Hi everyone, just wanted to make a small proposal: Why not make a list of ideas for adventure games? Sure, the idea is not to "steal" somebody else's idea or project, but if you have an idea of a game that (by some strange reason) you know you're not going to make, add it to the list, and maybe someone will pick it up and use it ;D
I'll start:
1. (although I know it's not very original): by some reason a group of terrorists (although could be aliens, who knows) takes your building (or offices, or whatever) and everyone in them as hostages. You, by some reason (you were "busy" in the bathroom? ) did not get caught, and now you have to escape the building (or save everybody inside)
Ooh, I like this topic. It's a neat idea... hmm, I have a LOT of game ideas and I know I won't make them all, but I don't know if I can pluck one from destiny just yet. I'll reply with one later on. Still, nice topic ^_^
Niiice. Here're some that have spawned from my dreams.
1 - The PC is a ghost, and at first doesn't know it. Doesn't even realize he's dead.
2 - PC wakes up 50 years in the future, just like that. No idea why, doesn't even understand at first that it IS 50 years in the future. The PC is not a generic blank character - it has friends and family. Where are they? Are they still alive? Can they recognize him? Will anyone believe him? And so on, until a plot comes up. :P
3 - Rose-red style, like Ben Jordan 4 did but much, much, much more. Essentially, a haunted house that changes it's layout constantly.
4 - A phantom musician. In any context. Think "Violin", if you will, or think anything else.
5 - A phantom magician.
I came up with this idea that PC is a freelancer cat burglar or a kleptomaniac or something like that. Then he'll be hired to steal something very valuable from a very secure building. Well, it wouldn't really be an adventure game, because the game would be all about the puzzles that the PC has to go through to reach his/her goal. The plot wouldn't matter too much in that kind of game. And the whole happening place of the game would be the building.
Nothing big, just a thought.
By the way, Rui, your first idea sounds pretty interesting. :P
Hmmm. somehow I thought there would be more people posting here. Keep in mind that these posts can be VERY helpful as one might not only find a good idea, but maybe by reading everybody else's ideas one can think of new things.
Some other additions of mine:
By some reason the main character adquires super powers, and he is the only one who can save the world from disaster or whatever other kind of thing like that.
The main character is a witch/wizard. There's a bad wizard that has cast a spell or something, and turns all other wizards into pigs/frogs/english muffins/whatever, and the main character needs to find a way to reverse it.
I seem to remember a similar thread a loooong while ago - this one, in fact (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=13327.0) - it didn't get a great deal of interest, either. I guess people are too protective of their ideas, don't want to admit they've given up on them, just can't be bothered posting them, or don't think they're good enought to share. On which note, my occasionally-returned-to,-but-with-no-real-chance-of-being-made idea:
The game has two player characters in two different 'worlds' (the real world and the dream world, for instance, or the land of the living and the land of the dead). Everything in one world has an equivilant in the other - some puzzles you solve in one world affect the other (e.g. kill the troll in the dream world, and the guard in the real world goes on break), every inventory item you pick up gives you something in the other world as well - some useful, some not (pick up a priceless jewel in the dream world, find your pockets stuffed with half-chewed gum in the real world - or vis-versa), perhaps even your location changes in both worlds as you move about in one (Solid wall in front of you? No problem! Just flip to the other world where you're on the open plains, take a step forward and flip back. Assuming you can actually control when you move between them, of course.)
I came up with this after watching (and reading) the entire series of 'The Maxx', but abandoned it when I realised "Yeah, that's kind of cool, but I don't have an actual plot to go with it."
Ashen: That parallell gaming world is a very nice idea. Much like the Zelda series.
I had an idea for a game, where you get trapped in cryostasis by accident, and must fight to get back to your own time in a postnuclear society. ;)
There is an action adventure already out there, which uses just the idea that you described, Ashen. I can't put my finger on that name though...
... both of which nicely show one of the other reasons I've never really developed it. Not that I knew there was a game that already used the idea, but I was fairly sure there must be, since I'd lifted it more or less wholesale from somewhere else.
(And, would you believe I've never played any of the Zelda series, so I wouldn't know how similar or not the idea is.)
Ah well, there's really very little new under the sun, after all.
Quote from: [ ... ] on Mon 09/05/2005 20:33:59
There is an action adventure already out there, which uses just the idea that you described, Ashen. I can't put my finger on that name though...
Shadow of Destiny?
