8.14.2005

looking for new game ideas

Everything I've played in the last few months (since Psychonauts, which is an exception in every way, because it was fantastically perfect) has been crap. Utter crap.

So I've been looking at alternative gaming ideas that are sprouting up out there.

I'd give my left arm for another Majestic, which was an EA experiment a few years ago that I've ranted about before, cancelled because not enough people played it. It was an immersive paranoid environment with puzzle solving, where the game literally stalked you. You'd get calls on your cell phone, AIM messages, emails... I've never seen anything like it since. If any of you have seen anything like this out there in the world, please let me know.

Many people were scared off by the premise, but I fell completely in love. If you've seen the movie The Game, that's what it felt like. I love the invasion of privacy aspect of a game that won't be restrained to a program you can open and close. I'd get a phone call at work from a girl screaming that men in black were knocking her door down. It had its faults, but by god, that was innovative.

There's a clever looking game that I'm downloading now called Facade, where you interact in an open format with some AI that will probably be about as intelligent as Eliza, but hey, it looks interesting. It's a first person perspective "one act interactive drama". From their website:

"You, the player, using your own name and gender, play the character of a longtime friend of Grace and Trip, an attractive and materially successful couple in their early thirties. During an evening get-together at their apartment that quickly turns ugly, you become entangled in the high-conflict dissolution of Grace and Trip’s marriage." We'll see how it goes, I just want to see how it functions, and what the other characters feel like when I interact with them.

http://www.download.com/Facade/3000-7508_4-10414038.html?tag=lst-0-1

The state of gaming is a bit sad, because certain formulas are being followed. If you're on a PC, the game is an FPS or MMORPG. If you're on a console the game is car racing, FPS, GTA-style whoring and car stealing, or collecting gems. That's pretty much the whole gaming world.

I'm looking for eye-opening innovation in games. I'm looking for something that makes me think a bit, or surprises me. If you've seen anything out there I should be taking a look at, share it with me.

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