I ran across this article this morning and I cannot help but think that the potential for a simple yet funny idea for a game exists in this. How would you design this game?

This is purely a theoretical exercise looking at creative game design ideas. However the best three responses as determined by upvote/downvote from other users on this thread, I will arrange to have a year's GD-Net subscription purchased for (or in the event you have one - a Steam equivalent prize).

Your response should be somewhat detailed without being overboard about it. Have fun, be creative.

Edit: the source of the game design inspiration is "tumbleweeds" what you do with them is up to you.

You have till the end of March 2013.

Haha. Makes me think of this old game, though that's not the type of game I'd design as a response.


Okay, my response...

Title: Secret [Admirer is crossed out, Nemesis is scribbled in]

Genre: Oldskool Adventure Game (recent example, the Dream Chronicles series by KatGames)

Story: You are a young superhero attending superhero high school, and someone seems to have started a prank war against you without notifying you of this fact. Opening your dorm room door to find yourself buried in an avalanche of tumbleweeds was just the beginning. Each day your unknown foe (could it be someone from the supervillain side of the divided school?) springs a new and more absurd prank on you. Each day you look for clues as to who your demented secret admirer might be, and whether they are actually dangerous or just socially inept.

Gameplay: Mostly you are collecting found items, using them on other items, and talking to NPCs. Each prank is a scripted scene or cinematic beginning a level, then the level is exploring the school or other setting looking for clues and rumors to get you a step closer to figuring out who is playing the pranks, and why.

Game Time: Less than 10 hrs (and an appropriately low price). Would be part of a series of quick-to-produce games about super heroes and villains. Each game is like a comic book or short story; they share the same engine and some of the same characters, setting, and graphical and audio assets, but each tells a different story.

Texan Tumble

A group of Texan Survivalists hole up in a compound for protection from an expected alien invasion. Nearby towns and villages laugh and shake their heads sadly, but the Texans are proven right when the local tumbleweeds come alive and become sentient. Attacking the compound, the tumbleweeds attempt to pile up and reach the roof, to enter in through the roof vents.

You are in control of three humans, a dog (a mastiff), and a cat, with more shotgun shells than you can count. Survive as long as you can.

Gameplay: Using the mouse or a touch-interface, take fire at the weeds with everything you got!

Weapons:

- A pistol dude - 17 shots to the clip, you can fire as fast as you can click. Each pistol shot blows one third of a tumbleweed away.

- A shotgun dude - 2 shots before reloading. Long reload time, but you can switch to another human while the shotgunner reloads. The shotgun does a scatter blast of bullets that tear apart a good number of tumbleweeds.

- A hunting rifle dude - 5 shots before reloading. Medium reload time. Each shot instantly destroys a tumbleweed, and might hit two tumbleweeds at once if they're overlapping.

The dog: Every 100 tumbleweed kills, the dog runs down inside the compound and brings up a bonus item for you. It could be a Molotov cocktail, a weapon powerup (for a short duration), or a dog bone. You can throw the Molotov cocktail, and the bottommost part of the pile of tumbleweeds burst into flames, greatly shortening the pile and giving you a breather. You can also throw the dog bone down onto the pile, and your Mastiff will leap down scattering the pile and chase the tumbleweeds.

The cat: Does nothing.

The cat just sits there, licking his paw, and occasionally paces back and forth on the roof.

Each time the tumbleweed pile reaches the top of the roof, a tumbleweed jumps and latches onto a human's face (face-hugger style), and he falls off the roof onto the ground, as the tumbleweed pile breaks apart and consumes him. They then start building up their pile again.

You lose when all three humans die. The dog then flees downstairs, and the cat surrenders with his paws in the air.

The point is to get the highest score by surviving for as long as possible.

Every so often, a tumbleweed rolls across the dirt ground at the bottom of the compound wall and leaves a psychological warfare message written in the dust, urging you to surrender.

it's a bit confusing, and parts of the story don't fit together exactly, but it's what I came up with since I felt you didn't need an exact design of the game. You just wanted to understand the concept right? I'm bad with this stuff :3

---

Title:

Growing Pains

Genre:

Top-Down Fighter with RPG elements

Story:

The government caused a radioactive spill in the area of
your city, which has unnatural tumbleweed growth. The reasons are unknown, but
they’re covering it all up, and suddenly the tumbleweeds mutate into a “hive”
as such. Your job is to locate the core and destroy it, therefore saving
everyone. The game will start off with this:

Blog Entry 01:

The growth of tumbleweeds has always been unnatural within
this forgotten city, yet daily trimming has kept it at bay.

