[Mirror's Edge + Vanquish]

Mirror's Edge + Vanquish

In the midst of a police state, delivery people have become incredibly bad-ass.

IMO, it's definitely possible. An issue I can see becoming a problem is length, since each player will have to take the time to finish their chapter of the story. Have you considered making the game more dynamic, like Heavy Rain, so that each part of the story could go on in real time?

I would suggest keeping movement to the 16x16 grid and simply letting the player move more spaces per turn. Alternatively, you can make the player move more spaces in a certain direction. The problem with having a 64x64 vehicle is that it's more vulnerable to attack and can't fit in tight spaces, which is why some grid-based games make the vehicles the same size as everything else (e.g. 16x16).

Looks like something you would see on a late 80s-early 90s American RPG box art with the shiny chrome/skimpy outfit (case in point)

[Emergency Room Simulation + Flight Simulation]

Dr. Stiles would win that game, hands down. Or hands moving at super speed... whatever.

Emergency Room Simulation + Flight Simulation

You're the pilot of a rescue chopper in a tiny rural hospital - fly it through inclement weather and land on rough terrain, and return to the hospital fast before your patient dies! Then do the operation!

 

This is always of high importance to me; it bugs me to no end when people use adult voice actors for child characters. Sometimes it's convincing and it works really well, but even then it irritates me just knowing it wasn't a real kid!

Except that most kids are terrible voice actors. If even grown-ups often have trouble expressing emotions while reading from a script, imagine how difficult it is for kids. Making it sound realistic necessitates not using an actual kid.

Female members would be incredibly useful; we could look into finding some from outside of TIGS.  I know a community that might have a few takers to that end.

VAA definitely has female voice actors; there might be some willing to put names on the list for game related stuff.

Autoleveling enemies is a no-no. If you want a better way to go about things, try removing the level up system altogether. If there's no skill gap between a (high-leveled) you and a basic enemy, then why bother? You can just run through the game and not level (see: The Last Remnant).

I think the problem is that your title describes the characters and the fact that they are incorporeal, e.g. "consist of nothing". So, a proper title in my eyes would not be a single word, but multiple words that describe the nuances of the title. For example, "The Empty Ones", or "The Non-Entities". Or, "The Zero-Ones", which sounds like it could be a good riff of the fact that it's a virtual game.

You should play Baten Kaitos II for an example of plot twists done right - the game really throws you for a loop. Predictable plot twists happen when the narrative is too cliched and the foreshadowing is too obvious.

In my opinion, overt dramatic irony works better in passive entertainment because it has the potential to kill your motivation. Mysterious dramatic irony works better.

"A katana? This is getting interesting."
-Travis Touchdown

From the way you described it, the combat now reminds me more of the card fighting minigame in FF: Chocobo Tales. (which is hella addicting, so it's not a bad thing )

Funny The battles remind me of Paper Mario's combat (villain reminds me of Super Paper Mario, but I digress). Are you going to put timing-based combat to spice it up more than just pure turn-based gameplay?

There really is no way to turn a text-based or similar game into a visual game and have everyone agree on what it should look like. When reading, the player imagines the visuals, and they can't do that when you show them visuals. The best thing you can do is get tips for how it should look from the developer or let the player customize the graphics.

Now that I think about it, a game like Drawn to Life would let the player MAKE the graphics while retaining their own vision.

You're a forklift robot at a shipping depot who was secretly reprogrammed by thieves to load some of the cargo into their secret truck. How much can you steal without being caught?

I'm assuming you want to maintain some kind of "obfuscation" while making it look nicer. You could make the graphics abstract... like the cubist or pointillist painting style or something, or use a nontraditional style like claymation or ultra-simplistic shapes. That way the player will be unable to discern detail.

The Wiki article on "launch games" refers to the games that are released in tandem with a new console, so it seems they need a new name, regardless.

It seems to me like these kinds of games are similar to multiplayer FPS, where you play the same maps repeatedly. When you think about it, those games are basically entirely grinding too, but they seem more "purposeful" because you're actively engaging in a challenge against multiple people rather than simply the computer.

That is Grade-A awesome.

I added to the "kick" drawing.

Jwk5 > SundownKid

I wouldn't define "Metroidvania" as a broad term, but rather as an amalgamation of Metroid and Castlevania games. Which is to say, multiple rooms, backtracking and map-based exploration, and permanent power ups, but *not* RPG elements (Metroid doesn't have leveling up).

It would really depend on the genre and theme of the game, but I liked the Monkey Island remake that used completely hand-drawn graphics & voice acting to replace the original pixellated graphics. It really improved the atmosphere of the game compared to the original and I thought it was perfectly fitting. You would probably have to use your own judgment to determine what would make sense from a design standpoint.