Planet-eating. There are various movie/comic villains that eat planets. Galactus is one. Unicron is another. There's probably two or three of them in Star Trek lore. The Death Star didn't eat planets, it just 'sploded them. And now, I've decided to create a game idea that will allow the average gamer at home to eat planets.
"Why eat planets?", I hear you exclaim.
Because eating planets is cool. Duh.
You'll control one of these nameless/lots of names ancient (like, "from the dawn of time, two minutes after the big bang" ancient) planet-eating things as it goes about its daily grind. Which is to eat planets. The planets you pick are dependant on your tastes: You get more energy from occupied planets but they're slightly more difficult to get close to because of stupid sentient species who like their planet and try to attack you with spaceships. Damn nuisances. So what you do is you eat all the spaceships they send at you. And then eat their planet.
You sort of use an intergalactic radar to identify nearby planets and their relative worth in the field of nutrition: Is it a tasty planet? Teeming with juicy life? Is it one of those volcano planets that might cause a tummy ache? Maybe you shouldn't eat that one. Poison planets will poison you. Acid planets will give you acid reflux. Gas planets are no good for obvious reasons. You travel to planets you like the look of, then eat them. You'll receive an energy burst and maybe a neat little planet recipe card (with fancy French calligraphy) to add to a growing collection of eaten planet cards.
Maybe there'll be cameos. The general universe of planets will be almost entirely generated at random, but there may be one or two special ones that show up. Like a candy planet. Or a cowboy planet. Eat two planets perpetually stuck in Prohibition-era Earth (for some reason) and you could unlock a special gangster fedora for your planet-eating terror to put on. He can wear it at a jaunty angle while he genocides entire sentient species. Maybe impress the lady planet-eaters and have a baby planet-eater (or... moon-eater.. I guess). Maybe you'll eat a planet the Prince of All Cosmos rolled up or one of those ones from Spore populated by creatures with butts for eyes. Depending on which industry figures we can get on board this planet-eating extravaganza.
While the life of a planet-eater is generally all milk and honey (and planets), there'll be a fair share of challenges, even for you. For instance, black holes could unexpectedly eat a planet before you get the chance to. Or the Phoenix Force blips one. Or that Death Star I mentioned. Then there's the spaceships - always, always the spaceships. While you can generally eat everything (with a particular preference for planets), you may want to outsmart these other cosmic-scale troublemakers. Maybe stick a straw into a planet and eat all of its insides first, like Homer did with that wedding cake. Just because you're a creature a bajillion metres long who's very voice can destroy a planet's natural magnetic fields with its sheer sonic power, it doesn't mean you can't be sneaky.
People would want to play this game because there is no game yet, to my knowledge, that'll let you eat entire planets. There are several which lets you blow up planets and more than a few that will let you eat part of a planet. If you want to see more planet-eating games in the future, give me money and I shall spend it on things that I like. And then maybe create a planet-eating game.