Until now.

You could write off the radioactive spill as an unfortunate
accident.

That is, if a radioactive plant ever existed near here.

Yet this is an unfair world, and a town against the
government is like an insect against an elephant.

An experiment? A test? Whatever it was, it’s too late now.
You see, the tumbleweeds were already unnatural, so begets the question.

What’ll happen when unnatural is mutated?

Sadly, we found out sooner than expected. It seems the
tumbleweeds truly did mutate into something else, and it appears to hold
intelligence.

A simple tumbleweed? Intelligence? You may scoff, but it
appears to work like a hive. If we can just find the core, and decimate it,
maybe this nightmare will end.

That is, of course, if we can make it there.

What’s that? Get help from outside?

The government caused this; you think we could really leave
here or get help?

Besides, we’ve already tried. The internet is a great accommodation
for such events these days. Sadly, we didn’t realize how far the government
would really go.

“Texas home covered in tumbleweeds”

The fools believe a storm blew it all there.

They’re being spoon-fed this bullshit, and believing it.

Well, whatever. It’s not like there’s much that can be done
now. I just hope this reaches someone, in-case we can’t end this.

They’re still mutating.

The government underestimated the impact the spill has
created, soon enough this place will be overrun and they’ll turn to the outside
world.

Prepare yourselves.

Unknown Sender, 01/03/2013, 5:00 PM

You start off with that message, before it shifts to you on
the computer. This is where you commence, as you shut the computer down and get
up. You’ll see tumbleweeds knocking on all the windows, unnatural smiles in the
midst of their body. You’ll get up, and the gameplay will commence.

Also, after the boss fight at the end, the following will
happen:

After defeating him, you’ll discover the truth of why the
government did this. You’ll find out that the tumbleweeds were always a hive,
but the government did something to them which enraged them, causing them to
attack the humans.

You’ll have two choices.

One is to use all of the mutated genes of all the
tumbleweeds in order to resurrect everyone. If you do this, you’ll have mass
genocide on your hands.

The other choice is to undo whatever the government did, you
won’t be able to save everyone in the city but you can save what is left and
you won’t have the death of the tumbleweeds on your hands. Also, right at the
end, some tumbleweeds will walk up and you’ll see them sacrifice themselves,
reviving your tumbleweed friend. This signifying a friendship between you and
the tumbleweeds.

Gameplay:

I put it as a top-down fighter in order to make it more
realistic, making you feel like you really are a survivor in a town that went
to hell. Everyone has already used the guns, in the first wave of attacks. You’ll
start off with something like a bat, but as you progress you’ll be able to
discover objects that you can use to upgrade weapons or create whole new ones.
These can be missed, making you want to explore. There should also be little
e-notes that you can find which give backstory.

You’ll also receive “mutation genes” every time you kill
tumbleweeds, which act as experience points. Upon level up, you’ll be able to
choose various things like upgrading the abilities you already have, making
whole new ones, or unlocking things you can create/upgrade.

Near the beginning, you’ll meet a tumbleweed who doesn’t
attack you. After careful contact, you consider it friendly and you let it tag
along (it’ll sit on your shoulder). If you’re not careful, he can die, making
the last boss battle a lot harder.

There’ll also be other survivors along your adventure, where
you can make choices depending on what you hold. Say you need a rope to save a
man surrounded by tumbleweeds, but you used it on the last upgrade. On the
other hand, that upgrade could’ve allowed you to hold a gun that gives you a
boost of speed, which could save the man by pulling him out of the circle.

When you rescue a survivor, you’ll be granted a choice. Send
them back to your fortification, or send them back to your fortification and
take all their stuff. Some people will resist, but what it’ll do is lean you
more towards an “evil” person as such.

While to start off with, this’ll seem like it doesn’t affect
you. As you progress, and gain more experience, the mutated genes will react to
your nature and slowly mutate you. While this won’t kill you, it’ll make you an
ugly ass guy. Other various actions can do the same thing, like leaving a man
to die because you wanted that rope.

