What kind of game would you like to see made?

Started by kivejos, Sat 25/05/2024 07:51:44

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kivejos

What kind of point and click adventure games would you like to play? Maybe there are some specific themes you would love to see explored?
Let's brainstorm for a little bit and maybe we can come up with interesting ideas.

1. Personally I'd love to see an adventure game set in Venice circa 16-17th century. Detective story about stolen religious relic or something along those lines.

I think Venice would serve as a perfect backdrop for point and click adventure.
Just think about it: gorgeous backgrounds (preferrably in pixel art) with famous venetian architecture and canals.

Game could have a lot of locations: taverns, brothels, Jewish ghetto, markets, shipyards, venetian guilds, etc. Not to mention beautiful map of city.

Obviously, ending should involve opulent venetian carnival.

2. I would love to see proper stylish noir set in Los Angeles in the 30s. Something to do with movie business.
Famous studio actor is missing and studio fixer or private detective tries to find him/her.

I really loved Discworld Noir but I don't think I've ever played anything like that since then.

TheFrighter


I don't get what are you aiming, Kivejos...  ???

Are you asking hints for your next games?
Or just talking about games in our dreams?

_

Danvzare

Personally I'd love to see a modern take on what The Hobbit (1982) for the ZX spectrum did.

It's funny how back then, people tried to simulate the world despite how weak computers were. Now that computers are strong enough to actually do that, we'd all rather just tell a story. (Me included.)

Schedina

I would like to see a 'true sequel' to Maniac Mansion be made.

Day of the Tentacle is a wonderful game, but it steers so far away from Maniac Mansion stylistically, visually, soundwise and atmospherically, it's a very different experience.

I would love to see a 'next mansion', that's not the same (as it IS in DOTT), but done in the unimitable Maniac Mansion style (Commodore 64-version, of course - Amiga version uses weird colors and looks very 'flat' by comparison, plus, it lacks the atmosphere. The other versions.. best not to even talk about them..)

So, a C64 Maniac Mansion,but with a 'new mansion' - as atmospheric as possible, as similar GUI as possible, as similar 'all happens inside one mansion' as possible and so on, but different mansion, different characters, different 'story' and so on. Still happening on a moonlight autumny night, though.

I guess I am trying to re-capture what I experienced in the 1980s with that game, that nothing else has ever been able to provide for me, but dang, I am SURE there is a missing game there... I am sure a game like that would find its audience and fill a sore, empty spot in many people - to, instead of 'returning to THE mansion', people would be able to 'go to a brand NEW mansion', but in VERY similar style and atmosphere.

Consequently, that is what I am trying to create with AGS, the sole reason why I even downloaded AGS and have been trying to create this vision, to manifest it into reality. I have had this vision for decades, only making it more detailed during the years, but alas, haven't been able to create it fully.

I did make a few-rooms 'demo preview' version just to show people what I am trying to create, but the full game would be about 20 to 50 rooms big, my 'preview' is only a few rooms.

I did make a post about it in the 'recruitment' section, in case anyone is interested.

It's not my fault that the game I would like to see is also the game I would like to create. It's a shame Maniac Mansion never got a true sequel. DOTT is great, but it's like taking Back to the Future, and giving us a wonderful 'Inspector Gadget' episode. It's just not the same.

In any case, it's not MORE of the same, at best, it's 'more of the DIFFERENT'.

Maniac Mansion seems more 'realistic and serious', whereas DOTT seems a bit over-the-top silly and cartoony with its wonky perspectives and heavy emphasis on comedy and 'animation' instead of building a solid mansion you can adventure in.

The time-travel aspect is great, but at the same time, it takes away from the 'solid mansion', splitting it into three different-yet-similar 'places' you adventure in. In movies, 'characters' are great, so as a cartoon or movie, it would be fantastic, but as a game, it's not quite 'Maniac Mansion', and all this 'attempt to be a cartoon/movie' takes away from actually PLAYING THE GAME.

Too many games have so many 'intros' and 'story elements', they actually stop being GAMES anymore. People just sit and watch with controller in their hands is not really playing, is it? Maniac Mansion had the perfect proportion of 'cut-scenes' and gameplay - those scenes only happened at important points, making your heartbeat fasten and your palms sweat.

