Great idea for a game

[Adept Mechanicus]

I was reading the story on the website Frictional set up to promote their next game, and many people predicted a kind of sci-fi horror rogue AI story. This gave me a burst of inspiration.

We've had lots of rogue AI stories where the main character is exploring an environment controlled by the AI trying to kill him/her (Portal, 2001: A Space Odyssey, System Shock, etc). In this hypothetical game, you would play as the rogue AI and you have to prevent the humans from dismantling you using only the parts of the ship you control. You don't have an army of cyborgs, like SHODAN did. You can only manipulate door controls, oxygen and gravity levels, and whatever other automated machines happen to be in the room. Eventually, the enemies come equipped to override your door locks and start wearing spacesuits and magnetic boots, forcing you to get increasingly creative with your solutions to the pesky human infestation.

Thoughts?

 

[Quintley]

Reminds me of the flash game 'I am an insane rogue AI' on Kongregate, where you are trying to take control of a research facility by hacking computers and killing panicking scientists by breaking the lightbulbs. Enemies get tougher as you go on, and later you can get access to turrets, deadly neurotoxin etc.
I think the idea would work well in different settings, like your ship.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Coo. Sounds a bit like Evil Genius or Kagero in that you are trying to create an 'impossible' obstacle course using limited resources against increasingly adept and numerous opponents.

Another potential aspect of this similar to a portion of a sci-fi novel I really liked was a stealth element- make it so the humans don't try to deactivate you until they realize that something's gone wrong. If you keep all the maintenance robots you have control of on the expected schedule and open the doors you're asked to open no one is the wiser. To prevent this from being abused and dragging out the scenario, include a standard procedure that the colonists reset your core memory after a certain amount of time passes, meaning mission failure if you let that happen.

The final scenarios can have brigades of stereotypical square-jawed space marines with powerful guns and protective suits against environmental hazards who can blast holes in the walls when trapped. Tough targets, but satisfying to watch them freak out when you finally doom them .

 

[MrHide-Patten]

The position of being the obstruction in a game is a weird position to play as, but it would have it's novelty. I remember the only good part of the Dead Space 2's multiplayer was the prospect of playing as one of the space zombies (playing as people didn't have the same tone and feel as the single player).

But generally I'd like the idea more of operating Machines, probably not terminator style killbots, but the idea of locking a bunch of "enemies" in a room or area and using the various machines and equipment avaliable. But something tells me that sort of setup would end up playing a lot like Trapt.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Sounds like a reverse FTL(sort of).

Interesting, I would at least try it out if such a game was made.

 

[shootthebandit]

Would work well as a splitscreen. One player trying to escape and the other trying to stop them