A dinosaur just surviving is a difficult premise to turn into a good game. Dinosaurs don''t shoot guns, they don''t hold fighting tournaments etc. and while T-Rex: Run Around and Eat Things may sound like fun, it doesn''t seem like Sid''s style.

to go the strategy game route, there would be very few units, and technological development doesn''t make sense, etc.

I think that he would need to expand the player goal beyond survival, because that sounds to me like some kind of prehistoric Odell Lake.

Expanding my idea a bit:
Third-person view, camera following your character. Maybe you can right-click to bring up a menu to select different calls to help command the herd. mouse would turn him, left-click move. If you wanted to do something else, the right-click menu could be context sensitive and allow quick picking of an action,(eat, lie down, fight) or lead off into a sub-menu of calls to the herd. you would have to deal with Predators, weather, food/water, competition with other herds... and at some points in the game you might control one kind of dino, and at other times something else. For instance perhaps a section of the game has you help build a nest for Maiasaurs, then later you control a bunch of pterosaurs(yeah, I know...pterosaurs aren''t technically dinosaurs) trying to get settled in after getting swept off to a new place by a bigass storm. Then maybe you can control pack hunters, then after some time it would go back to the Maiasaurs and you would have to protect adolescents from predators... perhaps a group of little mammals could be the point of one section. It seems pretty original to be exploring all sides of the survival of the fittest situation. A game like this should probably have a healthy dose of exploration, too.

For a tutorial/first mission a herd could be scattered. That way you would be free to get movement down before controlling a bunch of big lizards. And as you find them, things could be taught a step at a time.

It would be neat for this to all take place in the same location. Because of the different scales for each type of creature, it could still seem new. Mammals could climb trees and rock faces, allowing them access to places that others can''t reach. Pterosaurs would have the most mobility, obviously, but also be very loose-knit and difficult to command. A pack of Deinonycus would be smaller than the herds/flock, but this would be good since they would be the most action-oriented portion of the game. Maiasaurs are the largest I''ve mentioned so far, and probably would have the biggest herd, so that would probably be slower-paced, but keep you busy keeping the herd together and dealing with things spread further apart.

hmm...I have a left out the groups you most often think about when dinosaurs are mentioned. Theropods(T-Rex) and Sauropods(the BIG ones). I think that it would be good for them to make appearances, but probably not to be playable species... I dunno, but I''ve written a good start to a design document here already! and all you asked for was ideas...

The research for that game would be a lot of fun, too

I was just thinking that it would be cool to play as a Diplodocus, and have the camera follow just the head(most of the body would be waaaay behind you) to get a unique feel as its waved around on the end of that looooong neck.
But I think it would be a b**ch to try and manuever a big sauropod in a realistic way.

It is easy to come up with interesting scenarios for this game.
i.e. Climate change has been slowly ruining your habitat, and the time has come for you to lead the herd off to a new location. But along the way, you must deal with an ornery bunch of Triceratopses :D

How about..

Dinsosaur pimps? Ok, the deal is that you're the main dinosaur and you have to raise your herds by hiring different whore dinosaurs to work the wasteland for you. As payment, you get eggs to hatch for your army. This is very broad so let me break it down a bit.

The game starts and all the player has is a main dinosaur (possibly a T-Rex?) and a nest. So the player heads out to try to find whore dinosaurs, along the way maybe he encounters other dinosaurs to fight, maybe gaining experience? When the player finds a whore dinosaur, he can attempt to swoon the whore to tag along with him. Now that the player can control the whore dinosaur, the next time you encounter a random dinosaur, the whore can try to sleep with the dinosaur (based on the whore's charisma). If it works, and the dinosaur pays, then the whore will then take the payment (eggs or something), back to the base to be hatched into fighting dinosaurs.

This is still very broad, but maybe someone can make something out of it.. take it seriously or not.

[edited by - Faze on October 29, 2002 10:46:27 AM]

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs???

Here''s a tough one. _soap_

Yes. That is tough...

Here goes:

A dastardly plot by a really rich guy with a grudge. His ugly face made him otracized by society. Now, rich beyond his wildest dreams from the technology boom, he has coordinated a massive strike to get his revenge on the world''s population. He has destroyed all of the world''s soap factories. As germ''s threaten mankind''s survival, and soap becomes a precious commodity, agent double-oh-zero must track down this evildoer to both find his secret stash of soap and to bring him to justice...

might be funny in an Austin Powersy way...

On soap:

Imagine a four-year old having a bath, toys and all. A bar of soap can be a unifying element between many imaginative fantasies - tub hockey, where soap is the puck; tub bowling, where the child must slide the bar of soap across the tub and knock Mr. Ducky and other toys over; tub surfing, shrinking to a miniature and riding the bar of soap as a skate/surfboard, pulling of childish tricks and staying on top of the occasional flood of water from your bather...

I was writing something about "soap producer" and it hit me that I could intentionally "misinterpret" the challenge as referring to soap operas! The player would be the producer of a new tv soap and would need to coerce and manage ridiculously infantile egos while struggling not to laugh at their sheer thespian ineptness. As a strange twist, the show should blow up big time (national phenomenon) if the first stage is successful, resulting in even bigger egos, outrageous studio demands ("We want to outdo our last episode at least by double; we want Barbara Streisand to sing a duet with Snoop Doggy Dogg on the show!"), reporters, tabloids, interviews... This game could be hilarious.

I''ll ignore the obvious alternative of a soap manufacturing simulation (even with the twist of creating/endorsing complementary products and encouraging non-traditional use of soap derivitives, like convincing the local hot spot to use your non-soapy hi-foam bubble bath for it''s "Foam Night Freakfest").

quote: Original post by Oluseyi
On soap:

Imagine a four-year old having a bath, toys and all. A bar of soap can be a unifying element between many imaginative fantasies - tub hockey, where soap is the puck; tub bowling, where the child must slide the bar of soap across the tub and knock Mr. Ducky and other toys over; tub surfing, shrinking to a miniature and riding the bar of soap as a skate/surfboard, pulling of childish tricks and staying on top of the occasional flood of water from your bather...

It captures the essence of what soap is and uses it to directly create gameplay. Hooray!

quote:
I was writing something about "soap producer" and it hit me that I could intentionally "misinterpret" the challenge as referring to soap operas! The player would be the producer of a new tv soap and would need to coerce and manage ridiculously infantile egos while struggling not to laugh at their sheer thespian ineptness. As a strange twist, the show should blow up big time (national phenomenon) if the first stage is successful, resulting in even bigger egos, outrageous studio demands ("We want to outdo our last episode at least by double; we want Barbara Streisand to sing a duet with Snoop Doggy Dogg on the show!"), reporters, tabloids, interviews... This game could be hilarious.

The Movies by Peter Molyneux. I can''t wait.

Soap Factory Tycoon II?

Seriously, soap is a pretty uninteresting thing to make a game about, so you really either have to resort to pure humor, or make a game with a very down-to-earth theme.

Soapboy''s Slippery Adventure?


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

I want to see that! because i have little programming knowledge but somtimes a great idea will slap me upside the head :D

where are these contests? can i have the link
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"I''m Myself Nothing More" - Kolin32K

[edited by - Kolin32K on November 7, 2002 10:55:01 PM]