I thought I'd set myself a challenge this week and try to come up with something for the most overdone TV license on the gaming market: The Simpsons. First, a quick recap of most (if not all) of the Simpsons games and their respective genres, just to make sure I don't repeat any:
Bart Vs The Space Mutants (Platformer)
Bart Vs The World (Platformer)
The Simpsons Arcade Game (Scrolling Fighter)
Bart's Nightmare (Mostly Platformer)
Virtual Bart (Mostly Platformer)
The GB Simpsons games (Beanstalk, Camp Deadly, Vs The Juggernauts - all Platformers pretty much)
Simpsons Wrestling (Wrestling)
Simpsons Skateboarding (Skateboarding)
Simpsons Road Rage (Crazy Taxi Clone)
Simpsons Hit & Run (GTA Clone)
That's about it, though there's been a few "interactive features" for the PC, including a cartoon studio and a virtual tour of Springfield.
So how to come up with something new for this outdated but otherwise excellent show? Since the characters are so well developed and it's a genre that still has the capacity for a lot of humorous asides and scenes, I figure there should be a Simpsons RPG. As in, a regular console RPG akin to the Final Fantasies and Suikodens and what have you.
Now, we can't really give Homer a +3 sword and have him slay Mr Burns, so there would have to be some in-game game that the whole of Springfield have gotten themselves addicted to with a grand prize for the best player. Of course, our favorite family is determined to win that prize for whatever reason, so they challenge the whole town one area at a time at what I'm thinking at this stage is either some kind of monster fighter thing (the creatures would all be relevant to "The Simpsons"'s characters controlling them in some way, like Homer would have a very Homer-like ape called the Kwyjibo while Apu would have something like the Jerkysaur to represent his love of the selling power of beef jerky) or - and this seems more likely - something like Card Fighters or Megaman Battle Network.
I'll probably end up covering CCG (Collectible Card Game) Video Games in a future update, but The Simpsons is a license with so many characters; some well-developed, some less so, some who have just appeared for the sake of an in-joke (such as Disco Stu) and variations on the major characters (such as Donut-Head Homer) that something like a Collectible Card Game would be a perfect way to represent them. Better than a Pokemon system at any rate, where you find and capture a bunch of Nelsons while searching through tall grass. There would be plenty of rare cards, hidden areas full of difficult opponents to find around Springfield, and plenty of in-jokes from the card descriptions and dialogue with your opponents.
So there's a few potential versions of how this game would come out as:
1) The Simpsons are playing a card game, in which case you'd see the cards and the players and the game would continue with dealing, power-ups and all the stuff that goes on with CCGs. Like I mentioned, there'll probably be a Design Genre piece on CCGs at some point that will go into more detail, but for now I'm thinking there would be fighter cards (from weak ones like Milhouse to strong ones like Groundskeeper Willie or McBain), event cards (Meltdown at the Power Plant, all fighter cards take damage) power-gaining cards (such as the Kwik-E-Mart or Springfield Hospital for healing) and so on for players to collect and build a decent deck with. For beating a player, you'll receive a special player card with their likeness on it as proof of your win. Collecting so many of these will net you the grand prize.
2) The Simpsons are playing a Tamagotchi/Pokemon-type game, in which case you'd have a little virtual monster that closely resembles the Simpsons character playing it and it would fight and grow like any regular RPG character. Improvements would come from winning battles and receiving your opponent's treasure and experience, which would both be spent on making your character's little monster stronger.
3) Like above, only instead of monsters it would be the Simpsons characters themselves in the game. They would fight each other electronically in the same turn-based RPG fashion.
The Simpsons have done practically every other genre, why not try something that can afford them the kind of comedy depth that the show is so famous for?
