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A meta-physical scale that weighs your soul, and you have to do good deeds until your soul is light enough to pass.

I like it in a philosophical way -- you can't pass a barrier that doesn't exist, so to transcend them, you have to first create them.

Ten ideas fresh off the idea wagon:

1. Door will only open when a drop of a rare blood type is submitted. You have no way to test, so you must convince reluctant NPCs to donate a finger prick.

2. A door with an intricate geometric pattern and a mathematical clue to figure out a specific point of intersection that needs to be pushed to unlock it. Pushing the wrong place shuffles the pattern and changes the clue.

3. A lock based in color mixing, but using theatrical gels and the physics of additive light instead of traditional pigment mixing (e.g. red + green = yellow).

4. A locked door with a transom through which can be seen a mirror reflecting the other side of the door. Manipulating the locks on your side of the door changes a pattern on the other, but the player must remember the matching pattern is reversed, due to the mirror.

5. A timed door lock for which you must die, appear as a specter to NPCs on the other side, and convince them to unlock the door and revive you before death is permanent (a meat locker might be useful here).

6. A "living" door that must be repaired surgically -- arteries cut and sutured -- before it is healthy enough to open.

7. A door that is actually the back of a giant. You must consult ancient tomes and compose a lullaby in the giant's mother tongue to lull it to sleep / move it away from the door.

8. A door that is flush with the wall such that only an outline shows. This door does not move, the rest of the room shifts around it.

9. A door on a television or film set that is legitimately not unlockable, but players must instead walk around the edge of the set that is visible in the foreground (ala Frank Drebbin on Police Squad).

10. A door with a colored object puzzle ironically guarded by a colorblind guard for whom you must collect technically wrongly colored, but easily confusable items (like a green Granny Smith apple to satisfy a slot for a red object).

I encourage all to purchase Kentucky Route Zero. Lovely game.

What's your major? If you're in a CS class, and it's applicable, you might ask your professor if you can do it as an alternate to whatever final project you have. As a professor myself, I'm always happy to let my students do alternate projects that still satisfy the requirements of the course, especially if they have impact outside the classroom.

Will this be a kid-friendly game? If so, I have a little guy who is going to love it.

Happy birthday, Chicky!

I missed getting The Cave during the flash sale this morning because I kept putting my email address in instead of my username, and then had to deal with the "unfamiliar computer" captcha. By the time I finally got logged in, the price had doubled. Oh well!

I totally fell down on the job when it came to voting in this round. So sorry, but I can't argue with those results (except to say that I think I may have done my entry wrong, comparatively!).

Congrats Ghost (and Stupot too)! I look forward to the next round!

Xavier xeroxed X-Men x-rays, x'd xenophobic Xorn.

Virtuous victims vowed vengeance, viciously vomiting volumous vitriol vis-a-vis vulturous vampires' vulgar, voyeuristic, violent victual visits.

EDIT: Aw man, beaten to the punch.

Happy birthday, little grey alien!

Hooray! Now as an adult, I can say, "F--- that stupid dragon," and give up, whereas when I was a kid, I could only say, "I hate you, you stupid dragon," and give up.

I ironically imitated impatient iconoclasts' inquiries involving injecting iron isotopes into irked ibexes inhabiting inaccessible Irish islands.

First shot looked like Blue Velvet. Second, not so much.

Never made that comparison before. Good spotting, Armageddon.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! I had a truly fantastic day today. I'll do my best to make 32 = game.

Happy birthday to my fellow Geminis, and especially to DKH whose special day it is now!

Sometimes there are strange perspective issues (like the foreground gravestone in one of the early images) but they had very talented and atmospheric background artists for the show.

Slightly off topic, but the comic book artist who I personally believe to be the best of all time (though it's close running with a few others), Alex Toth, did model work on the show (and for numerous other Hanna-Barbera works). His work was always lessened by animation, but his model sheets are amazing. They've just released a book of them, and I coincidentally ordered it yesterday! Here are some of Toth's Scooby Doo works:

What is your favorite? I've never played a RoN game before and probably should get around to it!

Hey, I missed this thread somehow! I am curious, since you've been through this in person -- do you get a walkthrough at the end, to find out what you missed out on solving?

Ooh, reverse the genre: something's after you, and you have to solve puzzles to lock the doors.

Or! Use Wyz's socket thingamajig and make it a two-player game. Two players racing each other in two different series of locked door puzzles to the center, where the prize awaits them.