This just occured to me and set off the alarm bells of "whoa, what the hell?" in my head. I love it. Background storyline: Your character was kidnapped off the streets at an early age because of a rare blood genotype in a dystopic, almost 1984 -esque future. This genotype, when helped along by chemicals and synthetic enzymes, fostered an immense psychic potential in you. So immense, in fact, that your brain began to safeguard your life on its own. Bullets and knives lose all momentum or are warped away from you once they come within a very small field (for sake of argument, say eight inches around you, and that it knows when it''s coming at you or when you''re shooting it). Other, more dire threats are dealt with sometimes in more exceptional ways. Water, for example, is just pushed away in a globe around your head. (That''d be a cool effect...) Now, the key to something like this would be to make challenges for that character. Say, escorting a close friend who is still human and vulnerable. You''d have to get creative. And I can see some amazing cutscenes coming out of this. You''re chasing someone and he leaps into an elevator shaft. After he climbs to the next floor, he shoots out the cable holding up the elevator. It plunges. Quick as a flash, you hurl your kinetic energies upward and blast the elevator out through the roof, accompanied by much pyrotechnics. A train? Stopped in its tracks by pure will. But for a story explaining his reason for adventuring...what if he''s trying to die? What if he doesn''t want to live forever? This could be an honestly powerful storyline to play. And possibly different endings, depending on if you are moral in your actions (use your powers to help people, don''t let the people you''re guarding be injured, stuff like that). Done right, I could see some amazing things come out of this. Any feedback is appreciated.

This is one of the more original ideas that I''ve seen. I wonder who kidnapped this person and why. Maybe the protagonist resents them, or maybe he or she is unaware of what they did to him or her - maybe he or she doesn''t even know how he or she got these outrageous psychic powers.

You could make the intensity of these psychic powers vary depending on conditions - say that he or she is tired, and projectiles are warped only if they come within three inches of him or her, instead of the usual eight. Or maybe it increases if his or her adrenaline goes up. Maybe the psychic powers come to a standstill if he or she is in severe shock.

I think it would be a bit difficult game.. probably too complex for today''s standards..... but as a movie - especially anime - I think it would be one of the freaking coolest things to watch.

This brings back memories of Sleepwalker... you control an indestructible dog, who has to guide his sleepwalking master through all sorts of stuff and get him back to bed. Great game.

I like the psychic powers bit, too. How would you control that? It sounds as difficult as doing a good realtime magic system...

This is one of the only ways to make Superman comics interesting anymore. Originally, he was mildly super, and got beaten up by Nazis, but as he became more and more bad-ass, and kryptonite got more and more boring, he became a different type of character. He can''t be beaten in a fight, he can''t be killed, and he''s never challenged by a task like carrying a cruise ship accross the ocean or extinguishing a forest fire, so they put hiim in scenarios that invincibility and omnipotence can''t solve. He''s a moral hero, and the conflicts are all in his mind and conscience. He''s also terrifically cheesy and not much fun to read anyway.

Bun-bun from Sluggy Freelance experienced a similar transformation. Just winning every fight gets boring, so Pete Abrams gave him a warped conscience that makes him a wild card. For instance, his less awesome friends were fighting vampires, and at the height of the confrontation, Bun-bun left to go watch TV, leaving the main character to face the confrontation alone.

It''s nearly impossible to implement either of these ideas in video games. The Bun-bun system requires the badass to be a secondary character, which isn''t really what we''re talking about here. let''s look at Superman.

The Superman scenario requires incredible depth of storytelling, almost to the point of being an interactive novel rather than a video game. That gets lame. It could be pretty, but it''ll get old fast. So absolute power is no good. Retrospectively, though, omnipotence isn''t the topic of this thread. Let''s try something else.

The "single weakness" system is always fun. Using the psionic character described earlier, you could give agents of the bad guys unique tranquilizers that neutralize your powers, so if they catch you the take you back to the lab, where you either escape without the aid of your powers (which will return with time) or else you get experimented on, ending the game. Any character can have a "kryptonite", and it can be made to work, as long as you don''t milk it too hard.

