If you were a filthy rich developer/publisher....

[Intrepid Homoludens]

A psychological suspense thriller

I would make a FPS/RPG/Tactical Action/Adventure hybrid psychological suspense thriller. It'll be story and character driven, and many of its aspects will be based on real life unsolved crimes. You play as a young female FBI agent, Beck, out to solve a series of gruesome murders that all seem to point to a brilliant yet elusive individual. A good portion of the game will involve actually searching real online databases during gameplay for clues and information (so you'll need Internet connection while playing). Beck is a young woman who comes from a broken childhood background (physically abused, etc.) and at important crossroads in the game she will have to deal her buried past in order to gain a more solid footing in her investigations, including the inevitable confrontation with the serial killer himself (a bit like Silence Of The Lambs). Part of the online research is having to look up information on how many murderers come from troubled pasts, which in turn relates to your character and how she herself must come to terms with her own past.

About 2/3 into the game the killer strikes again, and the next victim is kidnapped: Beck's boyfriend. It then becomes a cat-and-mouse race against time as she (you) must solve puzzles and quests laid out by the killer in order to track down her boyfriend to save him. It's no longer all in a day's work - this time it's personal.

When you begin the game the clock starts and keeps going in real time. You'll be given a choice to outfit Beck with various skills from a selection menu (like agility, endurance, accuracy, intelligence, stealth, etc.). Depending on how well you do and how fast you do it, you'll be able to upgrade Beck's skills after each level. There is no stats to keep track of, the more you do something the better you get at it. Keep in mind, however, that much of the time there is no shooting involved, and many of the puzzles require you to traverse trap filled areas, explore dangerously crumbling environments, sneak through heavily guarded areas, pore over written and verbal data, and interact with NPCs strategically to gain information. Also note that the A.I. will be state-of-the-art. The game will keep track of your time and performance in proportion to your chosen skills and will adjust the difficulty accordingly, so that the faster you solve puzzles and quests, the nastier the subsequent puzzles will be. The game will configure, on the fly, custom made challenges for you, variations on a root, taking into account skills, timing, and performance.

The puzzles and quests can have more than one solution or pathway, although each one will have its advantages and drawbacks. For example, a trip to a bad neighbourhood can gain you a meeting with a key witness, yet you might get into trouble with a local street gang. Choose to be stealthy by disguising yourself as a crackhead or homeless person, or use your streetsmart skills to gain their favour so to protect you from a rival street gang.

Physics will play a key part in the game. There may be moments in a level in which a clumsy jump may cause one or two items to fall out of your inventory. Upgrading your agility (at the expense of another important skill) could prevent this. If you focus on strength you could be able to move heavy crates to climb up to reach a valuable clue or avoid confrontation with an enemy.

The setting will be in the present day, in several Midwestern cities (Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, etc.), where many of the murder victimes were found. The levels will take you to real life places like abandoned warehouses, slums, ethnic neighbourhoods, public buildings, backroads and forest preserves, skyscrapers, and nightclubs. (I would send out teams to actual locations in these cities to photograph them, eventually reproducing them in the game)

Beck's base inventory will include: standard issue pistol, switchblade, voice activated digital recorder, digital camera with zoom lens, handcuffs, cell phone, PDA.

All in all, this game will involve very little shooting, but will demand more brainpower, ingenuity, and resourcefulness (for example, that clumsy jump you made earlier in the warehouse cost you the screwdriver you found, and now that you need it to unscrew a panel that may or may not hide a clue, you're stuck. What else do you have? Hmm, your FBI badge? The bevelled edge of it does look skinny enough....).

Features:

3D engine with photodigitized textures.

Robust physics engine.

Advanced A.I. for character interaction, self-adjusting gameplay, and custom challenges.

Light based engine for hiding in shadows and using light for offensive/defensive maneuvers.

RPG lite upgradeable skill system.

[schepton]

I'd buy the rights to all the old Lucasarts adventures,

Grim Fandango

Monkey Island

Sam and Max

Full Throttle

Maniac Mansion

Etc. etc.

I'd make some damn good sequels

but other than that, i do have a game idea i've been tinkering with for a while.

FPS with a near future setting, story elements are something like a cross between dark angel, x-files and half life2.

Somewhat unstable future city where it is oppressed by the government, and has special forces/black ops troops patroling the streets. They are supposedly there for your protection, until you find out that the entire town is one large experiment where the populace has been drugged, into thinking they have lived there, there entire lives...then it goes on and you discover the true purpose of everything

[toblix]

I'd make sequels to:

- LBA2

- Beyond Good & Evil

- Fallout 2

- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

- Carmageddon TDR2000 (and it would be just like Carmageddon 2, only with a modernificated engine)

[schepton]

Yeah i forgot about Indy

[AndrewT]

I'd buy the rights to all the old Lucasarts adventures,

Grim Fandango

Monkey Island

Sam and Max

Full Throttle

Maniac Mansion

Etc. etc.