There’ll only be one boss battle, at the end, which will
reveal itself to be a giant intelligent tumbleweed. You’ll have found out previously
that a tumbleweed mutated in such a way that it can consume something and receive
its energy, or rather its intelligence. This is what made him so smart, so the
way you die is by him grabbing hold of you and consuming you. To combat this,
you’ll need mobility and –uh oh- if you were evil you’ve mutated into a slower
and more cumbersome body. Making it harder to defeat the last boss.

Anyways, he’ll grab you at random times, and has multiple
hands so always be on the move. If you kept your friendly tumbleweed guy, he’ll
combine certain weapons you hold into a weapon that helps you move. Weapon changes
depending on what you hold. He also sends out other tumbleweeds to attack you,
so you have to avoid him whilst fending off the tumbleweeds. To defeat him, you’ll
have to destroy the three cores’ he uses to maintain contact with other
tumbleweeds. Once that’s done, all your weapons will combine together (cause of
the mutation genes from all the cores) and, depending on what you hold, a
weapon will pop out. If your tumbleweed hasn't been killed by the boss yet, he’ll
sacrifice himself to give you his mutation genes which give you the roll ability,
allowing you to avoid his hands a lot easier (since you lose your weapons that
help you move).

Tumbleweed - a multi player storytelling game

1. Each player chooses a character from a preset list. These are the protagonists.

2. One player takes the role of director, controlling the character's interactions.

3. The remaining players suggest props using a scribblenauts style object dictionary. The director gets to choose which props are actually used.

4. The remaining players may also throw tumbleweed to indicate that they are bored or otherwise fed up with the current director. If enough tumbleweed is thrown, the directorship passes to a different player. The tumbleweed remains in the game and can be interacted with as any object.

5. Players have randomly assigned objectives to try and incorporate certain objects into the story. The story ends when one player acheives all objectives, or when the set is buried in tumbleweed.

6. Players score points for time spent as director, suggested props used, and objectives met.

Tumble Trouble.

A 2D puzzle-platformer, somewhat similar to

">NightSky, except more action-packed, will likely be shorter as well in terms of hours of play. Might be presented as 3D like Nyxquest or eventually full Mario64 style (no, see note).

Tumbleweeds observed humans for eons. They have discovered satan's evil plan to invade earth. All the tumbleweeds must therefore attack satan's house on earth!

Main character is The Great Tumbleweed. Each level is centered towards getting normal tumbleweeds to the exit point, so they can pile up in next level. Normal tumbleweeds can not move by themselves and are completely subject to external forces. The Great Tumbleweed is infused with superpowers, such as the ability to move by itself.

[attachment=13965:path3013.png]

Main gameplay mechanisms

• Rolling around as main way of gaining momentum
• Hitting objects to enable/disable special environment behavior
• Use saved tumbleweeds to bridge gaps

Additionally, in every world The Great Tumbleweed gains special abilities such as

• Small jump
• Ability to make other tumbleweeds roll: jump on them and roll.
  • Upgrade: ability to incorporate other tumbleweeds for easier transportation to exit (will cause change in physics model)
• Unroll into a thread to go through tight holes (includes some kind of maze mini-game, limited by thread flexibility).
  • Upgrade: unroll into a grappling thread to jump across large gaps!
• Go stealth mode! Just act as a regular tumbleweed so no one will notice (humans only).
• Unroll other tumbleweeds to build simple objects such as a rope to pull off a rock, a large bridge over a gap, a tumbleweed catapult (mostly unique, suggestions are given to player by using special, ad-hoc designed objects).

The game starts in a harsh desert, where the Great Tumbleweed awakens and proceeds to gather the nearby tumbleweeds. All of a sudden, Satan himself sends a curse which causes the Great Tumbleweed to lose all its powers, scatter the friendly tumbleweeds and crack the ground. The Great Tumbleweed must now rebuild its legendary power.

Second level is mainly platforming, flaming devils will attack tumbleweeds in sight. Emphasis on exploration to find alternative routes.

Third level is the city. Of course the tumbleweeds couldn't just go around it. Final boss is a street-sweeper with a flamethrower trying to protect the city from the assault! He does not know the real thread the tumbleweeds are fighting and needs to be incapacitated.

After the boss is defeated, the game ends with a "bad" ending if you haven't saved enough tumbleweeds.

The game also ends here if playing on "easy" with a "so-so" ending.

