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[Melly]

Are you on a segway?

[fish]

you are a segway.

[Radnom]

[Guert]

I'd make an rpg where the character can enter people's home and throw the pots he finds on the ground to reveal what's inside. But the only kind of pots the player would find would be... chamber pots!

And once the player finds something in whatever comes out, he gotta eat the item to use it!

[.TakaM]

Been doing a ton of bug testing for my game, and I was thinking, what if there was an entire game based around glitches/exploits?

kinda like certain romhacks where you need to abuse glitches in order to succeed.

Say you make a solid platforming engine, and gameplay is all good, but as new mechanics get introduced as the game advances, you can experiment and discover the necessary bugs you need to exploit in order to pass the level.
I think it would be a bit tough to pull off well, because it can't be too obscure, but at the same time it can't be too obvious that it won't feel like a 'glitch'


just think of simple stuff like the wall jumping in super mario bros, or morph ball bounce jumping in metroid etc

[Melly]

A less hardcore version of that would be to have the game beatable just by doing things right. Because of that, the glitches would still look like glitches, but exploiting them would lead the player to areas previously impossible to reach, like you can sometimes reach the white 'void' in 3D games like MMORPG's. These areas could seem a bit bizzare, or be a whole new set of levels that lead to different endings.

[tok]

A game where every character has an ideas stack that can contain only, say, three ideas at a time. A character can learn new stuff, but that'll knock old stuff off the other end of the stack.

An 'idea' might be a technique, or it could be data, like a password or something. Puzzles'd involve stuff like tricking npcs into learning things to manipulate their behavior, or getting to a place without forgetting what you're supposed to do when you get there.

[Jimbob]

A game where every character has an ideas stack that can contain only, say, three ideas at a time. A character can learn new stuff, but that'll knock old stuff off the other end of the stack.

Kinda like Dizzy without items?

[tok]

Quite a lot like Dizzy, yeah. More emphasis on chaining stuff in the right order to solve puzzles, and puzzles where you need to be careful about not losing ideas when you pick up new ones.

[Advenith]

Thought this one up in bed when I woke up. I'm absolutely sure that it's been done before, but probably not quite like this.

Anyway, this is the classic story of a boy who gets his body ripped off. His bed gives way and his head is pulled from his body by a couple of very carefully positioned boards. He discovers a whole world of headless bodies underneath his house, and unravels a sinister conspiracy to steal earth's bodies and use them as workhorses on some third-rate fast food planet. Your character, being a virgin, decides that heads will have a difficult time getting laid. He must stop these dastardly food service managers at all costs.

Game Features

• Commandeer bodies! From SQUIRRELS to TIM "THE TOOL GUY" ALLEN, every last one is important.
• Meet over THREE unique characters! Laugh at the girl whose body was already taken! She has no body! HAHAHA!
• Solve PUZZLES!
• Move CRATES!
• Kill over NUMBER THINGS!
• Several LEVELS!

[Melly]

That is pretty awesome, actually. o.o

[Chris Whitman]

I want to say that would be a good idea, but:

Your character, being a virgin, decides that heads will have a difficult time getting laid. He must stop these dastardly food service managers at all costs.

You could just replace that whole section with 'lolsex' if you are intent on sounding like a twelve-year-old.

From SQUIRRELS to TIM "THE TOOL GUY" ALLEN, every last one is important.

Cultural references are also stupid. They make you look like a hack who has none of his own ideas. Next thing you're going to be including ninja pirate zombies: the cows and penguins of the web comic age.

Move CRATES!

Has everyone else forgotten about the 'start to crate' ratings system? The quality of your game is directly proportional to the time that passes before you see a crate.


Other than those things, I like the general idea of having to fight to get your body back. It sounds a bit like it could be an old Lucasarts game.

[Flink]

Been doing a ton of bug testing for my game, and I was thinking, what if there was an entire game based around glitches/exploits?

kinda like certain romhacks where you need to abuse glitches in order to succeed.

Say you make a solid platforming engine, and gameplay is all good, but as new mechanics get introduced as the game advances, you can experiment and discover the necessary bugs you need to exploit in order to pass the level.
I think it would be a bit tough to pull off well, because it can't be too obscure, but at the same time it can't be too obvious that it won't feel like a 'glitch'


just think of simple stuff like the wall jumping in super mario bros, or morph ball bounce jumping in metroid etc

I really like the idea, it's like Hack this site! but as an plattform/puzzle game, it's kinda awesome idea really!

[Alevice]

In one of my ideas, you play as a guy who has found out he is the spawn of the devil, and in a couple of years he will be the responsible of the end of the world. He isn't physically capable of commiting suicide to prevent such a thing, but somehow he manages to travel in time weeks before his parents (who actually orphaned him) engage in sexual intercourse.

Unfortunately, he knows shit about the details, so he has to figure out who were his parents and when/where exactly will such an event happen.