When you have to wade through multiple cutscenes just to be able to play a little bit, then have to wade through some more, it's no longer interesting, exciting or even entertaining. I am not saying DOTT is boring (it really isn't), but the way games went overboard with 'story', means they forgot GAMEPLAY should be what games are for, not 'watching things' or 'advancing the plot/story'.

I have always said games are not a storytelling format, it's a playing format - but corporations don't care, and audiences don't seem to care, either, because they don't know any better. But your brain does.

I grew up with PLAYING games, so it's quite jarring to suddenly arrive at an era with unskippable, boring cutscenes. I can't understand that reason for that.

 In any case, DOTT is a great experience, even a good game - but it's not 'more Maniac Mansion' for someone that just completed Maniac Mansion and wants 'more mansions to complete'.

It even happens in the SAME mansion - how out of touch is that?

In any case, I want to see 'more Maniac Mansion', as I have wanted since 1988, when I completed Maniac Mansion all by myself, literally jumped up and down out of sheer joy... I want a game that brings people the same kind of joy and sense of accomplishment.

No one can probably quite create the feeling that a kid has when playing Maniac Mansion in the autumn with the sound of crickets in the background, on a full moon 1980s night, where the old disk drive is howling almost like a small wolf every time a room starts to load... nothing can probably quite re-create all THAT.

However, I think it's still possible to create a 'true sequel' to Maniac Mansion - a game that would feel as much as possible as something that continues where Maniac Mansion left off, or 'replicates' the mansion, without making it too 'samey' - a different mansion with the same atmosphere and style, the same GUI, similar, but different characters..

..the point is to make the player feel as if they are getting MORE Maniac Mansion - not the same thing over again, not a reboot/remix/rewhatever, not a completely different-style sequel that still happens in the same mansion, but a NEW mansion, new adventure, with 'more of the same style and atmosphere'.

I wonder why this is so hard to explain... in any case, THAT is the kind of game I would like to see made.

Oh, also, it does NOT matter whether I (with or without collaboration/team/etc.) am the one that manages to create it, or someone else - I just want to see it MADE.


heltenjon

Usually, the games I like the most are the games someone else made that I didn't know I wanted. The ones that surprise me. There have been made lots of games either set in the Maniac Mansion or using the same style and setup, but they are unlikely to make the same kind of impact as the first game one played in that style. That being said, I'd love to be proven wrong, and there are many sequels that surpass the prior game in a series. But usually, they add something to the mix, or change it around a bit.

But I'll bite. Personally, I'd like a Batman game with no action scenes, only investigation. A detective game. (Could be that the TellTale game did that - I haven't played it.)

heltenjon

#5
 Suggesting some Maniac Mansion style games for the OP: Trapped on the Balcony, The Castle (very close to your described dream game) or simply Thimbleweed Park (which may be too tongue in cheek?).

speksteen

I absolutely loved Telltale's The Walking Dead. The setting and theme doesn't matter to me as much as a game that lets you make impactful choices that influence the storyline somewhat.

Looking at a flowchart of the game the choices didn't influence the main story that much but playing it you really had a feeling that the decisions that you made were impactful. It has been my dream to create something similar but I wonder how and where to start :)

Schedina

Yeah, Thimbleweed Park doesn't quite cut it.

 I am aware of ALL the facts.. I know who is behind the project and all that. I know that even Gary Winnick is involved with the graphics, some of which are pretty darn good, I must confess.

But it's not QUITE what I want to create. There are, factually, NO 'actual continuation' of Maniac Mansion projects at all. NOTHING 'continues' where we left off. Sure, storywise, DOTT does. Sure, SCUMM-wise, Zak McKRacken and the Alien Mindbenders(tm) does. Sure, in many other ways, some of these things do, even Thimbleweed Park.

However, I can't be the only one that Thimbleweed Park rubs the wrong way. Its ending is too 'Twin Peaks' and 'Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge'. While it does give interesting insights to Maniac Mansion if you go to the right locations just before the actual ending, it's not QUITE what I mean.

What I want to see and play, and I am sure others would too, if they realized how good Maniac Mansion originally was and how amazing it would be to just continnue where it left off, is..

..TRUE 'more of the same but in a different mansion'.

I haven't checked all recommendations yet - thanks for those, by the way! - but I am trying to point out that NOTHING, not DOTT, not 'Maniac Mansion Mania', not 'Thimbleweed Park', not 'Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders', and CERTAINLY not the curiously 'beloved' 'TSOMI' and 'MI2:LR' games have done it.