Otherwise, satan's house collapses under the sheer weight of the mythical tumbleweed mountain. The great tumbleweed now chases satan to hell, where insta-kill is canon. Using its abilities (mainly grappling), The Great Tumbleweed must cause rocks to hit satan (there are no tumbleweeds to save here). Eventually defeated, satan is confined back to hell as The Great Tumbleweed uses hot air to gain back the surface. Congratulations! You won the game!

Now wait for Episode 2: can a bunch of tumbleweeds stop nuclear war?

Edit: I woke up today and figured out what I'd really want graphically is some kind of blend between

">locoroco (don't click! memetic hazard!) and fancy pants adventure.

I want to see more entries into this competition. Please do not make me believe that there is a dearth of creativity on Gamedev.net.

"Tumbleweeds....who knew it would be tumbleweeds?" Were these the last words of the old-timer? His voice broke the silence of the unforgiving desert like a pile of gravel in a blender. This old man would be the savior of man-kind.

Hoss Tucker Saves the World - The Trouble with Tumbleweeds

Plot/Story/Stuff:

In this 3rd person adventure, you play as the towns infamous old coot Hoss Tucker. Everyone in the tiny town of West, TX has heard the rants and conspiracies of Hoss Tucker and they have dismissed them all; from ducks running the hip-hop industry to the moon landing footage being faked because they left the lens-cap on when they really went.

Our game opens with our hero, Hoss Tucker sleeping on his recliner, having a nightmare. He awakes suddenly to the realization that tumbleweeds are planning on taking over the world!

Gameplay:

The player will be responsible for making their way around the city and try to convince all of the citizens of the impending doom with the help of his mini-scooter. Some citizens will request favors or items before they'll listen, such as returning items that Hoss or others have borrowed. When the player is outside of the town, they might get attacked by roaming gangs of tumbleweeds. Though this reinforces what Hoss believes, none of the citizens see it happen. The combat will be basic melee with Hoss doing very bad looking pretend kung-fu and later using weapons like rakes and leaf-blowers.

Midway through the game when Hoss has warned all of the citizens, they all gather behind Hoss's back to laugh at him for being a crazy old man and generally dismiss his claims all without knowing Hoss could hear it all. This sets up the next part of the game where Hoss is determined to kill off all of the tumbleweeds to show the other citizens he isn't crazy...this time. By following clues left in the desert, talking to wild animals (one sided dialog), ease dropping on other conversations, and a hilariously brutal torture scene/mini-game involving a lighter and a tumbleweed, Hoss learns that the tumbleweeds are planning to attack during the annual summer festival and they have all gathered around Hoss's tiny mobile home to catch him before he interferes.

In the nail-biting conclusion to the game, Hoss learns that it's too late and too many of them. He rides his mini-scooter back into town, this time being chased by viciously scratchy tumbleweeds that are bent on violence and world domination! This will be played out as a survival race with the player getting to attack either side to keep from getting knocked down.

The final (?) scene of the game is Hoss entering the town during the festival, covered in minor scratches and collapsing at one of the citizens feet who dismisses him as being crazy just as a single tumbleweed crosses the scene.

Credits role.

After credits, the same festival scene is shown, then it slowly pulls back to show a huge wave of tumbleweeds approaching the town.

Cut to black.

----

Not an easy idea to play with, but that was fun! Really like the simplicity and mechanics in Servant of the Lords idea though; it made it tough to focus on my idea.

The Floor is Tumbleweeds

Premise:

The backstory to the game is simple. The city has become somehow flooded with deadly tumbleweeds that reach as high as the second story of your office building. Upon witnessing the chaos below from your office on the 13th floor, you see people fall in and somehow drown to death underneath the current of shifting tumbleweeds. The goal of the game is to get out of the city, and escape the deadly tumbleweeds. You must build bridges out of cupboards, swing from makeshift ropes, create ladders, and utilize all of your creativity to MacGyver your way out of the city.

Gameplay:

A 3D, third person, puzzle/escape/survival game in which you control a solo hero trying to escape from a city overrun with tumbleweeds.

The player can walk, run, jump, crouch, and crawl through the brave new world. The player can interact with almost every item in the environment, pick up items for later user, and combine items together to create new items. The player is not given weapons, as fighting the tumbleweeds is not an option.

