So, this actually would've been really great for me to mention a month ago, because it probably would've been a good idea for someone who was doing a procedural generation competition entry.. of course, maybe someone will run with the idea anyway.
Have you ever wanted something to
show for all that time you've spent playing games?
They can help you unwind, they can provide a point of reference for conversation with friends, they can be works of art unto themselves. But a lot of games nowadays don't even give you a score number; they're done when they're done. You've got some memory of playing the game but that can be difficult to show someone.
What about a game/toy that gave you a visual or audio "summary" of your gameplay?
The original version of this thought was built around some kind of roguelike that gave you a png file drawn in some kind of cave art style: brown/grey backdrop, 3-4 stark colors (black for charcoal, a red, a yellow, and maybe something else). And it would take the things you did in the game - it's tallying all the time, keeping track - and arrange them in some kind of representational image. It might not even do the entire play, maybe it'd just take "snapshots" along the way: You found a computer, a computer disk, you fought some goblins, you and your allies defeated a dragon with a spear. So the game would create something like:
(it's a 2 minute mspaint sketch, I imagine better brushstrokes and such -.-)
Other options would be some kind of stained glass protrayal, or a crayon drawing.
I can see it being applied to several different sorts of games. The player's goal might be, "Use the gameplay to develop a piece of art," or it might just be a byproduct of normal play. It also has some nifty built-in community support because you could give an option in your game to just upload the instructions (it wouldn't even have to be the actual image, since the game is creating the image based on some text or events pulled from the game, it just needs the drawing instructions) to the game's website for sharing.
Anyway. As stated, came out of wanting to have something to show for playing. If my hobby is, say, music, or pottery, I have something I can show for the time spent there. Why not do the same with (some) games?
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