Bad Games Can Give You Good Ideas

[Machine Man 1992]

"Like I said, just an idea. I doubt I'd want to make it even if I did have the resources, because the whole theme of the thing is basically "Fuck you for playing this game". But then again, that worked for Spec Ops: The Line, didn't it."

No it didn't.

Because Spec Ops fucking sucks, and misses it's own point with it's rampant railroading and shaming a player for shit they had no control over.

You don't want me playing this game? Playing this game makes me a bad person? Off to the bin with you! I look forward to writing you a one star review on Metacritic!

(In case you haven't noticed, I have some issues with Spec Ops the line)

OT:

I had an idea a while back for a game based around being a shapeshifter and using that power for manipulation rather than overt murder.

As for possession, you just described F.3.A.R ; Paxton Fettel can't carry guns, so you have to possess people to use firearms and serve as meat armor.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

And secondly, boss fights don't work with this idea at all. 'Cos a big bad boss becomes not a challenging hazard that you have to work at but a free super body you only have to die to once to attain. Some different rules are needed. Let's just say boss fights are the only things that kill you permanent like, and if you fall to them, you have to start all over again. That'd be in keeping with the spirit of Roguelikes, I suppose.

Another solution to this would be to have bosses who can't kill you at all: maybe the boss is trying to knock you out and capture you alive (a bit like The End in Metal Gear Solid 3) or maybe the boss solely attacks by knocking you off some platform, meaning you'll have to climb back up again (like many of the bosses from Wario Land 3).

Another fun idea would be to have a boss that has the ability to resurrect the dead and uses this to assault you with an army of undead mooks. When he kills you (possibly after having been killed by one of the undead enemies first), you can either choose to continue playing as this boss (which is not very advantageous, since being able to resurrect your enemies won't help you much) or to resurrect yourself, effectively giving you the ability to retry the fight.

 

[Formica Archonis]

(If Yahtzee doesn't remember this game I'll be surprised.) As to the first idea, with the idea of switching between PCs with different abilities and getting progressively stronger as time goes on, there's something a bit similar (though not the same) out there. One might want to look up hijack something better [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradroid] along the way that can hold its own easier*. But you can't settle in one host: Not only are you still perceived as a threat by other robots, but the act of controlling a robot burns it out. Its maximum HP slowly lowers until it hits zero and it dies, or until it gets low enough that something one-shots you. You spend a decent part of the game host-jumping, either out of necessity, or for an upgrade, or just as a cheap way of healing up.

Death while controlling something means death of the host, so the influence device survives to hijack another robot. Of course, if the influence device is killed, it's game over, so getting into a firefight outnumbered is still an incredibly bad idea. Also, you get resources to play the "transfer" (hijack) game based on what your host is. It's easier to go from a 420 maintenance robot to a 742 battle robot than it is to go from a 123 cleaning robot to a 742. So a "chain" of victims from low to high without dropping back to the bare influence device is suggested.

(*Linked video starts with a player doing something suicidal: Attempting to control a battle droid armed with a smart-bomb type weapon right off. If it fails in one of several ways your game is over fast, but if it succeeds you can plow through the weaker droids easily, and there's score bonus for a high rate of kills. He then miscalculates and winds up trapped having to transfer right from the bottom of the upgrade tree to the command cyborg at the top of it. He gets lucky; the randomized field layout for the minigame is unbalanced enough to take advantage of.)

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Possession really is an interesting mechanic. A pretty standard take could be that when you die, you need to posses a new body.

Spoiler

You could also take the Full Metal Alchemist approach, where everytime you posses another body, your soul begins to deteriorate.

 

[Voltano]

I'm a bit hesitant to see the second game -- where you play as some faceless entity trying to better society when you only realize that you are in fact ruining it through violence. I get the impression it is like "Spec Ops: The Line" which I did enjoy, but I don't want to see the thesis of these games go mainstream.

I guess my concern here is that most video games are still a leisure activity to me and several other players. Sometimes I just don't care if the Reapers are going to destroy Earth in X days; I just need 5,000 more XP to get my Shepard to level 23 (or whatever the XP cap is). Video games these days tailor to the amount of violence and power-fantasies we strive for because it is cathartic. It helps us relax after a hard day of work or when we feel bummed out. But when you have more games like "Spec Ops: The Line" telling us how bad of a person we are for playing this game, it makes it less desirable to play further. I'm just worried that more games scolding players for playing would make the leisure activity less fun.

As for the first game where you transfer player control to NPCs of varying stats and play-styles: It could work, though it does have some balancing issues. The biggest problem for me would be that Death mechanic is essentially a 'reward' to the player, if they get killed by a beefier NPC. Plus it doesn't make use of the randomly generated dungeon if the player can just "respawn" at the same spot with a better character. That would be like a roguelike game with infinite lives, and each death gives you higher-tier races to play as.

