Fun/Creative game idea
by Matt Woods · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 04/14/2002 (2:44 am) · 6 replies
Here's a little game idea that Peanut (my partner at www.peanutco.com) and I have been throwing around. Though we're currently knee-deep in "Gladiators" development, it's something we'd really love to work on in the future. Just curious what the community thinks of it.
It's tentatively titled "Little Monsters." Players take on the role of a team of half-centimeter-tall aliens who have crash-landed on earth and have been separated from both each other and their ship. Players will take a trip through a neighborhood (which would be quite huge if you were a half-centimeter :) in an attempt to locate and rescue their comrades as well as figure out where their fallen ship is.
Now, here's where the fun part comes in :). Each of the creatures has their own specific abilities, allowing them to solve puzzles and navigate the terrain. Finding a new creature unlocks a new helpful ability. Even more importantly, after a player has recovered two or more of the team, they can "combine" together and create an entirely new power. This will lead to a great number of skills.
The game will be an adventure game, though not in the classical point and click sense. It will revolve around puzzles and figuring out how to navigate difficult situations. Although there will be combat (with garden bugs, for example), it will be minimized and will mostly require coming up with creative ways to defeat enemies rather than just flying in with guns blazing. Nintendo's "Pikman" was quite inspirational for that part.
The main idea behind the game is to give players quite a bit of "freedom" in how they play the game and how they defeat certain areas. Since there are so many abilities at one's disposal, there are lots of possibilities as to how you might go about getting around a problem. For example, if you were required to negotiate a body of water (which would be a spilled glass of water to these little guys) you could find a piece of wood, chop it down, and use your "lifter" character to drag it to the water. You could create a bridge if you could recover the straw from the cup of water. Or you could negate the entire mess by finding a way to drop a paper towel on top of the entire spill. Just a little situation I thought of on the spot, but it demonstrates the idea well enough :).
The game would be played probably from a top-view perspective (first/behind the shoulder adventure games are over played these days), similar to Pikman. In fact, the entire game really kind of reminds me of Pikman-meets-Army Men. The graphic style we have in mind is sort of a cutesy, cartoon style.
Well, that's about all I really feel comfortable divulging (and it's quite a bit more then I planned!) Let me know what you guys think of the possibilities and pitfalls of an idea like this.
-Matt
It's tentatively titled "Little Monsters." Players take on the role of a team of half-centimeter-tall aliens who have crash-landed on earth and have been separated from both each other and their ship. Players will take a trip through a neighborhood (which would be quite huge if you were a half-centimeter :) in an attempt to locate and rescue their comrades as well as figure out where their fallen ship is.
Now, here's where the fun part comes in :). Each of the creatures has their own specific abilities, allowing them to solve puzzles and navigate the terrain. Finding a new creature unlocks a new helpful ability. Even more importantly, after a player has recovered two or more of the team, they can "combine" together and create an entirely new power. This will lead to a great number of skills.
The game will be an adventure game, though not in the classical point and click sense. It will revolve around puzzles and figuring out how to navigate difficult situations. Although there will be combat (with garden bugs, for example), it will be minimized and will mostly require coming up with creative ways to defeat enemies rather than just flying in with guns blazing. Nintendo's "Pikman" was quite inspirational for that part.
The main idea behind the game is to give players quite a bit of "freedom" in how they play the game and how they defeat certain areas. Since there are so many abilities at one's disposal, there are lots of possibilities as to how you might go about getting around a problem. For example, if you were required to negotiate a body of water (which would be a spilled glass of water to these little guys) you could find a piece of wood, chop it down, and use your "lifter" character to drag it to the water. You could create a bridge if you could recover the straw from the cup of water. Or you could negate the entire mess by finding a way to drop a paper towel on top of the entire spill. Just a little situation I thought of on the spot, but it demonstrates the idea well enough :).
The game would be played probably from a top-view perspective (first/behind the shoulder adventure games are over played these days), similar to Pikman. In fact, the entire game really kind of reminds me of Pikman-meets-Army Men. The graphic style we have in mind is sort of a cutesy, cartoon style.
Well, that's about all I really feel comfortable divulging (and it's quite a bit more then I planned!) Let me know what you guys think of the possibilities and pitfalls of an idea like this.
-Matt
#3
My two cents
1. You should be able to switch the view from top down view to first or third person then you would notice how small you are. also then you would feel 1/2 cm tall
2. also 1/2 cm is fairly small I would recommend bumping it up to 1-2 cm.
but over all it sounds like a great game
04/15/2002 (6:15 am)
Lemmings :) brings back so many memories of death.My two cents
1. You should be able to switch the view from top down view to first or third person then you would notice how small you are. also then you would feel 1/2 cm tall
2. also 1/2 cm is fairly small I would recommend bumping it up to 1-2 cm.
but over all it sounds like a great game
#4
Alc
04/15/2002 (6:40 pm)
I think puzzle games like this would be great and could be especially appealling to a female audience. If you ever do work on this, my feeling would be to make it as little combat based as possible and try an target a unisex audience. For the most part women don't seem to respond to the shoot-em-up stuff to well ;). Most of the female gamers I know like the puzzle stuff. I'd also go for an isometric view rather then top down. It's a lot easier to show actions from iso then top down.Alc
#6
As for the Stupid Invaders comparison: I've never played that game, so I'm not sure what the story was about. I do, however, know that is was more of a traditional adventure game in the vein of Lucas Arts' Escape from Monkey Island. It's a very different style of game :).
-Matt
04/15/2002 (7:10 pm)
The camera view we had in mind wasn't exactly "top-view," per se. It's at a slight angle, similar to Pikman, as I said.As for the Stupid Invaders comparison: I've never played that game, so I'm not sure what the story was about. I do, however, know that is was more of a traditional adventure game in the vein of Lucas Arts' Escape from Monkey Island. It's a very different style of game :).
-Matt
MSW
I had a simular idea in which the player controls an alien who must rescue his friends held captive on Earth (must infiltrate Area 51)...but I had a more Metroid type game in mind for that (your rescued alien friends grant you more powers/actions...meenwhile the military is useing your alien pals for research and such, developing new weapons that you must sneak around and/or fight)