Pretentious, moi? read on for a game idea that needs a team from uk ideas man (me) first person perspective non violent (certainly no gore) characters are action figures (around the size of lego figures), set in a house where they will have to face giant hazards in various rooms. There will be rpg elements with character interaction and cooperative work required as well as solving puzzles (as in half life). Instead of the crow bar or bog standard punch attack, players will have their hands as their basic move. Although they can be used to punch, the main purpose of the hands will be to GRAB on to ledges, push and pull boxes and GRAB onto moving objects to use as vehicles. Also a ROPE feature will be used to allow the use of GRAPPLING and SWINGING over gaps and pulling things and climbing up. The game starts with the player straight into the action, taking part in a race agaainst a rival in the bathroom. You and the rival listen to brief instructions, from the current chief of a tribe of figures, regarding what to do in this race. The winner will become the subsequent chief. Now there are two possible outcomes from this race. 1. The player wins the race and returns to the tribe with both the chief and the rival to be the new leader. 2. Your rival wins the race and precedes to exile you. So the game splits at this point into two different quests. The RACE As you are in the bathroom the race will take place around the bath itself. Both of the competitors (player versus AI) start at the taps (one at COLD, other HOT). The chief counts down and the race begins. You will both race on opposite sides of the bath across the rim. If you look to the side you will see your rival. The rims will be quite narrow so a difficulty will be staying on and not dying by falling into the bath itself. Various obstacles will litter the course including 1. slippery patches of water which will speed up the player and reduce their control(these are just droplets to a human, but to a lego figure they will be quite large and require jumping and weaving. 2. small towels which are harder to walk across and will slow the player down and require lots of quick jumping to cross quickly. 3. There will be hurdles to jump and crawl under i.e. shampoo bottles, small soaps etc. Perhaps shampoo puddles which need avoiding as they would get the player stuck and make progress a lot slower. Once the player reaches the far end they will have to slide down the slope into the actual bath on board a soap. The grip feature will be required here to cling on. Perhaps by holding down the left mouse key when the default “hand weapon” is selected. By pressing different directions the player can shift the characters weight around the soap and thus subtly change direction and speed and navigate waves of water and obstacles. Such as 1. rubber ducks - perhaps moving 2. bars of soap 3. bubbles / patches of bubbles (i.e. from bubble bath) which will slow the player down 4. Those “soap holders which are like barriers hanging at right angles to the bath’s length and look a bit like tray” things. The player will have to jump over this and run across and then rejoin his soap boat at the other side. If the player does fall off then they will be able to swim for it and try to win that way or they could opt for knocking their opponent off his soap or jumping on another object and trying that. Also the opponent will be using dirty tactics too, like swerving into the player to knock him off/ off course. The waters will get quite rough in place and so the player must be careful to get his weight in the right position else he’ll be knocked off. i.e. the player shouldn’t be leaning heavily one way when he hits a wave or he may be capsized. The race will end at the “tap-end” with the competitor who climbs up the plug chain being the victor. However if its the rival he will then pull the chain and that will create a whirl wind for the player resulting in him going down the plug hole. The issue is how well the player fares. If he does really well then he’ll win and become chief, but at a later stage the rival will seek revenge. If he loses by miles then he’ll get sucked into the pipes bellow when the chain is pulled (just on his own). Finally if he is on the chain then the rival will push him back into the water before pulling the chain and he’ll also push the old man down with him. Then they’ll both be sucked down.

Hmm. Very pretentious. However, there are a couple things I see right off, that cause trouble:

Rats-style games don''t sell well, in my experience. "Rats" means that the character is miniature, and everything is huge.

Second - and I personally loathe this - a non-bloody game will not sell very well to the adult-teenager crowd, and a game where you get killed by getting sucked into a drain will not be something parents of younger kids like. So you have no good market to sell it to.

I see that he is trying to sell non violence but violence sells games.
Seems awfulmicro machines to me.
Add violence and make it bigger and you''ll get a huge audience.
But it is innovative and that sells games too.

mailto:peadar@coylelj.fsnet.co.uk

I love the cleanser''s game idea! It''s so bizarre and twisted, and sounds like a lot of fun.
It sounds like it could be a development nightmare, with all the details. And it really
seems like the sort of game which would need to be done very well in order to sell at
all. This is the type of game which either works or doesn''t. And if it doesn''t....

With a solid development team, a great deal of humor, and some really whacky sounds,
this game could be really very good. Sucked down the drain? I love it! As long as that
part were ridiculous enough and funny enough, I don''t think it would be a traumatic
experience for a child. (Although it might be traumatic for a few friends of mine....)

One concern, however, is that it would probably take a team with resources like those
of Miyamoto to really pull it off. But assuming you''ve got the necessary tools (including
finances, talent, and time) this could really be cool.



Jonathon

quote: "Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries of educationalizing our youths." -George W. Bush