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5 Original Ideas For Games (That Will Probably Never Get Made)

I've moaned and complained about a large number of videogames over the years, calling out uninspired sequels and dreary ideas, but could I do any better? Well, probably not, but I'd give it a damn good go given the chance. Here are some ideas I would bring to the drawing board, most likely before someone else on the team would go, "That's nice, George, but does anyone else have any ideas?"


The Magical Kingdom of Amarotharel 

In the province of Darkhelm, a terrible curse has fallen upon the land. Dragons have awoken, the dead are rising from the graves, and the Knights of Svelsibong and the Great Wizards of Gnofoleer are at war. Only one person, an exiled warrior from the distant city of Windgralf, can stand up to vanquish evil, overcome fear, and help random people find five enchanted cabbages scattered across the land...or just kill them and steal all of their clothes.

Except something isn't quite right. The looming tower of Drabadur that houses the burning fires of dark energy is starting to look a bit like a block of cheap council flats. Your enchanted sword has the mysterious runic symbols "MD 20/20" inscribed across it. That wolfhound that has valiantly followed by your side is looking mangier by the day, and something smells strongly of piss.

Halfway through your quest, you have to wrestle with the disturbing notion that you might actually be a suicidally depressed tramp wandering around the murkier parts of Gravesend, unable to face up to the harsh reality that you were once a hugely successful lawyer that has since been made redundant after "that incident" involving the speech you made without trousers. Your wife left you. The council have repossessed your house. You turned to drink and drugs to cope with the misery and despair. You had a breakdown.

Suddenly, the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur. Are the shadowy figures chasing after you the dark brotherhood of magic, or the local police wanting to know why you were found with a man's leg round the back of the fish and chip shop? Is the buzz you get from a "recovery mushroom" as beneficial to your "health bar" as it might first seem? Was it your "fire ignite" spell that caused that hotel to burn down across the street? Only time, and a desperate struggle with your sanity, will tell.

 

Fifa: Downtime

A unique spin on the football franchise, this game allows you to step into the shoes of all your favourite leather-hustling millionaires after they step off of the pitch.

Hit the clubs to drink until you vomit, punch someone, piss over the floor and pass out, and not necessarily in that order. Get married and divorced as many times as the waking day allows. Drive a number of luxury sports cars while under the influence into walls, other cars, and other people's children. Live the high life as it was meant to be lived.

A counter displaying your footballer's current bank balance will be constantly displayed in top right-hand corner of the screen, allowing you to bask in the glory of your player's extreme wealth. While players won't have to take part in any football matches, there will be button prompts during the game to hurl verbal abuse at other players for extra points. Kinect players will be given the added option to make threatening, obscene or sexual gestures.


The Architect

A game with mechanics similar to SimCity or The Sims buy/build mode, where you play an architect who must construct a city using meticulously crafted architecture for a population to live in. Only the finest balustrades, sculptures and water fountains will please your discerning citizens, who will also need shopping malls to buy designer shoes, expansive parks to walk their dogs, and luxury lidos in which to enjoy the summer sunshine.

But there's a twist! You are all ready to reveal your stunning city to the public, when suddenly, without warning, an 8 on 8 team deathmatch begins across your creation! All you can to is stare helplessly as other people blast each other to pieces, reducing your art galleries to rubble with their incendiary rockets, levelling your college campus with their air strikes, and riddling every shop front with bullets of all shapes and sizes.

As the game ends, you get to see your character weeping hysterically into a tourist brochure for your city, while a message displayed across the screen reads: "You tried your hardest. Other people screwed it up for you. Life's a bitch"


My Beautiful Garden

A game that should have all high-end PC owners frothing at the mouth, this game tasks you with creating the most beautiful, realistic garden imaginable, in an online contest spanning over a month. You will have to max out your graphics cards and bolster your hard drives, because it's going to take the shiniest dynamic lighting, the smoothest water effects and the most finely tessellated leaves to win the contest.

The contestant with the prettiest garden wins an actual, real-life plant to look after.

The Relationship

I was once asked whether I could imagine the videogame equivalent of a romantic comedy film. I said: yes. Yes I could.

The game would follow the course of a relationship from start to finish, and the player would have to play out the events of the relationship from both the male and female perspective. The player would get to choose which gender to play as first, the boy or the girl.

