So I'm setting out on the task of making a thread worth reading about the rumored (or is it confirmed?) new IP launching with REV. We started in on an argument in another thread about what makes something a game, a toy, a gamer's game, a nongamer's game, an original game, a game that is epic, or a game that is not epic or even has a story. There are many facets, no black and white. It can be cut many ways. Many questions to be asked, and I can't do it all in this first post. I'll start by linking to a new article up on cube.ign.com.
http://cube.ign.com/articles/622/622870p1.html?fromint=1"The Revolution, Iwata revealed at the press conference, will actually feature simple titles like Otona no DS Training. But don't worry -- you'll also get big, epic titles like Zelda."
I want to say that what I want in a new IP is an epic game. I'm sorry, but that is my expectation from the new IP on REV. The purpose of making a new IP for me is to have a new character for a new character driven game. The purpose for me of a new IP is to tell a new story. Nintendo has shown in recent years they are not afraid to slap Mario on any gameplay oriented game completely unrelated to the gameplay found in real Mario Bros games. If they are making a new IP that is essentially a small, less traditional game like Animal Crossing centered less on story; they are not going to expand markets. The game needs to expand their user base to the gamers who own PS2 or Xbox. They need a new big character, with a new world with new rules. I expect the next Zelda games on REV, if there weren't any then I wouldn't even be thinking about buying a REV; but Zelda games are a given and I expect the next Zelda equivalent in the industry to be on REV. I don't care if it isn't a launch title as much as I care that it be a new original story in an original universe that tradtional gamers find palatable. Can it really be so hard to imagine a new epic game? Its not enough to put out an epic sequel anymore, you have to make a new epic. The NES saw the launch of so many original IPs compared to every system since it that it is unbelievable.
So I'm not just going to bitch; I'm going to be constructive and offer what I can. Here is an idea for an epic adventure game.
First I will give you as brief of a summary of the legend that inspired my idea as I can. And hopefully it will tickle your curiosity enough to read on. I live close to New Orleans and there is a legend that vampires were brought to New Orleans from France by 88 Casket Girls. France offered many female prisoners the opportunity to avoid their prison term by going to America to help colonize the territory. The 88 female prisoners were escorted by nuns on a boat and were to stay at the nunnery in New Orleans until husbands were found for each of the 88 women. When they arrived they each carried with them a trunk or luggage case that was shaped like a small coffin/casket. They became known as the 88 Casket Girls. Following their arrival the rate of violent crime in the city of New Orleans has historically been one of the highest in the nation. The legend is that there were vampires in their caskets that they brought with them, but when the caskets were opened they were empty. They say that the caskets are still kept on the top floor of the nunnery where all the windows are nailed shut with 88 blessed nails; and the windows still blow open. I would like to fit that story into the following.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/nosferatu.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/nosferatubw.jpgMy idea deals with a nosferatu vampire game. The above pictures are concepts for a rat like vampire character that has been thrown together by a group of scientists and necromancers Frankenstein style with parts from different monsters including a vampire and a werewolf. It would open before the character’s resurrection with the main character being impaled with a blade, dragged behind horses in sunlight (you have to worry about sunlight until you gain magic or cover to protect yourself as prolonged exposure will burn you like an ant under a magnifying glass), then you body is hung and you are torn limb from limb. The game would be focused on one large city and the surrounding country side (imagine rolling green hills with shepards watching over flocks of sheep grazing) similar to how The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask is focused on one city and the people who live there. Also like Majora's Mask the character's abilities are centered on transforming, but into shadow, fog, bats, a wolf, a werewolf, rats, and finally two evolutions of a dragon in the end. It would be similar to GTA staring a hideous monster who is seen as a plague upon humanity yet it would take place in a fantasy world with super deformed characters. The design I created is based on my want to see a vampire that is not glamorized. I want a vampire that is more like the one found in the silent film Nosferatu. I like the idea of a vampire that is more animal than man. I have been brainstorming with ideas for making the character more rat like, more bat like, more leach like, and more serpent like.
Combat would be as simple as possible partially like how in Mario you use your body to kill enemies; but like in Zelda too how you can pick up enemy weapons and use them. As a monster you have many enemies, but most are humans who don’t like you picking off their sheep or people for food. You are able to jump at all times in the game unlike Zelda and use your transforming abilities for stealth like certain areas in WW you have to sneak or how you use your surroundings to hide in shadows like MGS or Splinter Cell. You may be able to take out individual humans being a vampire and all, but if one has a fit and attracts a crowd you could be killed by a mob. There would have to be definable AI in humans who lack the physical ability to defend themselves so they need to be able to strategize against you in the game. As you progress you would gain new transformations. I see no reason the game couldn’t already be done on Cube hardware with Cube controllers. In the beginning of the game you would not be able to control your transformations or yourself as you transform into a wolf under the moon until you gain power in the game. You will be able to transform into a wolf and run faster over great distances and jump high and far. As a vampire you will be able to glide in the beginning of the game gaining your wings later. Until then you can turn to vapers, shadows, leaches, or rats and make your way to hard to reach places. You would be able to stretch your arms out like shadows and grab people from the darkness of an alley way. And your tail would be prehensile like a opposum's or new world monkey's allowing you to grab objects or characters or just hit them with the tail. You could suspend yourself with your tail while the character uses its arms. Many things are possible.