The concept is that you have a short amount of time to figure it out, by means of clues and such you might get from the people and situtations in the town you are. You begin unarmed, but you might acquire a couple of (rather trivial) weapons, such as cooking knives and at best a revolver some dude might hide in his closet. They would be quite useless most of the times, at least on open spaces, since there are cops around who are far better trained and armed than you; they come handy in alleys and such, where they can help you get information from people by force, rather than just by polite means, and to prevent getting stabbed by alley gangs.

To add to the challenge, there are also some minions of hell disguised as individuals who would deliberately misguide you so you can't stop your own birth. There might also be some demons who might take some silent hill esque forms in closed places, just to add a little "horror from the depths" factor, and help you understand what might the world become if you fail in your quest (let alone an additional excuse to use your shitty weaponry). Since you are a devil's spawn, you are technically immortal (in a planescape: torment style), meaning no one can kill you, not even yourself; however, almost everything may detract you, given you lack any other type of unnatural talent. There is no ingame way to tell who is a demon and who isn't other than your intuition (and perhaps contradictory lies and crap the demons might spread).

Non-explicit sidequests may help to the immersion, from saving the life of a very ill man, help the police arrest some mafia crime, to kill a puta who is spreading aids to every fucker around and solve the mistery of a politician murder.

The game would run in a "real time" fashion, meaning some sidequest and events can only happen during certain dates, which also means you can't be succesful on your mission (which is also the only way to lose in the game) and on all your sidequest (since some quests might collide in dates and have contadictory goals).

To provide replay value, many of the big events could changed every time you play a new game, meaning your parents, the specific date and place for your conception and the events that lead to the diabolical buttsecks, would be chosen at random, similar to Facade, only in a more extense way, so every new game would be different, since you have to figure out such events again.

[Melly]

That's actually a very interesting idea. The gameplay would obviously focus on storytelling, investigation and dialogue (again like Planescape: Torment, since as much as the story in that game was great, the battle system made me want to kill kittens, which in turn made me avoid battle as much as possible) with some small parts with other mild activities, like using your shitty weaponry, barricading a door or helping an old lady solve her crossword puzzle. Just to break the heavy dialogue, but not distracting from it or being mandatory to progress.

Also, in the end you could have the difficult choice of how to stop your parents. You might have to kill them just before they get it on, or while they're at it. Kinda sick, but fits the whole theme. Or you could get lucky and find them before they even meet, and make sure they stay apart until the date of your conception passes.

[Alevice]

That's actually a very interesting idea. The gameplay would obviously focus on storytelling, investigation and dialogue (again like Planescape: Torment, since as much as the story in that game was great, the battle system made me want to kill kittens, which in turn made me avoid battle as much as possible) with some small parts with other mild activities, like using your shitty weaponry, barricading a door or helping an old lady solve her crossword puzzle. Just to break the heavy dialogue, but not distracting from it or being mandatory to progress.

Also, in the end you could have the difficult choice of how to stop your parents. You might have to kill them just before they get it on, or while they're at it. Kinda sick, but fits the whole theme. Or you could get lucky and find them before they even meet, and make sure they stay apart until the date of your conception passes.

While I find Planescape: Torment to be an almost unmatched top-notch game, I really don't envision this game using the same dialogue-driven gameplay mechanic. One of the things that I don't like about stat-based crpgs is that sometimes the thing you figure out is based on the character int stat, not the player's intelligence (this happened to me for example in the moment the Nameless One figures out the Trascendental One's identity - my character spoiled the surprise for me). I would rather drive the dialogue in a way that it is never told whom your parents are, but you draw your own conclusions and find your way to meet them... and kill them. So it would likely be handed in a much simpler way.

The problem I find with this method is that would leave the player totally clueless as to where to start. This led me to a newspaper idea I'll explain with a couple of examples:

Say that from the random pool at the beginning of the game, your father is a business man, your mother is a waitress and the series of events chosen consist of your father persuading your mother of having a passionate night at an hotel. The main character at beginning will find a newspaper, and one of the headings will read something like "Renowned business executives will have a meeting at Macy's", or something less obvious, along with a few other randomly chosen headings (some of which might even relate to sidequests), just so it is not fucking obvious since the beginning.

If your father is an acoholic asshole, your mother a feminist, and the events leading to your birth were related to rape, one of the headings might read "Extremist women protest against rise in criminalty" and shit.

Stuff like that.

[Melly]

That's actually a very interesting idea. The gameplay would obviously focus on storytelling, investigation and dialogue (again like Planescape: Torment, since as much as the story in that game was great, the battle system made me want to kill kittens, which in turn made me avoid battle as much as possible) with some small parts with other mild activities, like using your shitty weaponry, barricading a door or helping an old lady solve her crossword puzzle. Just to break the heavy dialogue, but not distracting from it or being mandatory to progress.

Also, in the end you could have the difficult choice of how to stop your parents. You might have to kill them just before they get it on, or while they're at it. Kinda sick, but fits the whole theme. Or you could get lucky and find them before they even meet, and make sure they stay apart until the date of your conception passes.

