love the final paragraph... and the ideea is interesting too. i would defenetley play this. I love it when Yahtzee talks about never-to-be-made games...
Extra Punctuation: An Invisible Protagonist
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
While reading this, I thought about Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive. You can go with stealth all the way and kill every soldier with a knife in a very satisfying way. Check it out.
It might make the game a bit too slow, but i would love to mess with the character you're stealing intel from. First start subtile, like stealing his key only to place in a very obvious place he looked a 100 times already. And ramp it up, leaving empty liquor bottle around him to make him look like a drunk. But not going too far as to get him fired, just enough to make him and everyone around him question him when something weird happens. Like the topsecret documents being misplaced for 10 minutes while you copy them.
Or to kill someone, mess with him enough so everyone think he's gone mad and killed himself. Maybe discredit an intel they have about the group you're working for, so your cover isn't blown. A nice sneak around and steal everything that isn't bolted down in between to let of some steam, becaue you know repressing the kleptomanic in you is bad.
But that seems very hard to make without making it very lineair. And only one route for a game like this would be a shame.
Or to kill someone, mess with him enough so everyone think he's gone mad and killed himself. Maybe discredit an intel they have about the group you're working for, so your cover isn't blown. A nice sneak around and steal everything that isn't bolted down in between to let of some steam, becaue you know repressing the kleptomanic in you is bad.
But that seems very hard to make without making it very lineair. And only one route for a game like this would be a shame.
I love this game idea. Stealth has never been my forte and I've always ended up using maximum force whenever it is available without consequence. This would force me to put on the sneaky shoes for once.
I'd play it 
As an agreement in spirit, I'd also like a stealth based game (either Invisible Man or otherwise) where guards didn't seem freshly lobotomized.
I don't know how many times I've been able to pick off guards, 1 by 1, while their guard buddies seem none the wiser.
You can knock out, garrote or otherwise dispose of faceless mooks 1-41, and #42 will wander around nonchalantly pondering the meaning of life, blissfully unaware of the fact that he's now all alone. And even if he does catch a glimpse of you, or happens to hear your squeaky footsteps... he'll investigate for about 10 seconds, then return to completely NOT giving a shit.
And on the off chance that you DO get spotted, you'll likely have the "resilience of a gritty spiky-haired fridge," and shrug off the bullets for the prerequisite 10 seconds so the guard can return to his regularly scheduled nap.
I want a stealth game that fixes these issues, a game where you are completely expected to remain unseen and undetected. Where being spotted will get you shot and killed, or simply fail the mission outright, because you screwed it up.
I'd play it.
As an agreement in spirit, I'd also like a stealth based game (either Invisible Man or otherwise) where guards didn't seem freshly lobotomized.
I don't know how many times I've been able to pick off guards, 1 by 1, while their guard buddies seem none the wiser.
You can knock out, garrote or otherwise dispose of faceless mooks 1-41, and #42 will wander around nonchalantly pondering the meaning of life, blissfully unaware of the fact that he's now all alone. And even if he does catch a glimpse of you, or happens to hear your squeaky footsteps... he'll investigate for about 10 seconds, then return to completely NOT giving a shit.
And on the off chance that you DO get spotted, you'll likely have the "resilience of a gritty spiky-haired fridge," and shrug off the bullets for the prerequisite 10 seconds so the guard can return to his regularly scheduled nap.
I want a stealth game that fixes these issues, a game where you are completely expected to remain unseen and undetected. Where being spotted will get you shot and killed, or simply fail the mission outright, because you screwed it up.
I'd play it.
Wouldn't the protagonist get very cold though, or are does he/she have invisible clothes as well?
To give it more of a theme, how about being a more sinister person. You're invisible, and get sent to a military base where some black ops people need to be driven insane and take each other out to preserve integrity of some secret mission that needs to have no witnesses. Or in some sort of mental institution or prison where you want to see if you can get everyone to go insane, and possibly take everyone else out until the last one standing commits suicide. It'd be more horror based but sounds interesting.
Or to piss off people everywhere, do it in an old folks home. Some giant assisted living center run by someone who wants to increase profits by being able to just gobble up state funding by eliminating residents. And of course the workers as well, to keep the trail clean. And you'd end the game by doing the same to that selfsame douche who hired you in the first place. Or not, take your payment and walk off into a rainy night.
Sick and twisted, but sounds like a blasted, and would get enough criticism to drive sales making it marketable at least.
Or to piss off people everywhere, do it in an old folks home. Some giant assisted living center run by someone who wants to increase profits by being able to just gobble up state funding by eliminating residents. And of course the workers as well, to keep the trail clean. And you'd end the game by doing the same to that selfsame douche who hired you in the first place. Or not, take your payment and walk off into a rainy night.
Sick and twisted, but sounds like a blasted, and would get enough criticism to drive sales making it marketable at least.
My goodness Yahtzee, that has given me a fantastic idea for a game.
Instead of being 'The invisible man' sent to assassinate a specific target, you must instead drive the target mad by creating tense and frightening situation using fear tactics, manipulating the setting and abusing the targets deepest fears which must be discovered by experimenting, eavedropping or analysing clues left around the house.
Here I'll give an example.
