I've been considering more Theme/Sim games recently, since they're a lot of fun to plan out ideas for. An internet pal of mine came up with an idea based around building and maintaining your own cemetary (called SimEtary); keeping mourners happy (well, satisfied with the service at least) and making sure to clear out any infestations of vampires, zombies and highschool goths sneaking in to take pictures of themselves next to the tombstones at midnight.
My idea will be on somewhat equal-footing in terms of macabre humor as it will be a simulation of one of those dodgy "off the road" attractions akin to all the giant balls of twine and flea circuses that pepper the great American highways.
Structurally, the game will play somewhere between the park management of the genre's quintessential Theme Park series and the horrific mutation management of something like Theme Hospital (or even Dungeon Keeper come to think of it). You'll need to "breed" freaks to attact customers to your sleazy corner of the woods while making sure the "attractions" don't give in to their malicious mutated natures and end up rampaging through the park. Your reputation might suffer for one thing.
You'll start off with a small clearing in the woods with a not terribly well maintained path leading from a highway of your choice - the state you choose to set up in may have its own rules and advantages, which usually balance out: for example, a well-travelled state like California may give you lots of people passing through but will also get more press coverage if something goes catastrophically wrong. After setting up the location, you'll build all the necessary parts of your park to begin: a shack for yourself to live in as well as a barn with the patented "Monster Maker" freak-making machine to lure unsuspecting clientele into expanding your menagerie of mutants.
Then all you need to do is build quarters for your "staff" to live in, making special preparations for the slightly less human members of the entourage. Whenever you recieve new guests, you can either charge them for a show (you'll need the money to keep everything running), or knock them unconscious for turning into freaks later. Or both. Eventually, you'll become too conspicuous for all the local federal forces following up all these missing person reports and will need to make a quick getaway from your freak farm, absconding with enough money to start over fresh (and possibly with a bit of extra cash than you started with previously for an improved park).
I'm thinking the actual freak-creation system will either be random (providing lots of different outcomes with minimal effort), use a recipe-type system (allowing players to experiment with different volumes of radioactive waste for different creatures, for instance) or be even more elaborate and user-defined, since sim gamers do tend to like that high-level of interactivity. Players may need to use moderation with their creations however; the less human the freaks get, the harder it will be to control them. Of course, if they can afford enough chains and manacles (or simply don't care if their creations go on killing sprees), they can feel free to make them as twisted as they want.
Followers of obscure MTV cult movies of the early 90s may recognise the general focus of this game having been lifted from the excellent Freaked (or "Hideous Mutant Freakz" as it's sometimes known), which it has been somewhat, but the game will expand far further into that universe, allowing the villain of the picture Elijah C Skuggs to experiment to his heart's content in making the perfect sideshow attraction (as well as the perfect killing machine). If anything else, I intend to make sure the game will share that same chaotic and bizarre pop culture reference humor of the movie.
