Jackablade on 26/11/2009 at 07:56
It could easily be heavy handed when implemented (and even when described) but I really like that idea. I think the best way to pull it off would be to market it as a kind of comedy but then include some uncomfortably depressing scenes.
but, man, could it be pretentious if done poorly
Sulphur on 26/11/2009 at 08:08
It would work pretty brilliantly if there's no overt moralising to it, just a sequence of events that would leave the player to make his own conclusions once it's done
Malf on 26/11/2009 at 17:55
I agree that it can't be overly moralistic, otherwise it'd lose some impact. The enemies would have to be portrayed as normal every-day Joes, in equal parts likeable and dislikeable.
There's a lot of scope for comedy there too I think.
But the main idea is to make people think about all the people they've killed.
Malf on 26/3/2010 at 10:34
I had another idea last night playing MAG.
It's got a reasonably well implemented clan system, and I started thinking of ways to improve such systems, when a rogue thought invaded and said "What about the possibility of mutiny and leadership challenges?".
While people like working together, they LOVE fucking each-other over.
You could add systems for factions within a guild or clan, where a challenger to the leadership can gather like-minded individuals to his or her cause, or a leader could promote trusted individuals as a kind of honour guard; you could implement rewards and punishments for successful or failed coups... make it so that it's not black and white, so that a failed coup attempt doesn't necessarily result in the ejection of the offending member from the group, but rather they now occupy a position of far less importance, or have to pay a tithe to the leader in either experience points or some other in-game valuable.
You could do the same for successful attempts, where the deposed leader isn't necessarily ejected from the group, but becomes an example for others with grand ambitions.
All of these disputes could be settled in the game itself, with faction fighting faction for control, the winner deciding the outcome.
Something like this, if well implemented, could even step from being essentially a metagame to becoming the focus of a game.
Kolya on 26/3/2010 at 11:15
A game where you play a cat, growing up in a small village with several other cats, doing what cats do. Third person camera, fun gameplay based on action and puzzles (catch mice, charme your owner, fight a rival cat, relax on high points watching a beautiful landscape). Weather effects, day-night and season cycling.
demagogue on 26/3/2010 at 14:10
I've had ideas about animals more in the wild. I know they have that wolf sim, but it's designed for kids and a little too "pedagogical" in holding your hand through hunting and finding a mate, etc (not to mention the interface, movement, & artwork are ass). But if they took that concept and made it really free-form, I think it would be a pretty cool kind of zen-game ... running around the plains, tackling some deer, howling & marking your territory. Then there are other kinds of animals, of course ... panthers, mice, fish... I don't know; I think of it in terms of a zen-game where it's not so objective based as much as just getting absorbed in the task like I do for flight & driving sims.
Matthew on 28/3/2010 at 13:11
I remember a game like that for the ZX Spectrum, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was called. You could choose from a variety of animals and basically spent the game just surviving, eating, avoiding predators etc.
Neb on 28/3/2010 at 15:45
A necromancer arrives at a town, chasing some kind of stolen generic object that I can't be bothered to make up. Through frustration, he kills everyone with a thought, and reanimates them every day to live out their last 24 hours of life so that he can follow the trail and figure out where it is. The player character avoided death, and has to find out what is going on and screw with the necromancer. Loads of potential for strange puzzles that involve discovering character motivations and experimenting with causality.
Basically, it's a ripoff of Groundhog Day and Dark City.
Chade on 28/3/2010 at 21:33
Random thought: combat is the wrong default for a post-apocalyptic game. It should be stealth.
