Extra Punctuation: An Invisible Protagonist

[TikiShades]

When I opened the article, an idea came into my head as I tried to guess where you were going with it. You'd play as a ghost who recently died and is travelling through the world (perhaps to figure out what unfinished business he has). It took a much bigger voyeuristic approach, sneaking through people's homes and listening to people's conversations to learn something, and perhaps mettle in the living's problems without them noticing.

You'd have an "open world" story that changed based on how you mettled. Perhaps istening in on a conversation would inform you of a plot to kill an important person, or a mettling would prevent that person from dying.

It was a similar concept to Yahtzee's, albeit less focused on "challenge" and more on "curiosity" to entertain the players.

 

[mcnally86]

The CE would include a set of invisible poker cards, blank cards with invisible writing. You play poker as usual only guessing at the faces playing cards. At the end of a round you read them with a black light and see who randomly got all the aces. For extra points if 4 of the cards are instructions, there are 8 jokers, and only 2 aces in the deck.

Back the the game? You ever hide behind a curtain waiting to murder/surprise someone nearby? Its hard not to breath heavy or giggle. So maybe in this Yatzee game if your target is really close you need to pump the triggers to control your heartbeat so they don't hear. And hold a bumper so that you don't burst out laughing. This is not a game for a mute protagonist. His urge to babel needs to be his weakness.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I tried to do this while roleplaying in Oblivion, Not letting anyone see me murdering/theiving whilst doing the Dark Brotherhood/Theives Guild missions is an interesting challenge.

 

[Sylocat]

Making people not realize that an invisible person is in the room with them would be too easy, since people will invent all sorts of rationalizations for the presence of stimuli that doesn't fit with their worldview. And invisible people would be a pretty big shock to anyone's worldview... well, except conspiracy nuts and paranormal enthusiasts and so on, but those people tend to already be somewhat discredited.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Well you wouldn't be wearing clothes, since only you yourself are invisible..

I can imagine it: SPRINT MODE ACTIVATED! *flop flop flop flop*

 

[Jabberwock King]

I think that you could get around the action-figure thing by making the character visible at the beginning, or by making the cloaking mechanism a long-lasting but uncontrollable effect. Or you could do what McFarlane toys does with Halo figures that are supposed to be cloaked.

There IS one flaw in this idea Yahtzee: If the main character is invisible, then who will we have to clutter-up our American box art?

A fading out effect could work for the box cover.

Oh, and how would you handle clothes. You know that the subject always has to come up with invisibility right?

super camouflage spell

I did that too. Kinda made the Thieves guild too easy though (but pretty fun).

Update: damn, guy above me beat me to it.

 

[Cursed Frogurt]

A very interesting game concept but it's more or less been done before: it was called Geist and it kind of sucked.

This is the kind of game that would really benefit from Kinect. Imagine having to actually carefully move your arms so as to not bump anything in a 3D environment.

 

[xdiesp]

That's brilliant, I would freaking buy this game twice.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

This is a very interesting idea....

Yatzee,

I would play that for sure. Sounds like fun.

 

[Dark Harbinger]

If I ever create a dev company or have the chance to design a new game, I'll do exactly that Yahtzee

 

[Sabinfrost]

Hollow Man the video game? Could be fairly... erm... inappropriate. Interesting musing as always Yahtzee

 

[Naheal]

It sounds like Mr. Croshaw is wanting another stealth game.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Excellent point about stealth mission objectives and the Thief games. I wanted to add that the community of hardcore Thief players actually encourage a style of gameplay known as "ghosting" which is exactly like that one mission, except for the entire game. The object is to complete the game on expert difficulty without any guards noticing you. I think non-human baddies are fair game; I can't recall offhand.

 

[EgonCom]

Reading this reminded me of playing Spy in Team Fortress 2. It's quite different experience than described here, but still some of stealth games elements mention above are present during playing Spy. Like: trying not to _touch_ any enemy (while disguised).

 

[rsvp42]

Didn't the Invisible man walk around wrapped in bandages and scarves? Your character could have a trench coat and other heavy garments to cover himself for certain parts of missions. I imagine there might be certain objective where being visible would help accomplish things easier. For instance, if at some point in the game the enemies have become suspicious of an invisible agent, you could just get dressed and walk through their checkpoints.

 

[Wicky_42]

Would work really well trialled as a mod, say for the HL2 engine or maybe a small Unreal Engine game (no need to jump right in with a AAA title on such a novel idea!), and I would definitely play it, even pay indie prices for a well-reviewed game based on the premise. I like the idea :3

 

[Spitfire]

I've only one problem with this concept.
It's implied that the protagonist has to be naked at all times; I mean, what is he going to wear, invisible clothing? So what if a mission takes place in a winter setting? A naked man running around at -20 would surely freeze his ass off. If the premise is to be believable in the slightest, all of the missions would have to exclusively take place in warm locations or during summer time, and one of the staples of the stealth genre is the crazy variety in the levels, which is here sacrificed unnecessarily.
A better idea would be for the protagonist to wear some sort of camo suit for the outdoors portion of a mission, and abandon his outfit after he's successfully infiltrated the objective building - that way, anything goes in terms of weather and setting. This could even be emphasized from a gameplay perspective, by having the game be in third person while you're in the suit, then switch to first person after you've taken it off.

Other than that, I think this is a very interesting concept that promises some very unique gameplay, and I would sure like to see it realized.

 

[Voxael]

Man I'd play this game and nothing else if it were done right. And by done right, I mean essentially Hitman but with more freedom to approach the missions.

 

[teknoarcanist]

How about a game where you just play from an omniscient perspective -- say, playing as HAL from 2001?

 

[-Dragmire-]

Yahtzee:
I can think of at least one reason why publishers wouldn't go for this, though: because the main character is invisible, you can't include a five-cent action figure of him with the "special edition" and charge an extra thirty bucks for it.
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On that note, it would be far too difficult for them to come up with a non stereotypical "(Near)Full-Body-Shot-Main-Character-With-Bright-Light/Explosion-In-Background" design

Spoiler: My Box Art's Uniquer

Problem comes in when they go to plan B to be different

"OK, we'll cut the lights and make a half body shot. Now it's unique"

Spoiler: Well, My Box Art's MORE Uniquer

If it were me, I'd have Yahtzee's game done with the box art style of Prototype. I guarantee everyone would want to know about the AAA game with no pic on the front.