Back in the day, I thought Loom, Indy3, Zak, etc. would give it to me. If I just play enough SCUMM games, enough Sierra Space Quest-style stuff, I would get to heavenly bliss of 'continuing the adventure'.

However, this is as if someone wanted to see again those lovely 'pre-AB3D2:TKG' pictures that were supposed to be some kind of 1x1 patch for AB3D, and then someone hands them 'Posiris' as the solution.

Sure, it scratches a PART of the itch, but it does not give it a full completion.

You can't get full satisfaction from that, it's TOO different. It doesn't give you the 'Star Wars'-style locations that the screenshots promised us (but nothing ever delivered).

There IS no true sequel to Maniac Mansion, no matter how you spin it, and _I_ want to create it.

In my opinion, a TRUE SEQUEL (again, there's NOTHING wrong with DOTT as a game, but as a sequel, it does NOT offer us 'more Maniac Mansion', but just a completely different thing that is VERY good)

..would be a game that looks like Maniac Mansion, feels like Maniac Mansion, sounds like Maniac Mansion, but just gives us a different mansion (which means, MORE stuff, new stuff but with the expected style).

Nothing I have seen so far comes even close.

I probably have to reiterate this so people don't get TOO mad; DOTT is amazing, great, absolutely brilliant, and I want to give 50 bucks immediately to the people responsible just to reward them for this really cool and wonderful experience they graciously gave us. It's AMAZING!!

Ok? DOTT is sublime and astonishing! Nothing WRONG with it whatsoever.

Maniac Mansion sequel, though.. I want it to LOOK like Maniac Mansion. I want it to FEEL like Maniac Mansion, but more, new rooms, another mansion, etc.

I have a big vision for this, I have planned this since the 1980s, I have ideas, I know how to create a 50-room (or even just 25-room)-version of this. I know what to do and how, except, I CAN'T SCRIPT.

I appreciate the replies here, but they don't seem to QUITE get the point - it's not Maniac Mansion until it's 'Maniac Mansion'. DOTT is NOT Maniac MAnsion, it's a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THING altogether.

Thimbleweed Park utilizes some REALLY weird resolutions and color configurations, the graphics never look quite 'right' to me, it's not clear what resolution it's supposed to exist in, plus, the story is too weird, and the 'Grumpy' one's manic obsession with CATALOGUES kills it.

Don't have MAZES or LABYRINTHS in your game, don't have CATALOGUES or 'REPETITIVE ROOMS' (the hotel is a big SIN!) in your game. It does not benefit the player.

What I loved about Maniac Mansionm was the feeling of 'I wonder what's behind that door'. If every room looks the same, you lose that feeling.

There's more to say, but yeah.. please join me in creating a TRUE SEQUEL to Maniac Mansion. I can do the graphics, I can do the sound effects (with real C64 and at least real SID, plus, real OPL3), I can do the musics (not that a game like this needs much), I can do the dialogues, the jokes, the humor, the characters, the design, the game itself, the 'story', the ideas, the rooms..

I can do it ALL, except the scripting and UI.

Anyone that actually LOVED Maniac Mansion.. I would be honored to collaborate with and give them all I can.

Also, I am happy to give my data - graphics, animations, music, sound effects - for YOUR game, whatever your game might be, as long as I don't find it too stupid or annoying (or cruel).

Thanks for reading this rant.. I am just PASSIONATE about this, so please understand.

Schedina

Quote from: heltenjon on Sun 26/05/2024 22:27:26Suggesting some Maniac Mansion style games for the OP: Trapped on the Balcony, The Castle (very close to your described dream game) or simply Thimbleweed Park (which may be too tongue in cheek?).

Thanks for the recommendations.

I am aware of the 'Thimbleweed Park', and I was actually trying to sort of 'compete against it', alas, it proved to be impossible to get my product up because of lack of a scripter.

I don't think the Castle thing is even close to what I want, plus, it's COMMERCIAL, so I can't even play it.

Thanks anyways... for PROVING that what I am describing simply does not exist.. yet.

ManicMatt

Coincidentally, I just made a pitch video of Red Dwarf as a point and click adventure game! I'll put a link in this board.

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