I'd make some damn good sequels

I really hope that Tim Schafer does that one day. Maybe when he finishes with the excellent game Psychonauts he'll take pity on his forsaken progeny.

Even if LucasArts did actually decide to do (or resume) making sequels to these magnificent creations, I don't think they could be trusted to put out something approaching quality.

When these were released, LucasArts was like Rockstar games is today. They cared about every release, about making a great game, not simply about reaping profits.

We all know that TPWCS&M2 are only about profit, current market place realities and underlying economic considerations. Sure profit has to come into it, indeed play a big part in it, but those games had soul, which LEC simply couldn't replicate today.

End rant.

[AndrewT]

Also, on more related matters, doing a remake of the first two Monkey Island games in the CMI/Paco Vink style would be cool. 2d is awesome.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Well, if we're gonna talk about remakes, I'd love to do one of Gabriel Knight 3 using the latest Unreal engine. Imagine the south of France like that. Mmmph!

[ztejas]

(No need to quote the entire post - Marek)

Actually there was a game similiar to your idea, can't remember the name though, couple years ago though. You had to give them your home/cell number, fax number, all emails addresses and they would call you in the middle of the night to give you secret information that you needed to solve the case. So basically you were playing the game 24/7. Some sick shit man.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

It was called Majestic, and it involved government conspiracies, UFOs, and whatnots. Got quite mixed reviews, but you couldn't deny how innovative the concept was. You were able to control how pervasive the game was - if you didn't like phone calls at 3 in the morning you could turn that feature off, etc.

There is also another game coming that debuted in Europe, with a similar approach, but it seems more successful in execution. It's called Missing. Here's the news blurb I wrote for it at Adventure Gamers:

The Adventure Company has just announced its publication of developer Lexis Numérique's innovative and mature themed Missing for PC for North America as part of its 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) lineup. Missing, originally released by Ubisoft in Europe last year under the title In Memoriam, puts the player as a sleuth investigating the mysterious disappearance of a journalist and his female companion, with the game utilizing the Internet itself and coaxing the player into a game of cat and mouse through actual email messages, video movies, disturbing yet intriguing images, and websites both real and fictitious, in order to find out what happened to the vanished couple. Expect the game to launch this summer (Q2-3 2004).

If your curiosity is piqued and you have an hour to spare, why not download the demo? And here's the official site. It's really good, I want to get it when it comes out. The atmosphere's really creepy and macabre, and though it has no typical game graphics (3D engine, etc.) it uses other media and the Internet to pull you in, in a choke hold as it were.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Ridicule

Although I haven't played it myself ... I'd love a remake of Versailles 1685, or a new game based on it and Patrice Leconte's Ridicule (1996), that uses a top notch 3D graphics engine (Unreal, LithTech Jupiter, etc.) as well as a robust A.I. to recreate a jawdroping 17th century French court in real time 3D - imagine walking amongst lavishly dressed courtiers and using their gossips, your status, and the king's favours to accomplish your mission. It would function far more organically that the original game precisely because of the A.I., which makes the gameplay less predictable, and the real time setup that allows you to explore the 17th centure palace and grounds as if you really were there.

...your main 'inventory' would consist of language, wit, and historically and socially correct gestures of etiquette and body language that you must remember to use in the right situations. For example, if you forget to bow to a countess you'll upset her and she'll remember that; later on in the game you may discover that she has vital information pertaining to a possible scandal, information you must have. But now that you're on her ignore list it'll be much harder to get her to talk and divulge to you. Every single thing you do is under scrutiny in the king's court - the game's Artificial Intelligence at work.

[schepton]

Yeah, I'd like to see a good FPS made around the Stargate Sg-1 TV show, it has so many possiblities, game could be easily made.

[ztejas]

I'd love a remake of Versailles 1685 ... (snip)

A game based on Ridicule? OMG, I have a trauma from this movie. Oh well, I have have many traumas so who cares. I once (like 8 years ago) went to sneak peak night of a local independent movie theater which was cheap and I was a broke teenager. Also they didn't tell you what they show, it could have been the next blockbuster, but in my case it was 'Ridicule' in original French with German subtitles.That was in Germany BTW, showing it in French with German subtitles here in the US where I live now is probably against some law. You can imagine that half of the people immediately left the movie theater. The movie wasn't really that bad, but it feels akward if you are expecting to see a decent Hollywood movie, but then all the sudden some French guy with fake hair shows up.

Anyways, that's my story

[vimes]

Amazing how many people are complaining about sequels and how many, here, would produce one if they had the money...