As you progress through the game you find out more about your past life and origins; and you must seek out the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Death, the Tree of Knowledge. There you find you were Cain, the bad seed, the child of Satan and Eve. Even later you find more about how things work when a devine being like an angel like Satan or God himself does something such as makes offspring they themselves are placed into the body of the offspring. Therefore the angelic body of Satan ceased to be, he was trapped in the body of Cain, the son of the woman he had fallen for. The final transformation in the game is into a great black dragon, with serpent like Chinese style body without limbs, there would be three jaws, and when the mouth opens seven serpent like heads come out. Before the final battle the seven heads would mock the Bible before to the armies of men at the place called Armagedon. Some heads would creepily sing Latin or Italian castrado gospels while other heads recited the words of Christ at the last supper.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/beastbw.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/demononbw.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/demon2bw.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/demon1bw3.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/angelblack.jpg Edit: So I'm going to add some stuff in, including a sequel idea. Later I'll try to figure out how to turn those addresses into links.
I guess I'll explain more about how I created the character. I saw the shape, the silouete of the character in a shadow one day; I see inspiring things in simple shapes like shadows or splashes of water. I began thinking of what the character was, who it was, if it was female or male, what it could do, etc as I furthered the design along trying to make it simple like Sonic or Mario, but with an adventure like Zelda. This was back before GTA and Halo showed that a mature game could be a system selling franchise. (By the way did I mention I want the game to be cel shaded with mostly grey scale coloring like A Nightmare Before Christmas so that the colors really pop, like the black and white scenes in Zelda TP) As I drew more on what the game was going to be about I began invisioning the character running through woods at high speeds with trees flying by at 90 mph, the character auto dodging anything in the way; and then the character comes to a high cliff over a valley and dives off turning into a stream of bats. Do you see how this game is inspired by gameplay elements from past games. The speed of Sonic, the jumping of Mario, the sword fighting of Zelda, the transformations found in SotN, Blood Omen, and Majora's Mask, the adventure of Zelda, the communication of Abe's Oddyssey, the stealth of MGS and Zelda, etc. You would be able to kill someone in the alley, take their clothes and skin (ala Leatherface or Buffalo Bill) then enter a human party in the guise of a wealthy gentleman. You could hear everyones thoughts so you don't have to stop to talk, you just look at the bubble above their head to read their feeble human minds. I really want to portray this as a very Milton esque anti hero; after all it is the devil himself, but there must be some tragedy involved in his story that makes us sympathize with him. Like, why would the god's greatest creation fail? Maybe the angels in the story were jealous of humanity. Why? Because the angels are all children forever. They will never grow old, they will never die. Is it the ultimate reward or the ultimate sin, at least in the eyes of Satan. Speaking of his eyes, when were they originally opened to all of this; that humanity was given something the angels felt they were deprived of (some humans would argue that after they die that heaven could be interpreted as getting your childhood back, to be a child again, perhaps forever)? I would make it so the story leads back to the beginning. The whole game you are searching for who you are; who you were, who you will become. The closer you get to the end the closer you get to the past. You find out that before you seduced Eve you yourself ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil within the garden of Eden. Thus there is supplied the reason the fruit is already forbidden in Genesis. When you ate the fruit the first time you were opened to the realization that you were the oldest of God's creations yet you had aged not past your first teenage years, sort of a tragic unwilling Peter Pan. And like Peter Pan; I don't remember if I already mentioned this but the world the game would take place in would be an imaginary land similar to Never Never Land, or Oz. I like stories like that, in which the world is seperate from our world and its rules, but at the same time completely inspired by our world though wholy symbolic in nature at times. That is how I think of Zelda some times to help me suspend my disbelief. Even though I would want the continent and surrounding islands to represent certain real world places like Venice, Paris, London, or New Orleans I would not try to replicate our world, only the spirit of it.
The casket girls also come into play one time when he transports himself along with other vampires to a new continent in small caskets filled with black dirt carried by the 88 casket girls. Vampires can't go in the water, so cel shading would work well with this game. Later in the game as you are able to fly the distance you won't need a boat ride to get from island to island. For most of the game though you will spend time underground during the day sleeping in dirt. You can use this ability to dig beneath the ground in combat too, pulling enemies under ground like in the movie Tremors.
So I have two sequel ideas, but they would actually be prequels, the first one staring Satan's most recent love interest and mother of his only child who you play as in the second sequel, er, prequel. The character he becomes smitten over is Little Red Riding Hood, who is a witch (and so is her grandmother). In the end Little Red Riding Hood is burned for being a witch by the people she grew up with. This ties in with the first game because the way Satan is caught, drug behind the horse, hung, burned, and mutilated is because he is getting his buisness on with Red. He has lost track of time, the sun has come up, and the villagers are out to "save" Red from the monster; and then Satan is destroyed, temporarily. Red absorbs some of his power making her even more potent; and she also carries his child. The action would be similar to the first game with simple combat, though you can carry multiple items/weapons, you can only have two out at all times, and you can only use one weapon at a time (technically you could use your broom stick as a third weapon you can have out at all times too). Red would be able to fly on her broomstick as if it were a hover board (but you can also sit on it like a bike), so you can be stylish while you play. Her greatest attribute would be her black magic powers. She could use witchcraft and vodoo to necromance raising and commanding armies of hundreds of the dead (like Pikmin). The second prequel staring their daughter is more of a western, leading up to the events of the game staring Satan. She would ride a mechanical horse and wear silver armor that gleams in the sunlight. The armor though is like Satan's shadow skin; it is her skin, it is alive and it evolves as the game moves forward. Rather than carrying a lance she carries a long wood and brass riffle with a leather shoulder strap and a blade attached to the end. She is a werewolf, her story taking a path more along the lines of Native American mysticism. Her powers would escalate to the point where she becomes a werebear. But it is her armor that transforms around her body, her helmet's vents become like metal teeth. Think, Once Upon a Time in the West meets An American Werewolf in London. Also I am trying to draw the three IPs around Arthurian legend, Christian mythos, Joan of Arc, the story of Beowulf and the dragon, and the story of Thor and the serpent.
Topic: The original IP thread (Read 18982 times)
