Your god-awful game ideas!

[munchy]

I have no idea if this is the proper forum for this, but I saw a similar thread on NeoGAF and thought we could benefit from a similar brainstorm. Post incredibly counter-intuitive, boring, or otherwise stupid game ideas. (Actually released terrible ideas do not count unless you thought of them BEFORE the game in question was released.)

Here are some of mine:

-A Captain Novolin Metroidvania. Find insulin containers to help you last longer between doses. Rescue citizens of Pineville from the continued menaces of anthropomorphic hopping junk food in a seamless, non linear world (read: maybe a couple of blocks and a mountain path).

-Game Gear Resident Evil. I saw this in a dream I had many years before RE Gaiden, and the shooting of monsters was frighteningly similar. It was basically an incredibly sub par HotD.

-Mega Man X Command Mission Baseball. I also saw this in one of my dreams. There was a QTE sequence to kick dust at the opposing teammates. I think my subconscious hates me.

[wyrdwad]

I have a ton of these! Probably my best god-awful game idea, though, is for a Flatland FPS. Basically, a first-person shooter taking place in a fully 2D world. The screen resolution would be, like... 1024x1. Just a horizontal line across the center of the screen, with differing shades of gray representing the proximity of background shapes... and other shades of gray representing the villains (unless you were playing as the Flatland government, anyway, in which case you'd be fighting against Flatlanders who'd painted their sides various other colors -- but that'd be almost like choosing to play as the Nazis in a WWII shooter!).

-Tom

[munchy]

My head kind of hurts trying to visualize that. Good job!

Here's another one my friend Willie thought of: A Final Fight game where, as Haggar, you manage Metro City's finances and public services. Build support from the population for your next running as mayor. Note: does not have any combat, just menu browsing.

Or a photorealistic Mega Man game with Mortal Kombat style graphics - in other words, it'd be a normal Mega Man, but the game's art style and plot would reflect the American box art. I imagine the second game would end assuming Dr. Wily actually is an alien.

...Actually, just applying that design philosophy to any game would be hilarious. Imagine Super Mario Bros: The Game of the Movie.

[geishaboy]

Pong, the roguelike

[Weasel]

Had tons of these when I was younger...

Clue (Cluedo): Super Mario edition. Probably wouldn't involve murder, but burglary, like in the Clue Jr. series. Outside of changed visuals, probably would play similar to the Clue port for Super Nintendo.

An FPS where you play as the computer. Basically, there's an action hero rampaging through your level, and it's up to you to drop your monsters (delivered Tetris style) into places on the map where you think the hero will have the most trouble dealing with them. You also have a few "smart bomb" attacks where you can make any section of the map collapse or otherwise damage the hero (crushing ceilings, explosive traps, that sort of thing), or just teleport in a horde of monsters and lock the hero in the room he's in until all the monsters are dead. Thing is, the hero is basically indestructible, and amid all the zombies and demons and terrorists you get dropped, you also are given medkits, ammo crates, and weapons that you have to put down as well - the key there is to put it somewhere that the hero either can't get to it or can't find it. ...Actually, come to think of it, this isn't such a bad one, after all Perfect Dark gave us Counter-Op mode, then there's Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius...

A game based on Throw Momma From The Train. Levels would consist of helping write a novel, guiding Owen's hand through the pantry to get a Pepsi for his mother (complete with a "say hi to the tea" button), and finally throwing Owen's mother off the train. I guess I kind of visualized it similarly to the SNES version of Home Alone 2, right down to the low-budget "death" animation for Momma, where she'd freeze, fly into the air, flip upside down, then fall off the screen.

A first-person shooter based on the movie Executive Decision. Actually, the mission Mile High Club from Call of Duty 4 pretty much satisfies this, all except for defusing the bomb in the cargo hold, and also missing Steven Seagal getting sucked out of an F-117 (a scene which I imagine is very therapeutic for Atma).

Finger Hero. A game that is played by wearing a motion-capture glove on your hand, extending your index and middle fingers, and "walking" through levels, "kicking" your opponents, and flying by giving a thumbs-up gesture. Boss fights involved thumb wrestling, cat's cradle, and "secret handshakes." Incidentally, while I came up with this idea in 1996, there was (briefly) an XBox Kinect game in the works called Two-Finger Heroes, which was apparently canceled due to limitations of the Kinect technology. Damn it, I would have bought a Kinect to play that.