[schepton]

Amazing how many people are complaining about sequels and how many, here, would produce one if they had the money...

Who's complaining?

[vimes]

Who's complaining?

Weeeehehehelll....... I do.

I'm quite fond of one game/one set of character : for example, I'm not eager to see a new adventure linked to Grim Fandango and a new Maniac Mansion doesn't interest me the most.

To clarify my opinion, let's say that if I had to choose between a new Maniac Mansion by Tim Shafer or an original game by Tim Shafer, I'll definitely, choose the original one.

[Alex]

I'm not a huge sequel man myself, but the Land of the Dead is the most perfect setting for one. I don't think it'd be right to have Manny, maybe no characters from the original. But it is a rich canvas on which to paint.

[Kolzig]

I'm not a huge sequel man myself, but the Land of the Dead is the most perfect setting for one. I don't think it'd be right to have Manny, maybe no characters from the original. But it is a rich canvas on which to paint.

I don't support making of a sequel to Grim Fandango.

But if someone eventually makes one, I hope it would be made just like Screwtape said, no returning characters from the original game.

[Guest James]

Publish the Curves of Danger in a cool special edition cigarette box style edition, complete with OST and 2nd disc full of special features.

[vimes]

Well , this is a place where I can get off my frustration.

Soooooo, if I was a rich producer. This is going to be long. Anyone who goes through this and give his/her opinions will sound brave to me.

First, I'd try to gather Terry Gilliam, Libellules Etranges, quantic dream team and Tim Schaffer and in order to create the most artful and innovant game ever. I'll also recruit the valve team to adapt their Source engine to the need of the team.

And I'll pay Thomas Newman and Eels for the soundtrack.

This done, I'll try to make this games come true.

-Critical Area : a post-apocalyptique RPG in which you play a guy that suddenly wake up from a cryogenic-sleep.As he walks in a world he doesn't know,he's seen as the prophet by the 3 religions that have raised in a universe where mutations is quite a common thing.

I want to do this because I once started this project with 7 guys on the net and I was in charge of the background and the whole design if the game. I completed these task consulting the rest of the crew every week, then I went on vacation. I returned to discover the game was dropped by 5 guys who revealed themselves as stupid as their butt. 100 of pages of history, 150 pages of plot and nearly 100 of sketches went to waste, this day.

The plot made a great deal of what a prophet can be and what the hell could be our reaction in front of sudden mutations. This is what the 3 religions were there for :

-*"Le Retour à l'Adam" that preached to return to the true man.. and that was you because you hadn't be striken by mutations

* The Official Government that said that we must accept the mutations but try to avoid them in the future

* " les Rangs du Metatron " that said that we had to mutate ourselves to become more powerful and access to the status of god.

- a multi-genres game in which you play a street pickpocket that entered the army after having stolen the identity of a low rank soldier. It takes place in an Orwell's world and the type game would evolve as you go through the story.

First, adventure games before entering army, then a FPS for the first missions as a freshman. Between the missions you can do some good old rpg's "quests" to increase your stats for the FPS Missions. Then it becomes a tactical games [rainbow 6 style] as you get the responsibility of a squad with Fallout Tactic sequence. You soon become a general and it's time for the RTS part and Shogun-like levels.

I'd like it to end in a one to one combat ala Street Fighters but.. in a realistic way. For those who know, i'd like something like the very end of the last episodes of Scryed anime serie.

-another game still takes place in a not-so-distant future with a society ruled by a humanist computer which advise every parents what their children should their future work be, every company what should be their future actions, every government what they should do in the future. It's always advice, there is no threat.

200 years earlier, when this computer was built and revealed to the public, no one wanted to follow what it recommended but soon, everyone discovered that the elements that had done what the computer had told were very successful : companies were growing and wars ended rapidly in country that had listend to the computer.

So it took only 20 years for everybody to turn to this solution. What they didn't know was that in order to garanty that nobody would corrupt the system, the engineer behind the machine had created a procedure in which some of the children were taken away at their birth and given to an oragnization that was supposed to maitain the rules behind the machine.

175 years later, you played one of these child raised in the special school among a thousand of other comrades.... but the first engineers had died and the institution isn't well considered by the new ones...

Five years ago, I discovered Brazil, and I wanted to create a game that would give the player the same kind of moral and emotionnal investment, so I build this world that was fated to be heaven end that was on the verge of hell ... without anyone noticing.

I also wanted the player to care about the secondary characters, so I figured out that I had to make the player begin as a pre-teenager and after a few hours of game, make an ellipse, and brought him to the same character 8-10 years later when he's 20.