While I find Planescape: Torment to be an almost unmatched top-notch game, I really don't envision this game using the same dialogue-driven gameplay mechanic. One of the things that I don't like about stat-based crpgs is that sometimes the thing you figure out is based on the character int stat, not the player's intelligence (this happened to me for example in the moment the Nameless One figures out the Trascendental One's identity - my character spoiled the surprise for me). I would rather drive the dialogue in a way that it is never told whom your parents are, but you draw your own conclusions and find your way to meet them... and kill them. So it would likely be handed in a much simpler way.

The problem I find with this method is that would leave the player totally clueless as to where to start. This led me to a newspaper idea I'll explain with a couple of examples:

Say that from the random pool at the beginning of the game, your father is a business man, your mother is a waitress and the series of events chosen consist of your father persuading your mother of having a passionate night at an hotel. The main character at beginning will find a newspaper, and one of the headings will read something like "Renowned business executives will have a meeting at Macy's", or something less obvious, along with a few other randomly chosen headings (some of which might even relate to sidequests), just so it is not fucking obvious since the beginning.

If your father is an acoholic asshole, your mother a feminist, and the events leading to your birth were related to rape, one of the headings might read "Extremist women protest against rise in criminalty" and shit.

Stuff like that.

You don't need to have a stat based character progression system in order to make a dialogue-centric gameplay mechanic work. The way I see it you could do as some other games, in which you could speak about bits of information you previously aquired with many characters, each giving you different answers about the matters, if they are willing to talk about them. In order to make this more challenging, you have to have tact, to understand the character you're talking to and not say or ask about something stupid that will make them quit talking to you, or call the police on you. If that did happen, I like the idea you could go to jail, but it wouldn't be the end if you still had time, so you could try to escape, talk your way out, something.

Basically it'd be a system in which the player is still in full control of what he can talk about, but he has to think and come up with his own solutions for the issues at hand.

[Alevice]

You don't need to have a stat based character progression system in order to make a dialogue-centric gameplay mechanic work. The way I see it you could do as some other games, in which you could speak about bits of information you previously aquired with many characters, each giving you different answers about the matters, if they are willing to talk about them. In order to make this more challenging, you have to have tact, to understand the character you're talking to and not say or ask about something stupid that will make them quit talking to you, or call the police on you. If that did happen, I like the idea you could go to jail, but it wouldn't be the end if you still had time, so you could try to escape, talk your way out, something.

Basically it'd be a system in which the player is still in full control of what he can talk about, but he has to think and come up with his own solutions for the issues at hand.

Yeah, now I can see what you mean, and yeah, it's ceratinly a mechanic that would fit quite well (and yeah, jail wouldn't mean a game over, it'd be just an additional obstacle -- or even a source of information).

Now, how would such a feature would be specifically implemented? I'm thinking about adventure game style (think Sanitarium, where you pick a topic to talk about with the current npc), but with different ways to convey as message (such as tact), I am still not certain an adventure game style (at least as it is) would work that well.



Unless!

The character were goverened by moods given the actual situation (think pac-man 2), and while the non-conversation mechanics wouldn't be affected by mood, the actual dialogue would. Say, your character got a shot in the back, and it pains him quite a lot. He would be quite ill-tempered in that moment, and asking anyone about anything would be in a rude tone. In a normal situation, he would go to a drugstore and say "May I have an aspirine? [...]  Thanks a lot", but under the situation described before he ma go "Hurry and *agh* give me an aspirine!  [...]   What the fuck took you so long?!".

[Advenith]

I want to say that would be a good idea, but:

Your character, being a virgin, decides that heads will have a difficult time getting laid. He must stop these dastardly food service managers at all costs.

You could just replace that whole section with 'lolsex' if you are intent on sounding like a twelve-year-old.

From SQUIRRELS to TIM "THE TOOL GUY" ALLEN, every last one is important.

Cultural references are also stupid. They make you look like a hack who has none of his own ideas. Next thing you're going to be including ninja pirate zombies: the cows and penguins of the web comic age.

Move CRATES!

Has everyone else forgotten about the 'start to crate' ratings system? The quality of your game is directly proportional to the time that passes before you see a crate.


Other than those things, I like the general idea of having to fight to get your body back. It sounds a bit like it could be an old Lucasarts game.

I didn't mean for most of this to be serious. If I ever put crates in a platform game, I'll probably splatter my brains in the bathtub. Plus, there was already a horrible "Home Improvement" game for the SNES. If I remember correctly, you had to kill dinosaurs for some reason.

If I were to actually make this, I'd most likely use weird, otherworldly sprites with a pseudorealistic style. In other words, I'd photoshop the hell out of everything. I'd probably also add a few things to make it more unique than your typical "every character type has different abilities" platformer. I've always wanted to use audio in a way that directly influences each stage. Of course, I'll probably never make the game, so all this is beside the point. >.>

[sharksweetheart]

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