hi! i have an idea for a game, which i think might actually be worth making. it introduces a few aspects of gaming which, IMHO, are not really used that much in gaming today. First of all, my game, Codename: Mr. Duck (Codename is part of the name) takes place sometime in the next 10-20 years. inhabitants of the poles (penguins, eskimos, etc...) have developed a crazed plan to regain control of the world, like their ancestors did many many years ago. By making Polor Bear X, in essence a huge polar-bear-shaped magnifying glass, the Polor Empire melted both the ice caps, and thus was The Melting... Using some unkown method, all the inhabitants of the newly named Dead Zone (everywhere except the ice caps) found themselves trapped on some Unknown Island in the middle of the South Pole that is strangely hot... Only a handfull were spared in the Dead Zone. One of which, being Mr. Duck. There''s also Shampoo the whale, and John Lenon the walrus (not to be confused with John Lenon the Weeble). Your mission as Mr. Duck is, with the help of the other survivors, to inflitrate the Unknown Island, find out how to rescue the people, and destroy the Evil Emperor Penguin!! This is done in an unique, RPG/Action/Adventure/Strategy kind of way... think metal gear solid meets zelda meets counter strike (yes, counter strike) The main character will have hit points, spells, and other RPG stuff, but the weapons will be very unique and different from regular RPG''s (think Coconut Bombs) Also, there will be some parts of the game where you need to sneak through areas undetected, others where you have to act as a squad, and many others. The game will not be totally focused on puzzles, nor on simple hack-and-slash-action. the game will be anything but linear, and will let the player choose his own path. Feel free to post any comments or suggestions! thanx ~~KaMiKaZ~~

As far as I know, I magnifying glass has to be circular for it to work.

What audience would you be targeting? I see 8-10 year olds playing this as an introduction to RPGs.

hahahaha i knew my plot was too crazy... maybe it''s a circular polar bear but if i changed the plot, i think the game cud be very interesting...implanting remote weapons, squad gameplay, and sneaking arond might change the rpg rules a little bit (wait, is that a good thing?)

A magnifying glass doesn't have to be round for it to work. Think of glasses for example, the lenses don't have to be round for the glasses to work, do they...

Though polar bear shaped lenses aren't that common I guess

Edited by - Dactylos on July 29, 2001 11:28:54 PM

If the arctic climates were destroyed by melting the ice-caps, would not the penguins and polarbears die?
It seems unlikly that they would destroy their own habitats.

So obviously there are some elements of his game for which we must either create a crazy enough backstory to support it, or market it to an audience who we HOPE had greater suspension of disbelief.

Frankly, that last group contains no child I know... you ever know a kid NOT to notice details? Brick a crappy free throw in front of ''em sometime and see how much crap you get. They watch

So that should leave us with the groovy task of writing enough crazy PIB (Penguins In Black) background to explain their newfound tool-using and magnifying-glass cruciforming, how they survived The Melting, all that stuff.

Go all out, make it some zany-ass cartoon game. After all, the execution of the game is what''s going to make this one. A good first-person puzzle-shooter combo with magic sounds pretty cool to me.

Just don''t make a south park knockoff. the world needs that about as much as I need a margarita at 8am..

Wait, bad example
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-WarMage
...of course I don''t have a margarita for breakfast! Cuervo in the coffee is just fine...

i''m not sure if i wanna really make an 8 to 10 year old game... i guess it has to be either really really insane or normal to appeal to older audiences (i''ll take really insane ) but im not sure really how to make it crazy enough to be good... ne suggestions?

There have been a bunch of crazy games with great backgrounds - Grim Fandango, Full Throttle (not one but TWO from Lucas - what''s happening here?!), Jazz Jackrabbit, Commander Keen had a great wack story, Abe''s Oddysee...

The reason I point these out is because you''re essentially building a fantasy game out of very common parts - the immediate world around you. Remember it''s tragedy when something happens to you, but comedy when it happens to someone else! (Especially Tom the Cat). So build some freakish cartoon-like world, because like I said, your gameplay mechanics are going to weigh heavily on how you choose to execute the FPS, the sneaking around, the iso views. Just make sure the story is fun and funny enough to keep the player interested. If you''re lucky you''ll have a story that outshines the gameplay, but in all truth, having exquisite gameplay usually makes up more than a shitbox game with great art or powerful character arcs.

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-WarMage
...story is great!! make more!! but remember It''s About The GAME.

The obvious target audience is the Linux crowd. Penguins are a Linux symbol. And they don''t have that many games to choose from, so you''ve got a nice niche audience waiting for you.

Maybe more targeting Windows users, after the bad guy IS a penguin lol. This sounds like it has the potential to be as funny as anything else. The penguins didnt have to melt all the ice just the part they didnt need. Maybe they have their base on a floating iceberg.