To make the whole thing more interesting I stated that once the babies where brought to the institution they were artificial grown and given basis for their intelligence... and the begining of the game would ne the player waking up like neo wakes up on the in Matrix. I really had only a few ideas of what the plot might be , but as I said above, I wanted to tell the rebellion of some people again a system they know is wrong but couldn't really, you know, bllast it down.

I also wanted to allow the player to get in touch with some people, hate others and create a complete freedom about who you like, who you don't and who you ignore.. and coherent reaction of these people.

And I wanted to end this all in a HUGE battle(6000 vs 6000) as a soldier on the battlefield.

-another game was a dicworld MP FPS.. I have the description of five kind of level if some people are interested. People to whom I submitted the ideas were quite enthusiastics. But well, no one wanted to b really involved in this.

-another one, and that's the final one, was a GOOD sequel to Jedi Knight.

A team of ten people I was part ofalso began to develop it and we were using the Q3 engine... but, after 6 month of hard work, we received a nice letter from Tom Sarris that kindly ask us to stop the development, shut down the website and never EVER try this thing again.

It was just before JKII was announced.

The team was quite disppointed because we had worked a lot on the game but we knew that we couldn't match Raven's talent on the utilisation of the Q3 engine.

Anyway, our plot and gameplay ideas were so much better.

-Finally, is In Space, a 2D adventure game, I developed a year ago. It's far from finished... and what I've done didn't entertained me much.

But the story is there, the designs too... and it's waiting to be done.

Too bad I didn't stay in touch with the guy at adventurepit [ they changed their name] that gave me the pitch to begin the development on.

So thanks a lot. That's the end. last orders please

[sneakyB]

I'd make some sort of mmo (rpg or a mix of fps/rpg, a la Neocron) in the Blue Planet setting.

Blue Planet is a very not popular space opera/cyberpunk pen & paper rpg. Of course, it would be the best game ever since it's my idea, so let's not waste time going through all the features.

I'd follow with a massively multiplayer Mario Kart thing, since by then I'll be totaly out of new ideas like every game studio out there after its first hit. Maybe buy the Wacky Wheels license (is there such a thing?).

[spaceship789]

I would get someone to draw lots of cool pictures - cos illustration rocks.

Then I would create a cool lead character - someone we all want to be - like Tim Schafer said.

And then I'd create a story, cos Ron Gilbert proportedly wrote lots of stories prior to one of his games (eventho secretly he borrowed them from a book by Tim Powers)

Then I'd create the rules for the 'universe', and make the universe rich and immersive.

The gameplay would be very dialog intensive cos dialog is funny, and builds character, and drama, and inspires the imagination. The gameplay would be non-urgent so people can really get immersed, be it puzzles or collecting stuff or what.

Then I'd design the whole game on paper, like Tim Schafer said.

Then code the engine using lots of other peoples code, and the graphics.

And then we'd all sit down and create dialog for weeks, I'd get all my friends over and maybe even fly some in by plane cos its gonna be cool. And we would write lots and lots of dialog, and laugh heaps, and share memories, and not argue too much cos 90% of the game had been created. And even if the game sucked and nobody bought it, we would still have those few wonderful weeks.

Then I would be so happy, I'd clap my hands like this!

[MrHoatzin]

I would get someone to draw lots of cool pictures - cos illustration rocks.

Then I would create a cool lead character - someone we all want to be - like Tim Schafer said.

And then I'd create a story, cos Ron Gilbert proportedly wrote lots of stories prior to one of his games (eventho secretly he borrowed them from a book by Tim Powers)

Then I'd create the rules for the 'universe', and make the universe rich and immersive.

The gameplay would be very dialog intensive cos dialog is funny, and builds character, and drama, and inspires the imagination. The gameplay would be non-urgent so people can really get immersed, be it puzzles or collecting stuff or what.

Then I'd design the whole game on paper, like Tim Schafer said.

Then code the engine using lots of other peoples code, and the graphics.

And then we'd all sit down and create dialog for weeks, I'd get all my friends over and maybe even fly some in by plane cos its gonna be cool. And we would write lots and lots of dialog, and laugh heaps, and share memories, and not argue too much cos 90% of the game had been created. And even if the game sucked and nobody bought it, we would still have those few wonderful weeks.

Then I would be so happy, I'd clap my hands like this!

I don't know why on earth I would, but I find this post really reassuring. There may yet be some good in the world, that sort of thing...

[peb]

First, I'd try to gather Terry Gilliam, Libellules Etranges, quantic dream team and Tim Schaffer and in order to create the most artful and innovant game ever.

I shudder in awe of a Gilliam-Schafer collaboration.

[Chris]

I shudder in awe of a Gilliam-Schafer collaboration.

I shudder in fear of those egos clashing.

[peb]

I shudder in fear of those egos clashing.

True. But we can dare to dream.