You start off in an abandoned mansion, which has one resident, the resident has a crippling fear of insects, on of the ways in which this can be discovered is by finding his excessively ample supply of Insecticides.
What do you think?
Instead of being 'The invisible man' sent to assassinate a specific target, you must instead drive the target mad by creating tense and frightening situation using fear tactics, manipulating the setting and abusing the targets deepest fears which must be discovered by experimenting, eavedropping or analysing clues left around the house.
Here I'll give an example.
You start off in an abandoned mansion, which has one resident, the resident has a crippling fear of insects, on of the ways in which this can be discovered is by finding his excessively ample supply of Insecticides.
What do you think?
who knows, his "villain protagonist" wish happened, maybe the same will happen with this one too.... more power to you yahtzee!
Perhaps an in game mechanic that takes the place of an invisiblity function where the user is temporarily visible. This function could have a small battery attached which is drained by the energy taken to be visible and the user must streamline their actions to manipulate certain environements whilst visible.
For example:
The protagonsit must access a location, the entry of which is monitored by both video and thermal security devices, the user must stealthily collect the tools needed to access the facility but they must be visible whilst doing it as the system compares the protagonists visible actions to their invisible ones. There are blind spots in which the protagonist can stand to recharge their visiblity batteries but clothes hovering in the air around an invisible body are conspicuous so the player must choose their invisible moments carefuly.
The player may neeed a key card, some form of Biometric ID and perhaps a password which he can pick up from other people by stealthing up to the NPCs and using slight of hand and confidence to gain the NPC's data. Once inside the facility the player must find a place to stash his clothes until it is time to leave.
As for the issue of Block and Tackle perhaps the protagonist could where a carbon nanotube, low visiblity, body stocking for protection. This would have the added effect of making the protagonist highly resistant to cuts and scrapes where his blood may show up his passing or his location.
For example:
The protagonsit must access a location, the entry of which is monitored by both video and thermal security devices, the user must stealthily collect the tools needed to access the facility but they must be visible whilst doing it as the system compares the protagonists visible actions to their invisible ones. There are blind spots in which the protagonist can stand to recharge their visiblity batteries but clothes hovering in the air around an invisible body are conspicuous so the player must choose their invisible moments carefuly.
The player may neeed a key card, some form of Biometric ID and perhaps a password which he can pick up from other people by stealthing up to the NPCs and using slight of hand and confidence to gain the NPC's data. Once inside the facility the player must find a place to stash his clothes until it is time to leave.
As for the issue of Block and Tackle perhaps the protagonist could where a carbon nanotube, low visiblity, body stocking for protection. This would have the added effect of making the protagonist highly resistant to cuts and scrapes where his blood may show up his passing or his location.
EXACTLY!HankMan said:
What will DeviantArt forums about this game be filled with? ORIGINAL CONCEPT ART?!
Theres actually a game out for the sega that is just very similar to your idea but instead of being an invisible agent trying not to be noticed your an invisible ghost that has to actually attract attention by possesing house hold objects and scaring the owners. Its called The Haunting: staring poltriguy.
I had a hell of a lot of fun with this game. the idea is that you died while riding a cheaply made skateboard constructed by a greedy corpiration that likes to cut costs so you decided to get revenge by scarying the owner and his family out of 5 increasinly larger homes and eventually out of town for good. Each room has a ton of things to posses and once you scare a family memeber enough they'll flee to another room, back them into a room with a door to the outside and they'll likely flee the house.
The challenge comes from you only being able to stay in the living world for a set amount of time. run out of time and your transported to a trap filled dungeon where you have to refil your ecto meter (timer) without losing all your health, lose all your health and its game over, oh and your health doesn't refill between visits or levels so damage is permant, there is a power up that appears in the dungeons that refils you health but its very rare.
There are a couple of other obsticals. some times rival spirits show up in the real world and attack you or eat spare ecto that is created when you scare a family member out of the room. this will make your return to the dungeon world that much sooner. also, for some reason the family dog can see you. His bark can lower your ecto meter and calm down family members so if he shows up its best to target another member of the family for awhile.
I had a hell of a lot of fun with this game. the idea is that you died while riding a cheaply made skateboard constructed by a greedy corpiration that likes to cut costs so you decided to get revenge by scarying the owner and his family out of 5 increasinly larger homes and eventually out of town for good. Each room has a ton of things to posses and once you scare a family memeber enough they'll flee to another room, back them into a room with a door to the outside and they'll likely flee the house.
The challenge comes from you only being able to stay in the living world for a set amount of time. run out of time and your transported to a trap filled dungeon where you have to refil your ecto meter (timer) without losing all your health, lose all your health and its game over, oh and your health doesn't refill between visits or levels so damage is permant, there is a power up that appears in the dungeons that refils you health but its very rare.
There are a couple of other obsticals. some times rival spirits show up in the real world and attack you or eat spare ecto that is created when you scare a family member out of the room. this will make your return to the dungeon world that much sooner. also, for some reason the family dog can see you. His bark can lower your ecto meter and calm down family members so if he shows up its best to target another member of the family for awhile.
Another interesting game idea, I'd certainly give this a go.
I'm pretty sure this point was covered by the end bit about action figures.HankMan said: