The Motivations of Death

[gamegod25]

Yes it is less appealing because they know another generic slaughter-fest will sell

 

[Rakor]

Well, I'm pretty sure the horseman of Death is not exactly Death himself or a grim reaper. Rather since he is a horseman of the apocalypse, most of the theoretical hierarchy can be resolved out by like.....reading the bible. Because I'm sure they'll be accurate to the source material.....right? I don't think there really is a specific grim reaper, just the occasional angel that comes down to take a specific person because they're awesome. Everyone else just kinda goes to purgatory until their shit gets sorted out, I think (not a religious scholar).

As for the game idea, lets make protagonist a snarky guy. He realizes he has to keep up with this reaper nonsense...but that doesn't mean he can't make a few bucks in the meantime. As long as the afterlife is getting their quota, whats a few souls missing here and there. Drum up information from one soul, capture another to stuff into a sack so some guy can hassle him. Maybe have a bit of soul and body shuffles. Make turn that guy you don't like into a zombie. And when the heavenly bureaucrats come down to see why things are going funky, our protagonist waves a silver tongue at them.

Oooo, goblin grim reaper >=D

Anyone read the Legend of Jig Dragonslayer? You should. I think it would be Yahtzee's cup of tea. Clever little goblin...

 

[Blunderboy]

I would play the shit out of that game.

Also now I want to visit Manny and Glotis again.

 

[Blunderboy]

I'd also rather like to see someone like Telltale have a crack at a Final Destination game. It would be harder to cast the player as Death but a lot more fun. Rather than doing QTEs to escape death, you have to do them to cause death.

 

[Oskuro]

DEATH as a character is something I keep thinking about for my own game projects, but it's tricky.

I particularly like Discworld's version of Death, specially how such a creature evolves with time into something readers can sympathize with, and he/she is only made mortal in one of the books!

The idea I'm personally working with regarding the character, and what I think Terry Pratchett aimed for, is the evaluation of the value of life through the meaningless of death. As a character, the personification of Death is in an unique position to appreciate life itself, and I think an audience can be made to feel for the character that way.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

How about a game where you can play as Death from Discworld? Esp. if you had Ian Richardson as the voice of Death.

I can point you towards Discworld 2, a game in which you play Rincewind (voiced by Eric Idle) filling in for Death as he goes on vacation in a not-quite rip-off of Reaper Man. The game is still playable through the likes of ScummVM as well.

 

[Blunderboy]

How about a game where you can play as Death from Discworld? Esp. if you had Ian Richardson as the voice of Death.

I can point you towards Discworld 2, a game in which you play Rincewind (voiced by Eric Idle) filling in for Death as he goes on vacation in a not-quite rip-off of Reaper Man. The game is still playable through the likes of ScummVM as well.

Oh man. I loved those games as a kid. Which makes sense as I love the Discworld books.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

How about a game where you can play as Death from Discworld? Esp. if you had Ian Richardson as the voice of Death.

I can point you towards Discworld 2, a game in which you play Rincewind (voiced by Eric Idle) filling in for Death as he goes on vacation in a not-quite rip-off of Reaper Man. The game is still playable through the likes of ScummVM as well.

Oh man. I loved those games as a kid. Which makes sense as I love the Discworld books.

Yeah, my school years echoed to the damnable sound of: "That doesn't work!". Point-and-click adventure games always had pretty obscure logic, but when combined with the Discworld? Ssoooo much trial and error.

 

[maninahat]

snip

Nice summary, but I don't see how it counters what Yahtzee is actually saying. Yahtzee is complaining about how he couldn't connect with what he found to be a boring and confusing character - one who lacks an interesting characterisation, a relatable goal, and all the crazy powers you'd imagine the personification of death to have.

The creators had complete control over the Dark Sider's franchise. They didn't have to tell a story in which death is not the literal death, or how his powers are limited to hacking and slashing, or how he hasn't got anything but a brute brother to care about. But they still went for the story you described.

Yahtzee was blasé about the details, but I'm with him on this one. When I think of a death, I think of a tall, etherial, and graceful being, not a stand in for God of War. When I think of all the stories you could have with such a character, a battle with angels is hardly the most relatable or intelligent. Dark Siders 2 is basically the wrong story.

 

[maninahat]

That introduction feels rather familiar...

In Mogworld, the main character sort of stumbles onto his adventure by dying.
In Poacher, the main character stumbles across a ghost woman who then gets him deep into adventure.
Here, the main character, through some "unfortunate twist of fate", gets into his own adventure.

I'm sensing a recurring pattern here.

It's the standard way to tell a story. Take an ordinary-ish person and have them fall into a fantastical adventure. It is used because the ordinary-ish person acts as an audience surrogate. He thinks like we do, he responds like we do, and he needs everything explained to him like we do.

It is possible to tell a story the other way around too, in which the person is fantastical and the world is ordinary-ish (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, any of the Marx Brothers movies etc), but you can't make both fantastical. Readers need something familiar, so that they can put things in perspective. If you create a world where nothing is familiar, and both the hero and the situation is fantastical, you risk the audience not relating to the situation and becoming dis-interested.

 

[Porecomesis]

That introduction feels rather familiar...

In Mogworld, the main character sort of stumbles onto his adventure by dying.
In Poacher, the main character stumbles across a ghost woman who then gets him deep into adventure.
Here, the main character, through some "unfortunate twist of fate", gets into his own adventure.

I'm sensing a recurring pattern here.

It's the standard way to tell a story. Take an ordinary-ish person and have them fall into a fantastical adventure. It is used because the ordinary-ish person acts as an audience surrogate. He thinks like we do, he responds like we do, and he needs everything explained to him like we do.

It is possible to tell a story the other way around too, in which the person is fantastical and the world is ordinary-ish (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, any of the Marx Brothers movies etc), but you can't make both fantastical. Readers need something familiar, so that they can put things in perspective. If you create a world where nothing is familiar, and both the hero and the situation is fantastical, you risk the audience not relating to the situation and becoming dis-interested.

That's true but my point is that it seems to be Yahtzee's MO.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Oh come on. The AAA game industry is the only thing that exists now? Yahtzee has released quite a few games independently, and while he's no Edmund McMillan, he's a lot better than most of the overpriced stuff that you're talking about, simply because he has room to experiment.

Perhaps, but nearly all of his pitches are on a AAA scale or very nearly so. And definitely a much bigger scale than the games he's actually produced. He can't exactly crank out, for example, Mankind Has Yet to Recognize My Genius with Game Maker or whatever he's using these days. The last time he even tried making something with a third dimension (Fun Space Game: the Game), he gave up after only a few weeks of work.

 

[Phoenix8541]

A similar concept is already in story form for anyone who has watched the BLEACH series. I will agree that the industry has been flooded with look a-likes, copy cats, reruns, etc... much like the movie industry, so the challenge for these for runners should be creating not only new ways to tell the story, but to tell new stories and concepts never explored that have substance and depth.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

That... actually sounds very good. The more emotionally troubled a soul is and the longer it's had to fester, the more dangerous it becomes. Thing is, when a reaping the souls from a huge battle like the kind you just fought FPS-style as a soldier in the living world, the last few are always going to have lots of time to drift, so they become bosses. Sort of like Space Invaders where the last few will be the hardest to reap no matter which order you do them in. The more chaotic and savage the battle, the more anguished the souls are. Actually that could even encourage you to make the kills that your character makes in the WoL as merciful as possible. Teabag someone, and you will be facing a truly enraged horror when you try to reap that soul. Justice.

This requires planning.

 

[Scow2]

As others probably have mentioned... too much like P. Anthony's "On a Pale Horse" story.

I'd rather not play as that guy - Instead, I'd rather play as one of Irregular Webcomic's Deaths, starting as a very minor death of a very obscure/contrived/stupid ways to die (such as Choking on a Giant Frog or Run through the spleen by a toothpick) teleporting all over the world and competing with other Deaths to collect souls and get promoted to a less convoluted death.

It would be more of a cathartic puzzle game, where there might be chances to just swoop in at just the right moment to contrive a death to fall within your comically limited parameters (Often competing with other Deaths who are trying to rig the same situation to fit THEIR comically limited parameters)... and getting to the soul is just PART of the issue - you then have to avoid being outsmarted/outstupided by the souls of the people you're trying to collect, and collect the soul in a manner that doesn't get your efforts rejected by the Head Death because you do something stupid.

Gameplay changes with each 'promotion' as you get assigned a new way to die, possibly causing you to forget which one you are (And giving your kill to someone else.

A game that frustrates and tries to drive the players to idiocy out of desperation, but remains too comical and fun to not play!

ANYBODY can THINK of an interesting game concept. Stop giving Yahtzee so much credit, please.

 

[antidonkey]

When he first started describing this concept of his all I could think of was the Dead Like Me tv show.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

In the DS world I find that the horsemen are just ultimate warriors of order for a lack of a better word. Its just that simple no over analyzing needed.

 

[upgray3dd]

My thought on a game about death would be a supernatural Dinner Dash. People are dying and you have to show up and convince them to cross over, and you choose how you'll appear to them, how you'll approach them etc.

Are you thinking something like a dialogue puzzle based Mass Effect/Investigation game where you play a shapeshifing god who has to help confused spirits achieve catharsis and accept their fate? That sounds ridiculously fun.



On an unrelated note, the best death is the death from Sandman. She's just such a good person

 

[algalon]

Am I the only person that thinks that Death kinda looks like Raziel from Soul Reaver?

I am?

okay..

You're not. This whole reimagining by Yahtzee in fact sounds an awful like what I spent 3 Legacy of Kain games doing - killing enemies, then reaping (reaving?) their souls. The primary difference being in LoK, you did this to regain energy, to survive. There was no upper management saying "You have to reap every soul you kill". That would get boring reeeal fast.