Poll: Vaporware: The Game

[SilverHammerMan]

Greetings, I'm brand new to the Escapist (first post, first thread, first poll) and I wanted to present you all with an idea for a hypothetical game the I've been toying with for awhile.
It's called Vaporware, and basically it's a game that's cobbled together from canceled games.
A pretty straight forward idea, there would be no plot, and it would be a sandbox game.
There would be a staggering amount of customization in terms of the player character (clothes, movement etc.) weaponry, vehicles, controls and even camera angles.
Obviously not every canceled game could be incorporated in the game, for instance, a point and click game like Myst would never be able to mesh with something like Gears of War.
For things that mesh more easily, say an Overlord style game and a GTA type game, you'd simply be able to select the minions like a weapon and guide them as you would have in the original game.
For large game play changes, like from say a zombie apocalypse to a football game, would be accomplished via a change of camera angle and control.
So that's my idea. Thoughts?

 

[Aura Guardian]

But,even a Sandbox game needs a plot. It doesn't have to be a good one. But it might not work.

 

[Curtmiester]

It needs a little work. I'm still pretty confused.

 

[Zirat]

It seems an interesting idea but it will be dificult to execute while not spreading things to thin and not being declared tedious.

Is this hypothetical or some thing you are actually working on?

 

[SilverHammerMan]

Totally hypothetical, I'm an untalented slob and could never actually make anything.
As for the no plot thing, I see it as more of an multiplayer game, and multiplayer modes often don't have a plot. Though I suppose that you're right about a plot being necessary, so maybe something like Saints Row, where there's a plot but you don't relay care about it and there are a lot of non-sequitar missions

 

[Monocle Man]

A whole bunch of dull controls does not equal superior and polished controls.
Designers struggle already with getting a single control scheme right, what kind of disaster would 20 of those bring?

Of course, it could work with the right finishings. But where would you find people that can stick those on it?

I'd say they need to weld a whole bunch of controls together and see how that ends up.
Take a good third person control scheme as base, then build on it.

I will try to melt Overlord into some other controls as an example.
Standard third person control-scheme. Let's take the one from Ratchet and Clank for simplicity's sake.
When wearing the Trident Helm and you are near your cult-followers (or something like that) you can press the Left D-pad button to make them follow you, the Right button to make them leave, Up to charge them in the direction you're looking at and Down to make them defend the place they currently hold.

Allow the player to pause the game and view the worldmap. There you could draw lines and set pointers to give your followers more precise orders. (Something Overlord could use)

You can switch from Third person (needs a strafe button) and first person (has auto-strafe, obviously) on the run, thus you could easily change from optimal melee to optimal shooter.

When wielding a melee weapon you should get at least a second attack button available for some combos. A jump button must always be available and in case you have the "Wings of Retribution" equipped you can hold the jump button to lift off.

Keep the base movement and keep switching the action controls with other controls and it should all work.

I see potential in it.
But I also see potential in the tech demo of Sony's Wands, doesn't mean they'll pull it off.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

Thank you for the competent explanation of how it could be pulled off and how it could go wrong.
Anyway, it's just an idea that I happen to think would make a fun, though definitely not a deep game.

 

[Monocle Man]

Thank you for the competent explanation of how it could be pulled off and how it could go wrong.
Anyway, it's just an idea that I happen to think would make a fun, though definitely not a deep game.

Well it's difficult to find a deep game these days, so I doubt that would be an issue.

- Sorcerer with a monocle drove a kingdom in an economic crisis through some unexplained actions (along with getting nearly all gold coins in his possession)
- The same sorcerer stole the few gold pieces from the local orphanage.
- Afterwards the sorcerer created a huge dungeon-castle-fortress-cave-arena-forest-clocktower hybrid in which he now lurks.
- He left a challenge note that anyone who can make it to him will be rewarded with all the gold he has along with the promise that he'll never steal from an orphanage again.
- A hero accepts this challenge

That can already be considered a deep story.

Make a silly goal, then allow the player to go bananas with anything within the world. Not enough space to go completely nuts? Add proper tools to create other islands yourself.
There, LittleBigPlanet meets anything else you could think of.

 

[I III II X4]

Make it a 3D Wario Ware. You'll have people lining up to worship you.

Utilize a game-control swapping feature either through a D-pad, or shoulder/trigger buttons. For example, you're currently in FPS mode, yet you want to toggle to moving a squad/RTS, so the player would simply hit the corresponding button, no hassle of excess menus or pausing gameplay.

As for a story (which you need), base it on the dangers of the cutting room floor of game development, make it like 3DO's Army Men.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

Oh, cool that's a good idea for the narrative, like Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. But good.

 

[SimuLord]

If it were Vaporware: The Game, would it have Duke Nukem Forever's development cycle or would it be more like Starcraft: Ghost?