The actions and choices you make in your first play through would affect your second play through as the other gender. For example, if you play as the male first and decide to be a heavy drinker to make clubbing more fun, when you play as the girl the guy would just be a negative alcoholic presence who will vomit on your shoes. If you play as the female first and spend an excessive amount of time getting ready for a night out, when you play as the guy you would be forced to sit there for 30/40 minutes twiddling your thumbs, with an X prompt to look at your watch and tap your foot impatiently.

 

Have you had any crazy videogame ideas? Make your own suggestions in the comments!

Comments

  • Avatar
    Matto424
    11 years, 8 months ago

    i have a crazy game idea, it's called the broadcaster or something a game where you try to have a successful and yet fun to watch live stream but at the end you have to choose between your viewers enjoying the casts or a huge cash flow =D

  • Avatar
    lemith
    11 years, 8 months ago

    I would have loved to play downtime.

  • Avatar
    Boomstick_Chameleon
    11 years, 8 months ago

    The Magical Kingdom of Amarotharel and the The Relationship seem like the best ideas. The others sound like you're trying a little too hard to spit in society's face, though they're interesting nonetheless.

    As for wacky game ideas on my end? I dunno... How about you're a stereotypical old man who just wants peace and quiet, but the whole neighborhood's pissin' you off? You have to do things like chase kids off your lawn, yell at people to have sex more quietly, things like that. Uh, there's two bars. One is your patience, the other is the neighborhood's. As you piss the neighborhood off, the inhabitants will start retaliating until you decide to leave (guess this turned into a high score-based experience). You have a certain amount of income from family members, but it's only so much. You can do things like by fences to keep kids off your lawn, or prevent dogs from shitting in your yard. Maybe you could bribe the mail carrier to fend for you when he/she comes by if you save up enough? OH! You also have a garden, which is like a shield for you patience. People and animals will trample your flower beds, which you can fix, but later on it's practically impossible to keep up with it. You can sit in your house to regain patience, but when the flower bed's gone, you lose patience A LOT faster. I guess days could be like waves or something...

    Uh, yeah...that's all I got.

  • Avatar
    Soulglove
    11 years, 8 months ago

    I was initially going to ask: Why would I give my ideas out so willfully? But I remembered a game idea I want made, but I don't want to make it myself. It just isn't in my field.

    Premise: A professional in office who controls the city budget has never had an interesting job – until he is handed the opportunity to start the Apocalypse. Appease the Four Horsemen with your influence and decisions. A simulation in which the purpose is to cause systematic chaos.
    Overall Storyline: You are in an office position for budget adjustments. The job is boring and repetitive. When you have been given the rare opportunity to start the Apocalypse, you gladly accept. The Four Horsemen have quota requirements for taking over, and these quotas can be fulfilled through changing the city budget.

    Those are taken from my design document I've written for a game called "Destabilize." I wanted to take a boring job, managing a city budget, and make it into a simulation for something unexpected. The goal is to appease the Four Horsemen by changing the city budget in a way that would slowly cause chaos. Too drastic of changes would cause the player to get kicked from his position. Examples would be: Increase the price for medicine -> More people would get sick. Take spending out of education -> Crime rate would increase. Make guns free -> More deaths by shooting. And so on. There would be also a domino effect of decreasing and increasing certain spending. Imagine watching your city deteriorate from simply changing a few numbers one fiscal quarter at a time.

  • Avatar
    inhumandoughnut
    11 years, 8 months ago

    You play as a psycho that is fine at the start but then your mind deteriorates, it's open world, you have to go to work, indulge in bars, everything. Every now and then a meter next to your health will start to run out, if the meter runs out completely your character will go on auto-pilot and kill someone in broad daylight, so before the meter runs out you have to kill someone (a kill will refill the meter) and this can be elaborate like a bank robery or as simple as stabbing someone in a dark alley. Your amount of drinking/work/social status/times you got arrested will effect your lifestyle and how things will be in the game, the more times you get caught you will have harder kills, etc. The main missions are mainly life mission where depending on what your current lifestyle is,lets say a christmas party, you have to say the right words in sequences ala Walking dead, these choices will Be affected by your lifestyle.

    Just goes on like that, I really liked American Psycho

  • Avatar
    Zladko
    11 years, 8 months ago

    Those all sound great, but it's nothing compared to Carlos' ladder game.

  • Avatar
    George Denison
    11 years, 8 months ago

    I probably should have said this earlier, but that sounds like an amazing game. I hope it gets made some day.

  • Avatar
    Games That Will Never Get Made « Huttstuff
    11 years, 7 months ago

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