is an assumption based on the parameters and boundaries of our environment, limb count has no direct connection to intelligence, unless you're saying dolphins have arms and legs.

But circling back to what i said earlier, we are just the current result of evolution, largely based on the environment in which we live - look at skin color for example, its simply a result of thousands of years of generations living under the same conditions, the colder the environment the lighter the skin.

if oxygen supplies were to decrease moving forward, who is to say that in a few hundred thousand years our bodies would not adapt to this slow depletion?

If the environment changes as do we, the intellectual level is not defined by our form, it is defined by how adapting to our environment and how natural selection brought us to this point - rewind the clock a few million years and make changes to our atmosphere, fast forward to 2014 and i can gurantee you, humans would not look like we currently do.

An alien world has about as much chance of being a similar environment to our own as you have of throwing a dart 100 meters and hitting the exact same point twice, so it stands to reason that the chances of it's intelligent species resembling a human, or a humanoid of any form, would be slim.

And what if rather than follow the usual rules of game creation, we think outside of the box and instead made the game where we are the aliens wiping out the humans, throw in some back story about leaving the planet only to come back and find an alien species you were once at war with has seeded the planet with its kind, only the population no longer recalls their lineage after millions of years left to their own devices?

Sure sounds interesting to me.

 Sort of. Kinda. 

now give it an actually decent story and make it less cliche!

Interesting thread. I do agree with a fair bit of what you said and realize too that certain conventions exist to make a game fun. I am interested about the game you're developing and I wish you the best of luck.

Wicked story. 

The game begins with a Furon, Cryptosporidium-136, hovering over a launch site with military personnel testing a rocket. The rocket is launched and destroys the ship carrying Cryptospiridium-136, and leaves him fatally wounded. Crypto-136 is later captured, by the U.S. Army. Some time later, Cryptosporidium-137 travels to Earth with another Furon, Orthopox-13. Cryptosporidium (nicknamed 'Crypto') comes with the intention of rescuing 136, while Orthopox (nicknamed 'Pox') desires to extract human brain stems for study. Crypto arrives at Turnipseed Farm in the Midwest, where Pox mistakes Cows for Earth's dominant life-form. The Majesticagency is alerted to the Furon presence when Crypto decimates an army brigade passing through the area. Pox, communicating with Crypto through a hologram-like device, then reveals to Crypto that the reason he requires human brain stems is because they contain pure Furon D.N.A. handed down to them by Furon scouts eons ago when the Furons stopped on Earth for "shore leave" following a war with Mars (which was rendered uninhabitable by the Furon Empire).

After several missions in the Midwestern town of Rockwell and the California suburb of Santa Modesta, Crypto and Pox become aware of the Majestic, and begin crippling government attempts to stop them by performing acts such as destroying Area 42 (a parody of Area 51) with an atomic bomb and killing an air-force General named "Armquist". Throughout the game, Crypto's various acts are covered up by the government and media, which attribute them either to freak accidents or to Communism.

The game climaxes in Capitol City (a parody of Washington, D.C.), where Crypto assassinates President Huffman (a parody of president Harry Truman) and brutally slaughters all members of the US Congress. Soon, the U.S. government seemingly surrenders to the Furons. Crypto meets Silhouette, leader of Majestic, in front of the Capitol. After a brief scuffle with Silhouette, Crypto discovers that "he" is a woman. Silhouette unveils the Roboprez, which is a towering mech controlled by President Huffman's brain. Crypto defeats Roboprez in his flying saucer, and then defeats Silhouette in a final battle at the Octagon (a parody of The Pentagon). As Silhouette dies, she reveals that there are other Majestic divisions all over the world. Crypto, however, is confident that without Silhouette's leadership, Majestic will be totally powerless to resist the Furon takeover.

The game ends with Huffman making a televised speech, assuring America that the recent events were the work of communists, who have poisoned the U.S. water supply, and that as a result testing centers have been set up all across the country to scan people for harmful toxins. People are then shown being herded reluctantly by Army soldiers into strange machines, apparently for brain stem extraction. Huffman is then revealed to be Crypto in disguise.

Like wow

I whole heartedly agree with that assertion though my reasoning is very different.  

I think it's more about how heavy, AAA, waterfall style development of games is widely considered to be the only way to  make games.