A first-person shooter in which your arsenal consists entirely of improvised weapons like chairs, lead piping, shoes, helmets, parts from disassembled guns (as your protagonist is one of those "hates guns" types of action heroes), and just the environment in general. I remember planning an awfully large action sequence centering around a deserted hockey stadium, where you could do everything from throwing your opponents into the penalty box to unscrewing light bulbs and lobbing them at people.

A point-and-click mystery game based on the Hitchcock film "Rear Window" - yes, an adventure game where you are bedridden with your leg in a cast. So of course there are no inventory puzzles (aside from initially grabbing and assembling your camera, which the interface from there consists entirely of). So your job is to keep an eye on the neighbors in your tiny inner-city New York apartment block, to make sure nothing suspicious is going down, simply because your character is _that_ kind of person.

[Reiji-kun]

This isn't exactly my god-awful game idea, but it is something I read about once; they planned to make a game based on the movie Radio Flyer. It was going to be a vertically scrolling shmup where you move around in the wagon. Yeah. They obviously didn't get far with that one. It's a true story, too; I recall in some game lists looooong ago, when they had those ads for those kinds of shops, they already had Radio Flyer in there.

But as far as my own game ideas go? One game I came up with is called Nothing: The Game where nothing happens. No princesses to save, no syndicates to bust, no stuff to unlock... you just sit there and stare at a screen for as long as you can until you get bored. Yep. That's Nothing: The Game.

And I suppose there's also World Chair Wrestling where you wrestle all sorts of different kinds of chairs, from wood chairs, to plastic chairs, and even a stool. The folding chair would be your final and most dangerous foe standing in the path to your World Chair Wrestling Championship Belt.

[wyrdwad]

All I've came up with is a game called Nothing: The Game where nothing happens. No princesses to save, no syndicates to bust, no stuff to unlock... you just sit there and stare at a screen for as long as you can until you get bored. Yep. That's Nothing: The Game.

I think they've already made that game. It's called "Animal Crossing."

Also, I kind of like Weasel's first two ideas. Especially the FPS! Sounds a bit like "What Did I Do To Deserve This," but with an FPS instead of an RPG. (:

-Tom

[Reiji-kun]

Apr 24, 2011 4:23:16 GMT -5 wyrdwad said:

All I've came up with is a game called Nothing: The Game where nothing happens. No princesses to save, no syndicates to bust, no stuff to unlock... you just sit there and stare at a screen for as long as you can until you get bored. Yep. That's Nothing: The Game.

I think they've already made that game. It's called "Animal Crossing."

[Feynman]

Apr 24, 2011 2:12:45 GMT -5 wyrdwad said:

I have a ton of these! Probably my best god-awful game idea, though, is for a Flatland FPS. Basically, a first-person shooter taking place in a fully 2D world. The screen resolution would be, like... 1024x1. Just a horizontal line across the center of the screen, with differing shades of gray representing the proximity of background shapes... and other shades of gray representing the villains (unless you were playing as the Flatland government, anyway, in which case you'd be fighting against Flatlanders who'd painted their sides various other colors -- but that'd be almost like choosing to play as the Nazis in a WWII shooter!).

-Tom

Somebody has actually done something like that. It even has Nazis!

[X-pert74]

First idea: an FPS which attempts to be as realistic as possible. You have to hold an insane combination of different buttons and sticks (or for computer, different keys) in order to steady your gun well enough to get a decent shot off, it can only be feasibly done while standing still (unless you practice for hours in real life perfecting the in-game mechanics), and if you get shot once you either die or start limping and crawling till you bleed out. When you take cover behind an object, there's no third-person view where you can see all around you despite being totally blocked from attack. In order to see anything besides a brick wall in your face, you have to risk getting shot.

Second idea: a sort of sandbox/simulation game where you play as a teacher in an elementary school full of kids and their rambunctious ridiculousness. In between classes you constantly have to patrol the halls and schoolyard to ensure students aren't misbehaving, you have to take care of kids who accidentally pee/poo themselves, and during class you have to teach a new lesson, while coming up with answers for every single question the kids ask you. And you have to penalize them every time they speak without raising their hands. Every now and then you also have to come to PTA meetings, and meet with parents who complain that their child isn't learning anything or is being bullied at school.

