Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' arse!

So each day I try to come up with a basic game design idea before I truly begin the day. This normally results in me standing in the shower mumbling to myself and finally giving up because someone already made Thief, and it is the F------- GREATEST THING EVER.

Right…

Anyway, so today I had an idea that I actually like. I first began thinking about how the number of verbs you can use in controlling Gordon Freeman is less than the number you have with most action figures. Especially with ones with pull-strings and voice-boxes. This lead me to thinking about creating a decision tree for an entire level of Half-Life or something and declaring to the world that we can do better. I can see this is going to take a while so, in the interest of actually making a point, let’s fast-forward to the point where I start trying to make My Fair Lady into a video game.

Now at first I envisioned a game where the goal was to take a low level Eliza and upgrade her to a status where she can be passed off as a duchess as the ball. I am not sure if the time limit would be enforced, but there would be a series of activities she could perform at the players direction, leading to various mini-games that would result in a certain improvement. The feedback could be given to the player by taking her out on test runs to various tea parties and such. This makes it so the player has to look more deeply at the game to figure out their status, not just look at a stat screen and be like, today we need to grind this ability etc.

This game is all well and good but is basically is a pretty mini-game collection and I hate that crap. I just don’t know where the long run interest would come so I tried to move on, with the same idea of creating a game about social climbing in British society, but without the constraint of the My Fair Lady setting. I was now reminded of DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Now you may laugh, but I really like some parts of that game, and it is not because of the blasted boob physics. The core of DOA:XBV* is all about learning the various girls tastes and hobbies, thus allowing you to gift them items they will enjoy in order to win their favor. This will let you build a stronger team over time for the action part of the game. The gifting section is supported by other little mini-games which earn the player money to buy more extravagant gifts. Now in the case of DOA they give you all of the information about characters via the manual, but in my social climbing game you would deduce it from conversation with various characters and the surroundings of their homes.

Before I go too far let me flesh out the game a little more. You would begin the game by selecting a main character and their companion. It could be any mix of male/female and the relationship could be either they are family, friends or lovers. This would change the game a little as the experience of 2 young women trying to climb London’s social ladder would be different from, say, a young couple. You have a friend come along because I needed someone for you to practice dancing with and generally to provide advice and stuff. The main character could, of course, be new to London and staying at a rich relatives house, with the relative providing that role, but I thought letting the player set things up would be more fun.

Now you would start with an invitation to one tea party somewhere. This would be a very easy event and it would be here that you begin to make contacts. The process of making contacts goes something like: engage a character in conversation, find out about them, raise their favor meter until they invite you to visit them sometime. Then they would be added to the players list of contacts and when at home the player would have the option of sending them telegrams, gifts or inviting them to events. Initially the player would face sympathetic companions, but later characters would initially not favor the player and thus they would have to learn how to impress the hostile person through information gathered from other people via gossip. Parties could be arranged, with the player having to select where to have the event, who to invite (invite 2 people that hate each other would be a bad bad thing).

I am not sure if adding monetary concerns to the game would make it too complex, I really want to focus on social interactions in the game, but doing that all the time might be too much. Perhaps the player would receive an amount of money based on their overall favor level from friends, with the option to play cards or go to the races or something to potentially earn more. I would also like to add some factors dependent on sex to the game, so a female player would get different reactions from young men (potential suitors). You would have to have the option of getting married, but overall the game would be much like Pirates!, in that you would simply be racing to become as famous and popular as possible before you have to “retire”. When one game is complete the player could start again with the children of their last character. Actual time in the world probably couldn’t pass, so there would be an endless stream of people living in the early 1900’s I guess. Well, it is a game after all. No one would ever make this game, but I wish they would because Hellgate London is boring me to death right now.

*I just had to add that I might be the only one who played that game because they thought the favor manipulation system was fun, but it really was pretty awesome. The second game is horrible though, they upped the boobs to the point where you just can't ignore it and I refuse to play that crap.