Dang. More of these, huh? "Let's get scratchin'", to paraphrase Jet Set Radio (only in this instance I'm referring to the proverbial barrel).
031. Highschool RPG Clique Powers
So, in this scenario we have something like the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, where a bunch of stereotypical teenagers from our world are sent into a fantasy universe with super powers. Only this is more in the style of a Final Fantasy turn-based RPG affair rather than anything to do with rolling amusingly shaped dice. The Jock is an expert with unconventional weaponry (like a hockey stick or baseball bat), The Cheerleader can boost the party's stats like a bard and best of all the Pop Culture Nerd can summon cult movie personalities to perform damaging attacks in a similar vein to FF's famous aeon/eidolon summoning. Their repertoires are based on their HS clique and you get to decide which party to take with you, judging by how useful you interpret them to be or the type of challenge you want to face, similar to Maniac Mansion (or Final Fantasy 1 if we're continuing the FF comparison). Try the game with three Jocks for a smash-a-thon (and presumably a lot of drinking) or try it with three Goth chicks who have discovered that they can actually raise the dead now by sitting in a graveyard and writing poetry, rather than just getting unfortunate medical conditions from sitting on cold tombstones all evening.
032. Cutscene Chaser
You're a secret agent slash mercenary with ADD: In order to concentrate on your mission, something needs to happen every five minutes. That something is a cutscene. An exciting cutscene full of action and danger and a lot of talking usually. Failure to reach the next cutscene results in you getting distracted and wandering off somewhere. Into enemy fire. What with you needing to be sneaky in this non-specific satirical game idea. In a cardboard box, perhaps? A non-specific cardboard box.
033. Final Philately
Hell yeah, stamp collecting! An oft-overlooked arena of thrills and excitement if there ever was one. Collect stamps.. and then organise them! In sequential orders of value and/or the date they were issued! Considering dozens of games employ collectible stamps as some kind of sidequest/reward system thing, this idea isn't as ridiculous as it sounds.
034. Shapeshifter Detective
No, not like Kameo. Or those other guys who change into monsters and such. This is a point and click affair with a private detective, sort of like Gabriel Knight or that Broken Sword series, only you're able to transform into other people. There's some kind of stipulation to limit who you're able to turn into (you need to have shaken their hand or own something of theirs) which also adds an additional puzzle to solve. If you need to ransack some files to find out who killed whoever, you can "borrow" an item of the main dude in charge of those files - the File Dude himself in other words - and then turn into him to get past the laser eye security. Which will laser you in the eye if you're not the File Dude. Point and clicks are coming back, thanks in part to the renewed accessibility to the P-n'-C classics that the Scumm emulation engine provides as well as the DS and its stylus' natural affinity for pointing and clicking on things. So it'll be natural to see more of these in the future. Only with less File Dudes involved, most likely.
035. Claymation FPS
With the Neverhood Chronicles movie on its way, based on a series of bizarre and awesome claymation-based action/platformer games, it's about time to start thinking of riding the innovation train all the way to EasyMoneyville, with stops at Ripoff Junction and Potential Copyright Infringement Suit Lane. See, the industry works in veins - find a wealthy vein of commercially viable content and bleed it dry of blood/ore/oil/coconut. Whichever's more applicable. In this FPS, you'd have fully destructible clay environments to wander around in and shoot to pieces. Kind of like Black. Only with clay. And gameplay.
036. Pacmin
Organise your lovable but ravenous Pacmin on this journey of fabulous wonders and team management. The Pacmin are round yellow guys who will eat anything you tell them to eat: As their ranks swell from eating ghosts and other--hopefully more corporeal--creatures, you can eventually get them to chew through anything en-masse discovering a vast wealth of, I dunno, cherries. Or gold. Gold cherries. I already did a Pacman thing, didn't I? Well, I just thought having your own little stable of pacmen to order around would be adorable. So sue me. Unless you're Namco or Nintendo, in which case please don't.
037. Qolor-In
A DS game, like Qix, only instead of using lines and boxes to fill in the screen, you're actually coloring in the screen with the stylus. While the stylus is pressed on the screen, a pool of paint will flow from it, coloring the surrounding area in a circle. The longer it's held down, the more paint flows out from it, though you'll be in more danger from the wandering enemies around the place while the stylus is touching the screen. If you move the stylus or lift it from the screen, the paint stops flowing out. You could, alternatively, color-in the screen with fast strokes, only pausing briefly for a few small pools before moving on. Keeping the stylus touching the screen for as long as possible (either moving or stationary) will accrue various bonus/combo points. The backgrounds are constantly changing from cartoony backdrops to slightly more eccentric and far-fetched, like art masterpieces and the like. And as well as having just the one screen, you can scroll in any direction by motioning the stylus towards that side of the screen - the top screen would reveal the picture in its entirety with the current section in the bottom screen highlighted.
038. Forensic/Crime Scene Investigator Video Game
The life of a forensic whatsit in a video game is very difficult. Nothing like these TV shows where they have the power to zoom in on a piece of fluff on the floor of the victim's immaculate apartment and before David Caruso can put on his sunglasses, they've already discovered it's a towel fibre that came from the hotel where the victim was murdered. Instead, forensic guys in the video game world have literally seconds before their victim blinks a few times and vanishes and so must ascertain all they can in that short time: Was the victim hit by a hurled barrel? Did he get shot with a three-way laser gun? Did the victim have another guy left? Because then the victim could explain what happened once he comes back. The game follows one of these investigators in a series of common video game genres: The first level might be a Platformer type who fell down a hole while the second is some impossibly entangled body who was the unfortunate victim of an FPS with ragdoll physics.
039. Musical Silent Hill Monsters
Just a crazy idea, but instead of radio static, monsters in Silent Hill set off specific rock numbers? Like Journey would suddenly start playing if one of those straitjacket crazy demon things is on its way. You might get distracted by all the rocking out to not notice it. All right, so most of the creepy tension would fly out of the window and sure, there may be Clockwork Orange-type repercussions in mentally linking awesome music to horrible demon figment things, but still. Journey. And maybe the Scorpions whenever Pyramid Head shows up. Here he is, indeed. Best yet, the XBox version will let you assign a custom soundtrack to all the monsters so you can listen to your favoritest tunes while something is trying to tear out your eyes.
040. Knights of the Round Redux
A 3D remake of that classic beat-em-up game where you select Arthur or any of his knights and go off to kick copious amounts of ass in a historically-dubious rendition of the medieval world. I'm thinking of something like a Dynasty Warriors 3rd-person thing, but instead of seeking/protecting/killing people with identical sounding names (hello racism) you're just out there to get as much glory and honor as you can. A little gold wouldn't go amiss either, since Camelot's an expensive place to do up. Find the grail, save the innocents, hit everything and everyone else with swords until they blow up somehow. Lots of fun.
