Hey everyone. I have been working out some ideas for a game and wanted to know what people think of it.

The whole game revolves around one player playing as an intangible, invisable ghost that haunts the other live players. He would have access to powers you see in movies like flickering lights, locking doors, appearing in reflections only (if I can figure out how to do that) in order to scare or isolate one of the group. He would also be able to do more leathal moves like dropping one of them dead, turning one into an inanimate object, shrinking one to inches in size (not lethal, but sounded funny lol).

The game would flow like this. Without a group of about 7 in-game, 1 is randomly picked to be the ghost, and another is picked to be the slave/summoner. The rest will be ordinary people. The ghost's job is to pick off members of the group until they are gone, but he can only really kill those who are close to his summoner. The other player's job is to find out who has been present for all these deaths and kill that person before they are all dead. There is only one gun between the players. It hinges on social interations for the gameplay flow.

There are a few things that I am not really sure about.
1. Should the ghost have a summoner and be limited by him? Would it play out so good?
2. If there is a summoner, would killing him be a good objective? Should there be another?


Another alternative I thought of is having all the players work together against the ghost. It starts out by about the same size group entering some area that they can't leave. One person has a phone-camera that they hold up to their face to see dust/stuff of where the ghost is standing. It can't stand out too much; I would want the player to have to feel some pressure to keep a look out. Taking a picture of that dust reveals the ghost for a little while allowing the person with the gun to shoot him. The ghost has pretty much the same powers as before but isn't limited to a summoner. The other players just need to not die and pick up the gun/camera when one of the others die.

Is one of these ideas infinitly better than the other and the other shouldn't be in the same game, or are both of them good enough to be developed.

If you have a summoner, what is he supposed to be doing? Is he trying to help the ghost eliminate the other players? If he's trying to eliminate the other players, it seems to me that once he has the gun there really isn't anything that anyone else can do.

I think that for both scenarios, you need to make sure that each of the players has something to do or work towards most of the time. That is, sitting around waiting for your turn with a piece of equipment doesn't sound very fun to me.

How do you envision the end game going down when it's obvious who is who?

The summoner's job is to work with the ghost by basically keeping with the group and trying to not make his status obvious. He also can't pick up the gun. Picking it up would also have to be done intentionally by the regular players too (no just walking over it) to avoid the "he walked over it and didn't pick it up!" kind of thing.
As far as the end game goes I imagine the summoner would be toast if he was discovered. :P He would need to hide and probably need the ghost to give him cover until they figure out what to do.

I haven't really thought of something for the players to do in the first game mode. In the second one there could be some randomized objective that they have to traverse the map for while being stalked. I'll have to think of something for them to do.

This reminds me a lot of wink murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wink_murder). Wink murder works best as an aside to some other primary. So, I think your game idea would work best as a mod overlayed on an existing game and not as a stand-alone game.

I'm thinking the game might become broken when the players all decide to take turns to see who can pick up the gun or who refuses.

I like the over all idea but I think having one player as a summoner tied to another player as the ghost will tend to result in too many ways for the fun to be broken. Having one player as the ghost or maybe one player as a summoner who commands a ghost would seem to be a better bet.

For some objective for the other players, perhaps they all need to find something that can be used to banish the ghost or otherwise protect them from it. This might provide some motivation or reason for players to split up forcing them into situations where the ghost has an opportunity to strike.

If the summoner can't pick up the gun, players could just find out which player can't pick up the gun. Maybe one player starts with the gun, then at certain intervals players have to vote on who to give the gun to, and it can't be someone who already had it.

This seems like a party game. I wonder how it would work as a video game.

If the summoner can't pick up the gun, players could just find out which player can't pick up the gun. Maybe one player starts with the gun, then at certain intervals players have to vote on who to give the gun to, and it can't be someone who already had it.

This seems like a party game. I wonder how it would work as a video game.

It is a party game. :) After hearing Rock Band being suggested for every single get together, It seemed like there needs to be more of them. Essentially its not going to be a full game with a campaign story, just a simple game mode or two that can be played with friends.

@kseh Do you think that merging the ghost and summoner roles together would be good? Instead of always being a ghost or a regular person, have one that can switch between them. You can only stay in your invisible ghost form for so long and can be killed while human.

I'm still thinking about what should be done with the gun, or if something else should be used.

Merging them in that way sounds like it has good potential. It sounds like it should give the ghost player a bit of extra power while creating an opportunity to be discovered. And it seems reasonable that you could say that you can only do certain things in one of the two forms.

As for the gun or any other tools you might want to offer the players, the main thing I think you want to keep in mind is the way that such things can suddenly end or otherwise allow one player to dominate the game.

You want to give players the opportunity to investigate and to otherwise put themselves a bit at risk before you start eliminating them either by the ghost or as some consequence of a failed attempt at eliminating the ghost. Delaying the ghost player's ability to attack could be a matter of requiring time to pass before a change is possible. Delay the players might be accomplished by requiring players to craft or find their tools or ammunition or power source in some way or to recharge the tools in some way.

I'd also suggest having it such that a player can only carry one item at a time (no backpack) and if allow for more than one device to be crafted to avoid potential issues with the ghost player being in possession of the only weapon.

I believe that there are a few game-mods with similar gameplay, such as Trouble in Terrorist Town, Murder!, and The Hidden--if you haven't done so already, it might be worth looking at them for inspiration, whether in what they do well or in what they do poorly.

Look at boardgames, these have this theme (hidden traitor) covered very well. You should get tons of insipration of these.

- Battlestar Galactica

- Shadows over Camelot

- Saboteur

- Resistance