So before I left for GDC, I shared some of my crazy fantasies for games I'd love to have made:
"A fighting game where the characters are all personalities from famous literature, and the stages are all epic scenes from the same books. Come on, picture this: Winston Smith versus Hank Rearden in Room 101 while the camera eyes follow the fight. Jean Valjean fighting Anna Karenina using prison chains on the train tracks. Lolita (yes, she should have skirt physics) brawling with Madame Defarge on the French Revolution barricades? I know my geek is showing, but how awesome would that be? Don Quixote versus Frankenstein in front of the windmills at sunset! There could be a Le Petit Prince level on a tiny Galaxy-style planet!! If you beat the whole suite of fighters with Pip, you can unlock Miss Havisham, whose fighting style resembles ballroom dancing!!! Yes!!!!"
Anyway, I asked you guys to chip in your insane fantasies also, and lo and behold, aren't we clever. All of you guys were great as usual, but here are a few of my faves. Check out everything else in the comments of the original post.
By Shoinan:
You play as an Average Joe who has a gone out on a bender with his girlfriend and had more than a few too many. He wakes up in another world that's been created by his own mind to help him remember the huge important thing/mistake he did last night.
The game itself would be an RPG, with references to lots of other games. One level would be an homage to Mario where you help a dishevelled plumber get his life back on track by collecting 100 coins (to get a life), whilst another would see you having to crossdress to find out the gossip from a party involving two of your ex-girlfriends and a lord (Final Fantasy VII). Each quest completed would reward you with another piece of information that would help piece the events of the previous night.
By Sean Beanland
Instead of having a party of 6 people to swap around throughout the game, I want it to focus on just two characters. The player will choose the playable character's gender and history, like in Mass Effect, and then the player will spend the game developing a relationship with the other character. The type of relationship can be up to the player - platonic, purely sexual, romantic, or even making it so that neither character likes each other. You can spend half the game wooing the other person, then cruelly shoot them down. Or, be a jerk at first then slowly open up. The setting doesn't so much matter to me, but the plot will explain why these two people are together in the first place
By Borut And Me
B: It's not my crazy idea, but the funniest example of someone coming up to me with their own video game idea happened one night while some of my coworkers and I were out having drinks. We were ranting about the game we were working on, and so this lady discerned we worked in the industry, and came up to use and pitched her idea: a figure skating game.
SVGL: that's actually not a bad idea, in the Age of Wii. You know, where players earn points for entering button combos for performance, and are awarded in-game cash for good shows that they can use to buy more sparkly outfits. Sounds like the kinda game they'd make for the casual set.
Or you could go totally the other way -- super, ultra-bizarre camp, rhythm-action gameplay with all-male flagrant, flamboyant cross-dressing oddballs. Like a GI Joe type skater, a giant E Honda kinda guy, or something. And you could fight your competitors with your skate-bladed feet to try and cripple them before matches, Tonya style. Let's get NanaOn-Sha and Grasshopper Manufacture to collaborate on this, STAT!
Oh, hell yeah. Game devs take notice. These are the ideas of the future.
[Previous Best of SVGL collections here.]
