IX is neat because if you turn your head, it kind of looks like a cylon. Or Leia in that bounty hunter disguise. Hey, you knew this was a nerd blog when you started reading it.
081. Theme Park RPG
Not a version of the Sim game, or even a full game idea, but rather the use of a theme park in a dungeon-delving RPG type scenario. The park is either haunted or with some other weird circumstance going on (it could be a virtual/futuristic park gone wrong, a la Westworld, for instance). The game would be more like Zombies Ate My Neighbors rather than the usual swords and magic fare, with people equipping shotguns from the disused Shooting Range game and so on, and the bestiary being comprised of classic B-Movie cliches. I was thinking that the rides themselves would be self-contained dungeons of variable lengths and difficulty (which would be altered to match the player, allowing them to pick any of the dungeons in any order they wished) and the rest of the park being the traditional RPG hub of goods and services like the village in Diablo.
082. God of War: Odyssey
Just a neat idea for a new God of War game. It could part of Kratos's journey to kick the asses of every mythological figure of Ancient Greece in the inevitable third game, or a separate chapter that uses the same engine and gameplay but focuses on Odysseus/Ulysses as he makes his way back to Ithaca. In fact, hell, throw in the Iliad too. Kratos at the siege of Troy would be just as awesome. Even more awesome would be a video game version of Ulysses 31, but now I'm just rambling. Crazy rambling, that's all. Move onto the next one.
083. Adventures of the Gummi Bears: The Game
This is less of a "what a great idea this would be to do now" and more of a "what a great idea that someone should've done during the NES-era years when this show was still on TV". I mean, Gummi Bears was one of Disney's earliest and most significant high-quality animated TV shows, which ended up being overshadowed by DuckTales. Which got its own game. This one did not, to the best of my knowledge. Let's review the show to find out why it wasn't video game material: A) It was set in a psuedo-medieval fantasy world. Yeah, those don't often appear in video games. B) The protagonists (the bears) were naturally bouncy. But what possible genre of games, ubiquitous in that era of gaming, could use a group of heroes who's talent was to jump high? Onto platforms and such? Drawing a big ol' blank on that one. C) Let's not forget that the cartoon was intended for children, and those guys never play video games nor have video games based on licenses marketed directly to them that I'm aware of. I'm incensed at the injustice of all of it. Well, mildly perturbed.
084. What A Twist!
I love plot twists. Not the "Aha, this guy is really the murderer, and not some mild-mannered reporter" kind of twist. Wait, that's Superman. Superman doesn't kill people. But you get my point, those kinds of twists are predictable in the sense that you know there is a twist because it's a murder mystery or thriller and it comes with the territory. I'm talking about the twists where the movie/game seems to completely change track midway through with something completely random and off-genre. Take From Dusk Till Dawn for instance. It's a pretty violent crime drama following these bandits and a family of hostages to this joint in Mexico. And then it suddenly turns into a vampire movie halfway through, which is more than a slight surprise if you didn't realise they'd be there. The Orion Conspiracy is another example, which was an infamous point and click which followed a guy looking into the apparent murder of his son on an experimental space station. Violent shapeshifting aliens appear halfway through an otherwise inconspicuous murder mystery story and start killing and replacing most of the human cast you've been interrogating for the best part of a day or two. I've written too much about awesome plot twists to even write a game idea for them. Ah well. Here it is in 10 words: You direct the game's story by selecting the plot twists. Informative. A bonus word for you there.
085. Slasher Movie
A cheesy slasher movie, set in a summer campground as is tradition, where you play the most interesting character: The cheerleader that gets killed with her boyfriend just after or before they do it. Okay, I actually mean the slasher. The slasher has powers, being some kind of mythical zombie figure akin to Jason or Michael Myers or Ghostface, but he needs to first establish his terrifying mythos. In order to do this, he needs to generate the most horror possible in his victims before killing them, leading them on merry chases with the most appropriate weapon available - axes and machetes do more damage, but are kind of passe (your psychotic demon cares about this sort of thing you see). Killing people with a stapler instead is somehow more horrifying, though considerably harder to pull off because it's... a stapler. Better yet would be some kind of ironic death, customized for each victim. You must also leave one teenager alive for the status-boosting ghost stories when he gets back home. Your horrible murdering monstrosity can even be customized appearance-wise, allowing the player to choose their own face-obscuring headgear which will become part of their identity. Use a hockey mask, drama mask, Shatner mask, ghost mask, Phanto mask (Drop the Key or Die!), spaceman helmet or perhaps a beekeeper hat. You know, in case you wanted to murder people with bees.
