SERIOUS GAME IDEA: NEED FEEDBACK

[Blorx]

Okay, so this is serious. This isn't one of my joke-around threads. This is a game that I REALLY want to see made, in full high-def glory on next-gen consoles.

Okay, here's the basic premise. There are humans, werewolves, vampires and zombies. The main idea is that each one of them can convert humans by biting them.

Imagine this. A game starts out with upwards of 32 people. You're thrown into the woods (or any other dark, despairing area). Three start as a werewolves, three start as a vampires, three start as a zombies and the rest start as humans. Each of the races (except humans) have an advantage. Werewolves have their strength, vampires have their speed and the zombies have their undying will to stay alive (basically you just won't go down easy...extra health per-say). Each race also has night vision.

Each human starts with a pistol and a combat knife, all bullets are silver. This is all they'll ever get. If they run out of ammo, that's their problem. Vampires start with a sword. Werewolves start with their claws and zombies can use whatever they can get their hands on (if nothing, their hands...I'll elaborate later).

You've probably figured it out by now. Each race can only multiply by conquering humans, whereas humans can only deteriorate in numbers. What you're probably wondering is "what keeps the humans from killing the only three of their kind?" Well, here's the deal. Each non-human starter is the alpha. They'll have 5x the health of a normal of his kind (so that they can actually get to one of the humans...it balances out when you think that there are three of each race that are like this and the humans have their numbers to begin with), and they'll have three lives rather than the one that each other has. That's right, when you die, you die. No redos. The game has to end eventually. I also should note that there is the ability to kill humans, you just won't want to. It'll all be about stealth in the beginning. The humans may not do much damage-wise, but they make up for it when you have 10 attacking you at once and there's always the fact that someone's going to be stupid enough to run off. The game ends when everyone's dead. With the huge environments planned, it could be hard when only one or two left but seeing in the dark will help immensely. There's also the fact that vampires will often come to find you because of their speed, but may be cut down in confrontation because of lack of strength.

Here's where it gets interesting. When you get hit, you don't just die. I'm thinking that the camera has different settings. All auto-follow, but turning depends. It'll definitely be third person, however. Here's why. You'll need the second stick (or on computer, the mouse.

Originally, this will sound like a pain, but it would be incredibly interesting to see how it would play out.

There are two types of attacks. The auto heavy/light attacks mapped to the left and right triggers (insert whatever buttons on computer here), BUT there will also be a special, user controlled attack, where you'll flick the stick/mouse in the direction you want to cut, while holding down the special attack button (using Afro Samurai's system of sealing up holes in cuts, this should be easy to accomplish and have any direction of cut possible). This WILL cut of limbs And can sever parts of your torso and if given a blow to the head, will bring death.

Every hit does realistic damage. When you get a leg cut off or an arm cut off, or all limbs but head cut off, you're not gonna die. However, you will be immobile, and for every cut, you will have a percentage of bleed out that multiplies per cut, with the percentage being based on what area of the body was hit and size of wound, NOT how much of the body was cut off, but back to the immobile thing. There are two ways to effectively kill someone. You cut their head off, or you tear them apart to the point that they bleed to death. Keep in mind that they CAN parry and CAN dodge and CAN counter. When you cut a limb off, you lose use of that limb and start bleed out. You could lose both arms, but if humans are still on the loose, you can still bite them. You could lose both your legs, but you can still crawl around and claw at the legs of passerbys. Also noted, if you're a zombie, as long as your head's attached, you can still move around and bite at people's legs, possibly transforming them.

There is one more question I'm going to answer, because I know it's going to be asked.

Q: What happens when a non-human bites a non-human of another race? Can they do that?
A: Yes, they can, but it'll follow the Underworld idea. Their body will slowly overload and eventually die from the mix of genes, marked by a slowly dimming screen and a sudden death.

I think this would be an epic idea and would be epic to see actually made but it would take an epic team, a lot of dedication and a lot of bug testing.

Thoughts? I came up with this in class one day. ^_^

[Sandurz]

That sounds like a good idea for a Twilight vg.

[Blorx]

Zombies? Nah...
It's like a mix of everything. Haha.
But I see where you're coming from nonetheless.
^_^

[Jimmy Jazz]

i thought a vampire could only die if you rammed a wooden stake though its heart.
but i guess that would be kinda god mode-ish. maybe if the vampires could get knocked down for a short time? i don't know I'm just putting in my ideas.

[Sandurz]

No, then they would be like the wolves on one of the latest blogs. Two days ago?
Werepyre zombies would be awesome though.

[BunnyWithStick]

Even though they'd die in about a minute or two? Not so awesome IMO.

[invertin]

My only gripe is with the special attack idea, how would the camera work without the joystick/mouse?

In my experience, games that don't use the joystick/mouse are hard to play. Especially a shooterish game. (This is a shooterish game for the humans anyway)

[Renegade_Turner]

HEY, LET'S MAKE A FILM OR GAME ABOUT WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRES, NO ONE'S DONE THAT BEFORE...oh wait.

[nutcracker]

*claps hands for blorx*

[Hale]

I've seen a boat load of movies featuring Vampires, Werewolves, zombies and whatnot. Although, I've never really seen a good game featuring all of them. Neat idea chum...

[Blorx]

God I was focusing on the combat thing...I meant THAT's never been done before... BTW humans won't have the special attack thing and all others will have an auto-controlled camera in 3rd person view.

ALSO, there have been zombies, werewolves and vampire movies. There have been werewolf vs vampire movies, BUT NEVER have I seen all 3 in one place in a movie, let alone a game...but I could always be wrong...
And while we're at it, Legendary sucked, so it doesn't count if I'm wrong thar.

[invertin]

Eh. I still don't think that taking a long standing tradition of video games (Joystick = look) is a good idea. It's been like that for so long for a reason!

How would the autolook work? Would it be a target thing? If so, how would the user switch targets? What if the user didn't want to target anything in particular? Etc.

[Renegade_Turner]

Auto-target in games is severely annoying. It was the one thing that annoyed me about GTAIV. I'm aware you were able to turn off auto-aim, though.

[Glabbit]

An Idea is all as well, but the execution is more important.
A bad idea could still make a good game, a good idea could still make a bad game.

I'll judge when it's done.
It sounds fun.
>:3

[Blorx]

Eh. I still don't think that taking a long standing tradition of video games (Joystick = look) is a good idea. It's been like that for so long for a reason!

How would the autolook work? Would it be a target thing? If so, how would the user switch targets? What if the user didn't want to target anything in particular? Etc.

No...you're not getting it. HUMANS would work like an average FPS. The rest would have 3rd person auto-follow cameras. The best example i can think of is Too Human, without the auto-target system and well...without the crappiness. Why is the best example? It had an auto-follow camera and allowed for attacking with the joystick. I mean, there would be different settings for the camera, like directly behind, detached, etc. but the point stands. Targeting could be another button or an option for auto-target but yeah, I don't plan on it being the default setting.

Another note, this won't be done for a while. Just wanted feedback on the idea. The other programmer and I have no prior experience in C#. He's coming from Java and I'm coming from ActionScript (go figure...) but it's getting done in C# because of the XNA toolset.