Every level is a simple A to B objective, but it is never as simple as just walking. You must use the objects around you to traverse the level and avoid falling into the ocean of tumbleweeds below. The game takes a twist at the end of the first level when it becomes apparent that the tumbleweeds are sentient, and are trying to kill you. Now you must not only find a way out of the city, but also board up windows and doors, and use the object around you to keep the vicious tumbleweeds at bay. You may need to set a small car fire to prevent the weeds from entering a parking garage, or use food as bait to facilitate a nerve-wrecking run past a small wave of tumbleweeds.

The game ends when you escape the city just in time to see the army dropping napalm on the skyline.

Example Level 1:

The elevator is out of service, so you descend the stairs to the third floor of the office building to see a group of people getting swarmed on the stairs leading to the second floor. Slamming the door closed behind you, you are now trapped alone on the third floor with a sea of tumbleweeds below you. The nearest building is a parking garage, so you decide that you must somehow break the window and cross the gap over the alley below.

At this point the player is given control and must interact with the environment to find the proper tool to break the window and the proper tools to bridge the gap. Perhaps the potted plant can not break the window because it is plastic, and a fire-extinguisher should be used instead. To bridge the gap, maybe you need to break the legs off a few tables using that hammer you found in the toolbox and duck tape the wood together. But, what if the wood is not strong enough on its own to hold your weight? The player must solve the riddle to escape.

In addition to using items in the environment, some items can be collected and carried in your shoulder bag for use in later levels. You will have a limited amount of storage space though, so you can not collect everything. All levels can be beaten with the items found in the level itself, but certain items may make it easier, or faster.

The levels increase in complexity and difficulty as the tumbleweeds continually try harder and harder to outwit you and pull you down.

Summary:

What the game amounts to is a large scale 3D escape game with the key functionality revolving around how you interact with the environment. The tumbleweeds becoming sentient and attacking you adds an aspect of survival to the game, creating scenarios of immediate and time urgent danger. Realistic physics on objects would be a key component to properly implementing the game.

Beginning :

"So many ... so many ... we are so many here, I can't remenber where I was before, It was like a dream, the wind ... , everything rolling around me ..., then, the impact, many impacts, no more rolling, no moving, so many branches everywhere, tangled branches, connected branches ... We ... I ... am so many now, I can feel that strange rock under me, with these strange sharp angles, and something else, it makes so many vibrations, I can feel it pulling on my .. our branches .. Ouch ! it took a part of me ! Oh no I can feel it pulling again ! But there is something else, that feeling like in my dream, the wind ... Ouch ! Did it take some part of me again ? No ... it was another impact, another ... us, connected to me, I ... we feel better now, may I find something before the Thing take another part of me ! Ouch ! Another impact ... more branches ... feel so good ...

the ... branches I ... we can disentangle them a little bit it is ... strange ... Oh no I lose it ! I lose it ! A part of me ! I ... we disentangled too much ! But ... the Thing ... it makes no vibrations anymore, I can feel it next to us, not moving on the floor ... all the part of me I lost, they rolled over it ... but ... it begin to move a little bit again and ... other vibrations coming, other ... Things ... no ! ... we ... I ... WILL ... NOT... LET THEM TAKING PARTS OF ME AGAIN !"

Gameplay:

Kind of strategy/arcade game, you begin in the same situation as in the article : many tumbleweeds on a house, people trying to remove them. The direction of the wind change ("as a function of the time", no idea how to say that correctly in english), sometimes new tumbleweeds carried by the wind arrive, you can see on your screen the others houses of the little town (btw what's the difference between town and city ?), when a new tumbleweed arrive on the first house it is caught by the other tumbleweeds, but when it arrive on an house with nothing on it it stay a little bit before being carried away by the wind, you can "cut" some part of the mass of tumbleweeds to let it escape with the wind, either to roll on people to prevent them from pulling tumbleweeds away, or to "colonise" another house, or both at one time, you can also try to knock down trucks going out of the city filled with tumbleweeds that people removed.

The goal is to colonise every house or a particular one according to the mission.

When you have enough tumbleweeds on one house you can have ameliorations (the collective mind becomes more intelligent and find new things), such has ability to launch tumbleweeds instead of juste letting them being carried by the wind, to use the soil of gardens to grow etc ...

Many special techniques can be used : for example if you launch a special "western" tumbleweed beetween two people they will make a western duel and people around will look at them, losing their time