Turning Over a New Leaf: (We’re trying something new with the topic this month, so please read carefully.) February’s BoRT invites you take a game design suggested by another blogger in last month’s Round Table and build upon it. You should ignore the literary source of the original design, but attempt to communicate the same themes and/or convey the same mood as the proposed game. This means you can alter the game genre, change the setting, and add new layers to the game mechanics. This is not an opportunity to critique a previous design, but to honor it by striving to reach the same goals, while adding your own personal touch.
For this month’s round table we’re looking at other contributors for inspiration. The entry that really resonated with me was Roger Travis’ “Oedipus the RPG” which you can read here. I agree with him that time used effectively as a factor can be a powerful mechanic both for gameplay and story. For my round table entry this month I’m going to try to help you figure out how you’ll spend your last day alive.
The game starts with you waking up in the hospital at an undisclosed point in the future the doctor tells you that you were diagnosed with a terminal disease and was cytogenetically frozen until a cure was found. Unfortunately medicinal science has plateau its research at giving you 24 hours alive before the disease finishes you. The doctor then gives you photos of your remaining living family members and any descendents and the game begins.
From this point you have free access to the entire world and can chat with anyone you want. Similar to Roger’s game idea dialogue options will be vast to the point that you could spend your entire 24 hours with one person and still not run out of things to say. Your choices when talking to people will affect how they respond and you could push someone completely away with the wrong words. Technology has advanced to the point that transportation around the planet is easy and visiting any family members will be a snap. However it will still take some time to get around which is very precious to you. You could even head towards where the leaders of the world are and meet them. It is impossible to see or do everything in one day which will leave you with many questions for repeat play through. You could track down your family to see how they have lived their lives or just go wandering around the planet to get a glimpse of the new world before you die.
There aren’t any goals per say in this game but there are multiple story tracks you could follow. Such as the above mentioned finding out about your family, or the world. There is one other option, trying to research your disease and perhaps curing it. To do this you will have to use up most if not all your time remaining making it a goal from the start or no chance to accomplish it. The problem with this path is that by doing this you will be unable to explore the world or visit what is left of your family making this more or less the bad ending. The reason why this is the bad ending is that the point of the game is to spend your remaining hours rediscovering your family or the world. Another idea would be to have the world itself be different with each play through for example, one time you could awake to a peaceful world or a world at war. The differences in each world would also affect the people in it increasing the replay ability further.
Another aspect of Roger’s idea was on the insignificance of the player in a sense to the grand scheme of things. In this title the player doesn’t have any way to impact the world due to the time limit, they can only affect the people they come in contact with and talk to. Regardless of the setting of the world, the main character is not going to be the chosen one or the savior of man, they will just be a stranger in a strange land for a 24 hour tour.
At around the 15 hour mark you will start to show signs of the disease coming back and doing damage, as the world slowly starts to lose its color to signify the fact that you are starting to die. I can see this game having huge replay ability for adventure gamers as the locations of people in the world will be randomized from the start and since you could spend the entire day with one person means that there is a lot to find. I know that this game will not attract many action gamers but this was my first adventure game idea in some time and I thought it could be an interesting experiment on emotional impact in games hopefully similar to the game “Facade”. Since this idea is an early concept and I can have anything I want in it, I would love to have the ability to speak whatever you want at any of the NPCs just like Facade however even as a dream idea that would require a lot of work.
Many games deemphasize time as an issue (Most RPGS as an example) yet knowing that your actions do have irreversible consequences within a set amount of time can be a very engaging gameplay experience.
Josh
P.S 24 hours might be a bit much so the game could be scaled to a 12 hour period with the affects of the disease starting at 6 hours instead of 15. One last variation could be the game taking place over 1 hour as you lay on your death bed and you have to decide who you will see before your time runs out. Unfortunately this idea eliminates the whole point of exploring a new world.