You could go for the "Super tough but not quite awesome enough to save everyone" angle, where he has to choose between extinguishing the orphanage fire or stopping the cruise missile. Actually, that one could be very good indeed. Make the hero invincible, but make time the enemy. you have to put out the forest fire, fix the railroad tracks, and stop the tidal wave in time to teach children about nutrition. A reputation system or a dynamic story line could be used for this.

Anyone play "Blast Corps" for the N64? Similar idea. You had a super-awesome bunch of demolition gear, and had to level cities before a runaway missile truck came through. Good puzzle elements, no real risk of dying, and big explosions. A little shallow, but definitely fun.

Another game I''m reminded of is "Zone of the Ender" for the PS2. I think that''s what it''s called. It''s a lame anime-esque spacemech game, but as you go through the course of the game there are little "side-quests" that gain you almost nothing as far as weapons or tangible rewards go, but you save small sections of a city from rampaging mechs. All the mechs are disgustingly weak in these levels, but survival isn''t the goal. You have to stop them all before they kill innocent people. It can be very difficult to do this, and getting 100% civilian survival rates is very tricky. Keeping them from damaging the city is harder still.

The point is that if you make the hero invincible, then you have to have other ways to screw up. Stealth missions in which you mustn''t be seen, or undercover work, or escorts, or scouting, or rescuing, or searching, or assasination are all valid victory conditions. It''s a terrific idea, and with some imagination it can be taken a long way. Whatever backstory you come up with is fine, as long as it leads to some cool ideas and a good story.

A while back I had a similar idea. I added the idea of a time limit to complete objectives - similar to the "dilemma" devices mentioned here - and the idea that damage could cripple, just not kill. If your character''s capabilities can be degraded, and events occur on a fixed schedule, then action-style gameplay is still possible as you must prevent your capabilities from degrading to such a point that you cannot complete your objectives in time.

If your character''s capabilities cannot be degraded, the game becomes similar to more recent LucasArts adventure games, in which it is not possible to die or be harmed through any action you take. In that case, the game''s puzzles must be such that neither invincibility nor incredible psychic powers will help you. Moral dilemmas are one example of that sort of puzzle, but realistically there''s no one "right solution" to a moral dilemma (or it wouldn''t be much of a dilemma!). Psychological barriers provide another source of difficulty for the character, and might be particularly appropriate given his "psychic weapon" background. These could be anything from delusions to phobias to intermittent psychotic episodes. Sure, you''re invulnerable and have the raw power of a Mack truck... which makes your anger management issues all the more painful!

Just tossing some things out.
-STC

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

This reminds me of the cult-anime "Akira" where one of the main characters, Tetsuo, gets kidnapped by scientists who subjects him to a number of experiments to enhance his (I suppose) dormant powers. The problem is that the experiments unhinges Tetsuos mind, making his see things and becoming increasingly psycotic. He escapes his captors with his newfound powers and starts a rampage though the city all the while getting more and more psycotic as he''d become more and more reliant on the drugs fed to him by the scientists.
If you haven''t, go see this movie, it will fit nicely with the unhumanly superpowers described in the background story line. I, for one, would love to step into the shoes of Tetsuo for a while.

A problem with this idea is that most people really really hate it when something they are trying to protect dies and mission is over.. think Freespace or any other space shooter, didn''t you really HATE those "protect-the-cargo-ship" missions?

otherwise, i like the idea, it''s cool

quote:

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
A problem with this idea is that most people really really hate it when something they are trying to protect dies and mission is over.. think Freespace or any other space shooter, didn''t you really HATE those "protect-the-cargo-ship" missions?

otherwise, i like the idea, it''s cool

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So don''t just make it binary pass/fail - have a spectrum of outcomes (possibly none of them "Game Over")

Anyone played one of those Defender clones where, if all the guys you''re supposed to protect die/get abducted, the level promptly fills with swarms of nasties? That''s an example of a "protect the X" mission where failure isn''t Game Over (in fact, in one version I played, I found that, because of the score threshholds for extra lives/smart bombs, and the enemy density if all the guys died, it actually paid for all my men to "accidentally" get shot by friendly fire, then, by using a couple of smart bombs, I could turn a tidy profit in lives, smart bombs and score)

I don''t know if this thread will help or not, but maybe you can get some game ideas from it.