086. Modern Deity
How would a newly appointed deity go about his business in this day and age? Gathering followers and demonstrating divine powers to the unbelievers? It was easy enough in other God games like Populous and Black & White, what with the humans of those games living in the Stupid Ages and being impressed by fire and round objects, but in modern times leaving such an impression would be a little more difficult to pull off. The game follows the player/god in a sort of management fashion, starting with the community of homeless around them in the big city in which the game takes place, and slowly working your way to converting the hardest skeptics and intelligentsia of said city to your message. Make decisions that will win you the most support, or the kind of support you're looking for. Becoming an attractive figure to criminals could grant you all sorts of slightly darker powers, or you could win over the just and noble by performing good deeds. There'd be rival churches of course - not existing ones, since this is a fictional world and we don't want to get into trouble, but rather other trainee deities with slightly differing starting areas trying to make their way into this new pantheon of gods and goddesses.
087. Super GTA
Well, not so much GTA as a free-form crime-based action game with a difference. GTA's non-linearity and genre-mixing has won various awards and has been imitated in various forms. So one more shouldn't hurt. I mentioned a difference, and here it is: You're a supervillain planning robberies and all sorts of misdeeds. Now I know it sounds a little like that City of Heroes add-on thing where you play the bad guys, but this is more of an action game, so it'll be all real-time action gameplay rather than the standard MMORPG of levelling and raiding. You get missions, like GTA, usually involving some new piece of treasure about to be revealed at the museum, or the president's daughter coming for a visit. You need to pull off the crime you've been planning, and then avoid both the police and the association of superheroes that are constantly on your trail. Of these superheroes, you'll be meeting the crappier ones for the minor crimes (which you'll need to do initially) and working your way up to the unstoppable Superman types for the major heists. The gameplay will be basic enough initially, though as you gain in power and infamy, new modes will be unlocked, including but not limited to: Flight, invisibility, walking through walls, beam weapons, shapeshifting and absorbing and channelling vast amounts of energy. Most of these powers can be used for both the heists you pull as well as the inevitable getaway from the authorities. Best of all, your exploration range increases with these powers, as they often allow you to reach previously unattainable destinations.
088. LEGO Back To The Future
So we've played the two Star Wars trilogies and now there's news of an Indiana Jones trilogy on its way in this suddenly playable series of license games from the LEGO people. So what's the next awesome trilogy of the 80s worth Lego-ising? Back to the Future of course. There's plenty of action to follow to make a game out of it, including the Libyan terrorists of the first movie, the Hoverboard sequences of the second movie and the Wild West shoot-outs of the third movie. Your choice of hero is pretty much limited to Marty McFly and the Doc originally, but there's also George McFly, Marty McFly Jr., Jennifer (both of them) and Clara Clayton, Doc's love interest from the third movie. Plus, you got all the Biffs, Griffs and Mad Dogs too, and a whole bunch of other supporting characters. Really, this idea is here for two reasons: A BTTF game to finally make up for the traumatising memories of playing the original license games and also because this is #88 of the list. Yeah, I'm pretty predictable.
089. Anagram Treasures
This is for any RPG, really, and can be used for random chests or better yet as a bonus after defeating a dungeon or boss. The idea is that all the treasures have jumbled up names, and the player must type the correct names of the treasures to win them before the counter counts down to zero. Basic items tend to have smaller names, from "gold" to basic "swords" and "HP potions" and the like. The more ornate the treasures get, the more lengthy and drawn-out the names of those treasures become. A powerful sword, for instance, could be called the "Four-Winds Sword" or has another, unfamiliar synonym such as "falchion" or "scramasax". Other valuable treasures would just have names like "priceless emerald" or "moonlight diamond", the difficulty of the word(s) would be directly proportional to the value of the item. Players are given a list of 10 or so of these jumbled treasures and a short time limit to get as many as possible. They can concentrate on the difficult rare ones or try and sweep up all the simple smaller words as quickly as they can for a bigger payload.
090. Super Mario Dodgeball
Yeah, Mario could just jump over the balls, which would actually be turtle shells, and fight against all sorts of teams comprised of common Mario enemies. The Boos could turn transparent to let the balls pass them, the Hammer Bros could deflect them or send them straight back to you, and the Goombas can just suck like they always do. Okay, there's not much to recommend this one, but then they've pretty much done every sport that isn't some schoolyard reject of an excuse of a sporting activity.
