Anytime anyone tells me something's not true, or impossible, I just tell them to search their feelings. Then they know it to be true.

The biggest reasons why people claim something would be impossible, is because they haven't heard the proposition in a way that can either appeal to them, or in a way that shows them how it COULD work

TF2 had the Pyroland goggles that let you see everything the way the criminally insane pyro does. Everything is unicorns and rainbows, and they re-textured like a dozen core maps to support it

10:30 kind of sounds like what "We Happy Few" tried to do

Tim coming up with Undertale in the 90s.

Impossible idea that explicitly happened in Undertale lol

As a seasoned programmer, my greatest pitfall is not that I see "impossible" ideas as impossible, but rather, that when a crazy idea comes across my desk, I usuall CAN see a route to create it, but since it hasn't been done before, there are always problems lying in wait for me. Unless there's a hard technical show-stopper, I can brute-force my way past these issues but it may take me weeks or even months to break through all the snags to arrive at a workable implementation, which makes me a lousy fit for most AAA-production studios.

TL;DR: I can't tell a game designer "no" immediately, nor can I tell them just how long it would take for me to implement the idea until I've actually done it. If you're the first to do something that is a technical breakthrough, you just won't be able to give an adequate timeline.

Dear Tim, one of your impossible ideas (not saying which one because the experience is better if you don't know) was just realized by a recently released adventure game, called The Drifter. I suggest that you go into it blind, the least you know, the better. Not only does The Drifter build up to the idea beautifully but it also builds more layers below and on top of it then you'd expect. Despite its retro look, The Drifter also has very fresh visual and gameplay features and a very strong gut-punching story that keeps surprising the player. While extremely far from the reactivity and emergent gameplay of an RPG I think you'll be delighted to experience what you were told is impossible. I'm sure that sooner or later more of these "impossible" ideas will become a reality.

Project Zomboid has: Procedurally generated forests, grass and trees grow, all that and everything you change in the world is saved. Also building the character revolves around picking positives and negatives like you described.

My young son will often come up with cool ideas to implement in my game and I love trying to come up with ways to actually make it work.

Recently Shadow Gambit played with the idea of in-universe saving, and the villain taking this power away from you and using it for herself. It was neat.

I’ve been searching for 2 months, looking for anyone who’s put certain game features together. This video is the closest I’ve gotten, and I’m glad to see someone thought of it before me.

Tim this helps me with so much as a music artist you dont have any idea lol, much of what inspires me in music is much of all of the interesting things happening in game design and craft. Thank you for everything Mr Cain

Half these "impossible" ideas are just things indie games do. That load save thing sounds like something from undertale.

Dear Tim, regarding the boss save file idea: this makes me think of a phylactery. It's functionally the same, and must be destroyed before the boss can be defeated. So boo on those who said it was impossible!

Donkey Kong Bananza seems to be approaching the environmental destruction angle in an interesting way. And it's perpetual and even viewable on the map.

It also looks like they're giving players multiple ways of dealing with traversing the map and getting to things outside of just pure destruction. Seems to be a fun balance.

A coworker and I have a saying when it comes to impossible programming tasks: "Anything you wish, for the right price".

The save scumming boss mechanic could be interesting. Whenever a critical strike occurs against the boss, it rolls back and occurs again as a normal hit. When the boss misses, it rolls back until it lands a hit. The boss could start with 'unoptimal' play, but the fight restarts after a defeat with improved tactics and adaptation against whichever player strategy had defeated it. Maybe follow this up with a meta moment where you can only defeat the boss by going into the game files and finding where the save data is being stored and removing it.

Love that boss has saves too idea. super meta, reminds me of some of those Metal Gear Solid pranks, like making the boss die of old age if you don't play for awhile, or having Mantis mention the games you've played.

10:05 reminds me of We Happy Few, most of the city in that game was destroyed but the people saw it as a paradise and you could see it that way too.
Also, the character creation idea at 12:18 is similar to what Project Zomboid does. It has a long list of positive and negative traits. You could only take a few basic positive traits without having to take negative ones. Another game that comes close to that is Europa Universalis 4's custom nation mechanic. While it is far from being an RPG game, it allowed players to create their own custom nation with a lot of customization. You had a really long list of buffs you could take and you could modify how good it was. "Do I want a +5% boost to tax and start with more land or just 10% boost to tax?" Maybe a similar system could be done in an RPG, albeit it would be really confusing if it isn't designed well.