Instead of being killed by an enemy, the player could build reserves by first "turning and storing" NPCs. Each enemy has a chance of being instant-killed by your bite, with higher chances as their health goes down (similar to how the player has a higher chance of capturing wild Pokemon when their health goes down). At this point the NPC becomes a carcass the player can carry, which needs to be put into a special type of ground for it to become a potential vampire. This makes the player having to use their enemies as resources so they can respawn again. Deciding on what NPC to use next, and whether they can take that NPC back to a ground they found. Otherwise they respawn with a weak human form.

The above solution would also allow random-generation of the dungeon. The spawn point could be where the NPC corpse was put to rest at, or it can be the spawn point outside of the dungeon if the player didn't get an NPC 'planted'.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

That's it, I've had it with you Yahtzee. I am going to boycott ZP and EP until you start making the games your visions promise us. I don't think i've ever read or heard you describe a game idea that wouldn't be entertaining AND inventive. Make Thirsty-tooth or META (the names i've given the two games you've described. META should be an acronym. something like... Murderous Entity, Trickster Aggressor. god that was an awful attempt.)

Do it, or surely feel the wrath of my lessened viewership. until you review something I like. SPEAKING OF WHICH

HEY YAHTZEE! where's a State of Decay review?

 

[Samantha Burt]

shaming a player for shit they had no control over

I always thought the point was that you had control in choosing to play a game where you murder tonnes of people.

OT: Both those ideas sound great, although the second one reminded me a bit of the "stealth" sections in prototype.

 

[Jacked Assassin]

I had a somewhat different / similar idea to this.... er.... these....

In my idea you started off as an African American Rookie Soldier who is told he has been implanted with a learning device. However you soon find out this device is nothing more than a recorder sending a message to another Machine. You find this out because you're means of transport was destroyed giving you your first in game death that you're unable to avoid.

You then awaken as a generic white clone ready to do what you would've done if you could've avoided death. While also your character mourn the wife (& child) he had. Only to at the same time realize they are not his & he just has the memory of it. Then you have to continue on with knowing exactly how many times you died, killed someone innocent, killed someone via friendly fire, etc.

At the time I came up with it I was listening to Losing My Religion by REM (& Memory Remains by Metallica) too much.

I ultimately scrapped it though once I acknowledged Spec Ops: The Line & felt I lost my whole War / Anti-War Originality.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

The problem with your first idea is that for what reason would the last guy who killed you have for taking up your fight? Even if you turned him/her into a vampire, he/she would have little reason to take up your cause. Presumably they'd just continue to serve the big bad, only as a vampire.

 

[kael013]

The problem with your first idea is that for what reason would the last guy who killed you have for taking up your fight? Even if you turned him/her into a vampire, he/she would have little reason to take up your cause. Presumably they'd just continue to serve the big bad, only as a vampire.

He did say it was some magic racial memory, so the new guy would have all the knowledge the dead guy had.

OT: Yeah, Yahtzee I think most of us know the "I-have-a-great-game-idea-but-it-needs-a-AAA-budget-to-make" feeling. I've only had 2 game ideas and neither can be made without a AAA budget.

Though as for your first idea, instead of "vampire racial memory magic" just change the setting a bit and make it technology-based. That way you can explain how some enemies are immune to you taking control by throwing phrases around like "incompatible software" or "firewalls".

 

[HalfTangible]

Boss fights are already vampires.

BAM! You get a super-enemy that the player immediately can realize 'oh damn, I can't take over this guy if I die!' and has to beat without dieing to. Else, you're done.

 

[Sean Deli]

shaming a player for shit they had no control over

I always thought the point was that you had control in choosing to play a game where you murder tonnes of people.

Except for people who chose to play Spec Ops because they heard that this game was "deep" and "had great story"

They then had to force themselves through luckluster shooting experience, they would really rather avoid.
Just to reach a conclusion that said "Did you really just do all that murder for fun? You are messed up, son"

But hey, for every such person there are 10 dudes with nicknames like "teh_pwnerer1995", who spam their allies and opponents in CoD with "l4p n00bz lol" and so on, and so forth - I mean the real demographic of the Spec Ops was shooting for with their message.

As for the Yahtzee's idea - yeah, you don't really want to deconstruct essential gaming experience too much through using a game. That would be so post-modernist that the universe would implode into a neat trilby wearing hipster glasses on a scooter.

You could, however, do it in a film or a book.

