Thursday, October 05, 2006

Design Licenses #5: Invader Zim

OK, since the previous Game Idea blog entry seemed pretty similar to Invader Zim's premise, I figured I should do a Design Licenses for what I think should be in a Zim game. This entry follows on from last week's, so check that first before reading if you haven't already.

Basically, the game mechanics will be the same as last week's game idea: a sort of free-range sandbox in the form of an Earth city, in which Zim would run around (or use his ship) fulfilling mission objectives either stealthily incognito or by causing lots of incidental mayhem. There will be a few differences based on Zim's universe, which I'll list below:

* First, there'll only be the one city, which is the one depicted in the cartoon that holds all the human characters and Zim's base on Earth. It'll still be pretty big and fully explorable, with many locations from the show (such as the school and places like Bloaty's Pizza Hog and the heavily-guarded shopping mall).
* Second, instead of the mothership being the base of operations and the place where Zim sends and receives objects, it'll instead be his somewhat labyrinthe underground headquarters located under the fake "human habitat" he set up on the planet in the first episode of the show. It will still be expandable and customizable, digging extra room for new areas if needed.
* Third, Zim may end up not being the only controllable character, depending on the missions you'll be undertaking. Both Gir and Dib will have their own missions to fulfill.
* Dib's missions will involve recon of Zim's base and thwarting his plans, allowing the player to impede his own progress in taking over the planet. Some story chapters may follow the player helping Zim set up his latest scheme for dominance and then controlling Dib to stop it.
* Gir's missions will probably end up being completely off the wall and unrelated to either saving the planet or taking it over, considering Gir's charmingly chaotic disposition. Possibly in the same manner of mini-games that GTA has in abundance.
* There may even be mini-games in the form of Gaz's Game-Slave, the handheld console she's always seen playing. Other ideas for mini-games involve: Using Zim's ship to stop some orbital/outer space threat to his operation (usually ending up saving the planet he's supposed to conquer), some kind of collectible quest involving valuable radioactive material scattered around the city (that the locals don't seem to react to, despite it being deadly), Dib filming or photographing various activities of Zim's to send to "Mysteries of Strange Mysteries", a show (his favorite) which documents paranormal activity.

Generally, Zim will be going around raising funds by selling things he finds to his Irken brethren and inventing and purchasing new means to take over the planet, possibly following some research or reconnaisance of some new Earth thing he's discovered. Sometimes the players will have certain missions to follow, either given to Zim by the Tallest (the leaders of his race) or inspired by something he learned about Earth from watching TV. He may even be in direct competition from other Invaders on other worlds - which he can monitor from his base - and being successful at various missions will put his own Invader Rank higher and provide him with better equipment and praise from the Tallest. Short of actually taking over the planet, raising his Invader Rank and pleasing his superiors will be Zim's biggest concerns.

As far as I know, there isn't a Zim game currently out or being made, considering its relatively short lifespan compared to other Nicktoons. This is probably a good thing so far, since Nicktoon licenses tend to become the least inspired games on the market (an observartion which is frequently made by critics and developers alike). The guys and gals behind Zim (including the creator, Jhonen Vasquez) seem like pretty cool people though, so they might have decent ideas of their own for a video game should the opportunity to make one ever arise.

Interestingly, I even found this in an interview Vasquez did with IGN:

"
ZIM could have been a children's' television version of Mork and Mindy, with zany misunderstandings of Earth customs and a moral at the end, but that's not at all what I wanted to make (even though a show like that would have likely been a monstrous hit, spawning hoards of negligible Gameboy games)."

He may have a point with that final bit...