Quote from: [ ... ] on Mon 09/05/2005 20:33:59
There is an action adventure already out there, which uses just the idea that you described, Ashen. I can't put my finger on that name though...
Soul Reaver? It may not be original, but its still a pretty good idea. I rather enjoyed jumping back and forth between the real world, and the spirit realm to solve puzzles.
I was thinking of a game that would revolve around a young boy who's mom is kidnapped by a street gang that has a hidden base in the rural area around the big city. Don't know why they would kidnap a poor single mom but hey, you can use this for a game if you want.
I also remember a thread where people posted their puzzle ideas. I had posted one about escaping a jail cell in a most unique and original way.
Has anybody come across that old, old thread? Or was it deleted, being over a year old?
Quote from: Rui "redruM" Pires on Mon 09/05/2005 11:24:29
Niiice. Here're some that have spawned from my dreams.
1 - The PC is a ghost, and at first doesn't know it. Doesn't even realize he's dead.
2 - PC wakes up 50 years in the future, just like that. No idea why, doesn't even understand at first that it IS 50 years in the future. The PC is not a generic blank character - it has friends and family. Where are they? Are they still alive? Can they recognize him? Will anyone believe him? And so on, until a plot comes up. :P
3 - Rose-red style, like Ben Jordan 4 did but much, much, much more. Essentially, a haunted house that changes it's layout constantly.
4 - A phantom musician. In any context. Think "Violin", if you will, or think anything else.
5 - A phantom magician.
I dunno about this one Rui, its sounds alot like a movie I once saw by the name of the others! I recommend it to everyone if you havent seen it. Voila, absolute Brilliance!
I have many ideas unfortunately I would like to create them. Chances are Ill never get to do all of them...
Let me think about it, If you use my hard worked scripts I wrote I would have to say we would have to work
as a team cause people just dont get "it" from a writer point of view.
QuoteI dunno about this one
...since you quoted the entire thing that wasn't very helpful. ;D
At any rate, like I said, it's just me dreams. And again, at any rate, one should never ditch one's ideas just because the concept is similar to another one. Especially since the "other one" is a story done in a different media.
...besides, there's plenty of stories about, say, Vampires, but just because Interview with a Vampire and Vampire in Brooklin introduced a vampire to the modern days doesn't make them similar. ;)
EDIT - A little thought made me realize you meant 1.
Dark Seed is what I was thinking of (re: parallel worlds game). What you do in one world directly affects the other in some way. Quite a fun concept so there's nothing to stop someone doing it again. Particularly since I'm fairly sure the inventory parallel hasn't been done (at least that I know of). In Dark Sed, I think that the inventory you had was the same in either worlds.
OFF-TOPIC: Well, concerning the parallell world-things, I happen to know a group of game researchers who are working on a big EU project and they are working on such a game. It will be a proof-of-concept where the parallell world will be an MMORPG and the real world will be the real world. Magical rituals using 'trans-reality technology' will affect events in the virtual world. Very exciting stuff.
Anyway Fmarais, Rui's idea reminds me more of the "6th Sense" than "the Others".
Good idea, anyway.
You play a monster. The GUI starts off with two commands 'Eat' and 'Don't Eat' you can win the game by eating everything OR you can try using 'don't eat' and watch your social interation skills grow.
You play a dead native american, and this obnoxious family are living on top of your buriel ground. You can control the house and make it do crazy things (kinda like that Haunting game for the Megadrive).
You play a teenage girl who's got home a little later than her mother considers acceptable. Through the magic of Dialouge options which appear at crucial points of the game; Spin a yarn and play it at the same time.
You play as a wacky evil sidekick who has to keep his/her wacky evil master out of trouble.
Your girlfriend commits suicide, so you borrow a tiny pill with a train ticket design on it from her dealer flatmate who wears a lot of black make-up and go on a 'trip' to the underworld to talk her out of it and get her back. Hey...I had that one pretty well thought out...
You play as a demon. Work your way up the sin ladder, first possessing a morally weak person that eventually winning the game by corrupting a nun or something.
You play as a sausag...Okay...I think I've burned myself out now...
You play Lemmiwinks.
Hey, I said I'd be back with an idea.
I figure I'll throw this one out because I don't see myself having time for it in the next decade. I'd really love to see a good, long game (or possible 2 games) based on the Never Ending Story book. Not the movies, not the horrid tv series. The book has so many interesting stories I think it'd make a fantastic adventure game if done right.
Oh, and the Goonies movie too. ^_^ Even though there's already a game, I think a neat little adventure game would be cool.