 

[Frozengale]

I've had a similar idea to the "Protagonist" one, though on a much more personal scale. Basically the set-up for the game would be showing this normal boring peaceful bloke and his life. Then one day he starts feeling "compelled" to change the world for the better (much as in your scenario this is when things go from third to first person). He joins up with a militant resistance group to take down the corrupt government. Along the way you are presented with many choices that help further your goals and better yourself as the character, usually in horribly gruesome ways. But around the midway point of the game somehow the guy realizes that he's been manipulated by you the player (or rather the "Compulsion") to do these terrible things. You also find out that the Government your fighting is less corrupt and more just horribly run so you've done all these terrible things for naught. Realizing the horrible truth of it all the person you were playing as is driven mad and breaks free of your control. In his madness he then goes on to threaten to destroy all of humanity so you have nothing to feed on. You have to possess, or "compel", one of the Government Agents you were fighting and then you get to see things from that side. Depending on the decisions you made when you played the other guy the game can become harder. If you wiped out most of the government, built a strong resistance, and leveled the other guy up a lot then you are going to have a much harder time in the second half of the game since your resources now come from the Government side of the equation. It would end with you having to fight the person you formally controlled in the final battle.

 

[zvate]

I like the protagonist mocking game idea but the win condition seems a bit of a difficulty. A spec ops feeling would have been largely undermined by meta humor but a battle against another protagonist or the realization that gratuitous violence was the whole point would be at least darkly amusing...

 

[Mike Fang]

First game idea sounds pretty good to me. The second one....eeehhhhh, I can see where it would be an existential, introspective sort of thing, but it's a very bleak, cynical outlook on the idea of trying to be proactive about the large-scale problems surrounding a person or group. While it's true the ends don't always justify the means, sometimes action has to be taken to make things better, lest conditions stagnate and people become mired in status quo out of inertia.

In short, yes sometimes the protagonist can seem like a bit of an ass for getting up in people's faces and picking fights rather than just letting sleeping dogs lie. But as an old saying goes "don't be afraid of criticism; those who enact change inevitably stir up criticism."

 

[Loofboy]

And secondly, boss fights don't work with this idea at all. 'Cos a big bad boss becomes not a challenging hazard that you have to work at but a free super body you only have to die to once to attain. Some different rules are needed. Let's just say boss fights are the only things that kill you permanent like, and if you fall to them, you have to start all over again. That'd be in keeping with the spirit of Roguelikes, I suppose.

This is easy to avoid with a vampire dealie by saying the bosses are already vampires. You can't turn something already facing the right way, or however that saying goes.

That is a really neat way of making boss fights make sense, tying it both into the mechanics and the lore. It also explains why they're going to be tricky fights, as they'll have some vampire powers of their own. Hell, maybe that's a way to gain new powers; when you defeat them, you can absorb their vampireness, and gain their skills.

Well done, internet person. I like your brain.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

shaming a player for shit they had no control over

I always thought the point was that you had control in choosing to play a game where you murder tonnes of people.

OT: Both those ideas sound great, although the second one reminded me a bit of the "stealth" sections in prototype.

I was referring to the White Phosphorus scene, how they make it so that it's impossible to proceed without doing it.

Even then, I din't choose to burn the civilians; I chose to burn the humvee that was shooting at me, and they burned anyway. Also, what's the point of even having moral choice sequences if your entire message is predicated on me choosing the evil option?

I always have control over playing a game where you murder tons of people. It's a game, and like most healthy adults, I can differentiate between fantasy and reality.

 

[Elijah Newton]

The thing I always toy with, game mechanic-wise, is how odd it is that when players get more skilled they are rewarded with powerups. They've already proven they can accomplish a task, it seems counter-intuitive to then make them better.

Yes, I get that this is offset by giving them more difficult opponents or a wider breadth of options, but then you just get into an arms race which ultimately gets kind of foolish. It seems games seldom make use of scarcity, or making abilities more limited as a game goes. You start with advantages of weapons, regenerating health / armor, all the things which make you 'more than' human. And then on subsequent levels you lose those advantages.

What if you start as some flavor of 'Speece Marine', then after doing something appropriately heroic your next task is (loosely) the same thing with some average grunt. And if you succeed there, the next iteration is with a civilian. And then an elderly civilian or a kid or something. Because, look - if having Master Chief mow down bug eyed monsters is mildly impressive, seeing granny hose down the Alien Queen and attendant hoard is simply jaw-dropping.

Plus think of how fun this mechanic would make a CoD-ish spunk-gargle-weewee game. Your n00bs, the first time players, they would take to the field with airstrikes at their beck and call. But as their experience grew, their weapon choices would become more limited. Their magic regenerating armor / health would stop. They could be one-shotted. Weapons would do less damage, requiring more teamwork. Become slower and lose the ability to jump meaning you have to re-think how you navigate maps.

Over a game's life-cycle, as you have fewer and fewer people joining, you have fewer and fewer 'hero' troops and more masses of regulars. Which seems... well, something which would help define 'hero'. The canny oldsters would be the veterans who can stand on their experience, not their perks.

 

[JCAll]

Sound like Geist, only with it's head up it's bum.

 

[quezlar]

gotta tell you Ben I'd play the shit out of both of those games

as for the first it sounds like the issues have sorta been solved by commentators already so ahh yea get on making that

and as for the fuck you ending in the second, I enjoy that sort of thing and I think there's a market for it

I actually loved the ending of little inferno, which as I'm sure you know was essentially "go the fuck outside"