Third idea: a game where you play as a porn film producer. You have to manage funds and organize entire film shoots, from hiring all the right people for the job, to ensuring the director is satisfied with his work so he doesn't quit, to supervising each film that gets shot. Occasionally you take the role of the director, who has to give clear instructions to each actor in the film, while making sure not to mess up too much so you don't use up all your film, and making sure your talent doesn't get too "tired out" before all is said and done. There will even be times when you have to deflect negative press that arises from accusations that pop up from rival companies, or from people who morally object to your work. It's an insane combination of multi-tasking and management, all to help keep your productions afloat.

Apr 24, 2011 3:47:57 GMT -5 Weasel said:

An FPS where you play as the computer. Basically, there's an action hero rampaging through your level, and it's up to you to drop your monsters (delivered Tetris style) into places on the map where you think the hero will have the most trouble dealing with them. You also have a few "smart bomb" attacks where you can make any section of the map collapse or otherwise damage the hero (crushing ceilings, explosive traps, that sort of thing), or just teleport in a horde of monsters and lock the hero in the room he's in until all the monsters are dead. Thing is, the hero is basically indestructible, and amid all the zombies and demons and terrorists you get dropped, you also are given medkits, ammo crates, and weapons that you have to put down as well - the key there is to put it somewhere that the hero either can't get to it or can't find it. ...Actually, come to think of it, this isn't such a bad one, after all Perfect Dark gave us Counter-Op mode, then there's Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius...

That sounds incredible. I'd totally want to play a game like that.

[Ryusui]

The Get-Along Gang meets Persona, by way of the When They Cry series.

[hidetoshidecide]

Apr 24, 2011 3:47:57 GMT -5 Weasel said:

An FPS where you play as the computer. Basically, there's an action hero rampaging through your level, and it's up to you to drop your monsters (delivered Tetris style) into places on the map where you think the hero will have the most trouble dealing with them. You also have a few "smart bomb" attacks where you can make any section of the map collapse or otherwise damage the hero (crushing ceilings, explosive traps, that sort of thing),

They have a JRPG theme instead of a western FPS theme, but the Badman series is more or less exactly this.

[derboo]

I always fantasized about a game with a blind player character. Could actually work great (and probably has been done somewhere) as a text adventure.

Apr 24, 2011 3:47:57 GMT -5 Weasel said:

A point-and-click mystery game based on the Hitchcock film "Rear Window" - yes, an adventure game where you are bedridden with your leg in a cast. So of course there are no inventory puzzles (aside from initially grabbing and assembling your camera, which the interface from there consists entirely of). So your job is to keep an eye on the neighbors in your tiny inner-city New York apartment block, to make sure nothing suspicious is going down, simply because your character is _that_ kind of person.

Voyeur has a different premise, but the "gameplay" kinda just works like that.

Apr 24, 2011 5:09:15 GMT -5 X-pert74 said:

First idea: an FPS which attempts to be as realistic as possible. You have to hold an insane combination of different buttons and sticks (or for computer, different keys) in order to steady your gun well enough to get a decent shot off, it can only be feasibly done while standing still (unless you practice for hours in real life perfecting the in-game mechanics), and if you get shot once you either die or start limping and crawling till you bleed out. When you take cover behind an object, there's no third-person view where you can see all around you despite being totally blocked from attack. In order to see anything besides a brick wall in your face, you have to risk getting shot.

That's Operation Flashpoint

Apr 24, 2011 5:09:15 GMT -5 X-pert74 said:

Third idea: a game where you play as a porn film producer. You have to manage funds and organize entire film shoots, from hiring all the right people for the job, to ensuring the director is satisfied with his work so he doesn't quit, to supervising each film that gets shot. Occasionally you take the role of the director, who has to give clear instructions to each actor in the film, while making sure not to mess up too much so you don't use up all your film, and making sure your talent doesn't get too "tired out" before all is said and done. There will even be times when you have to deflect negative press that arises from accusations that pop up from rival companies, or from people who morally object to your work. It's an insane combination of multi-tasking and management, all to help keep your productions afloat.

It's not as complex as what you described, but Wet - The Sexy Empire does that kind of thing.

[hidetoshidecide]

My holy grail game is something where you use robotic space probes to explore the universe. Think Starflight, but without having to worry about fuel and establishing/maintaining a positive income flow. Just scoping out exotic environments in high def- Endless Ocean for the high frontier.

[clubamerica]

Mario Teaches Fitness. Uses the heath monitor (whatever the hell that is) for the wii to keep track of your heart rate. Like in mario teaches typing, the on-screen mario only proceeds if you keep exercising, otherwise he DIES. Nintendo's legal department will have a nightmare with heart attack cases.