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a nice game idea

Elwro

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I found that here: http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/team_teamprofile.htm . Looks like this Mike Lipari has a fine idea for a game:

"
A while back I had an idea for a game that starts with you waking up in bed in a hotel. You do what you want, wander around, take the elevator to different floors, break into other people's rooms and see what's going on there, or perhaps try to get past the police who you find preventing anyone from leaving the hotel.

After 30 minutes of this, the hotel explodes and collapses killing everyone inside, including you. After the explosion cutscene plays, it begins to rewind and you see flashes of important people and places in the hotel at times leading up to the explosion and then you wake up back in your bed in the hotel with this whole Groundhog's Day thing going on.

The idea is that the hotel is a closed system with completely dynamic actors moving through it who, if left to their own devices, bring about the destruction of the hotel. The main goal of the game is for you to interact with the world and these actors so that their combined action produces an acceptable result.

For example, you push all the buttons in the elevator thus altering the inter-floor transit for all actors in the game for a short period so at 3:17 when a man with a bomb in his suitcase gets into the elevator he finds himself sharing it with an off-duty police officer instead of entering it alone. However you can choose to do whatever you want. You can stay in your room and watch porn for your half hour of life (though the next half hour it will be the same show). You can explore the hotel finding out more about your fellow guests (like the congressman and his mistress in room 312 (and his rival's private investigators in room 314)).

The game is about exploring a world that is not large, but incredibly complex, and learning how to interact with it to produce your desired results. Its not exactly the game for everybody, but I'd love to play it, even if I have to make it to do so."
 

Spazmo

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Ideas can be copyrighted, you mook. It's called intellectual property. I can imagine why you're not aware of this. Probably nobody's ever wanted one of your ideas in the first place.
 

Trash

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What an incredible idea. As a game it would be a great innovative and original idea. But think about the complexity of it all, I really wonder if it can be done at this stage.

Though I would love to see someone try. :D
 

HanoverF

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An idea that some people have allready had. Last Express (and even way back in The Colonel's Bequest) have mystery elements where you have to be in the right place at the right time to interact with someone, or something, or witness an encounter. If I remember correctly Last Express even had an option where you could rewind time and replay a chapter.
 

Elwro

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HanoverF said:
r. If I remember correctly Last Express even had an option where you could rewind time and replay a chapter.
It did. And the game was sooo cool. Unique style.
 

suibhne

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HanoverF said:
An idea that some people have allready had. Last Express (and even way back in The Colonel's Bequest) have mystery elements where you have to be in the right place at the right time to interact with someone, or something, or witness an encounter. If I remember correctly Last Express even had an option where you could rewind time and replay a chapter.

Last Express = one of my favorite games. I still have it installed, and I'm looking forward to replaying it now that it's been a few years.

The game had a fairly complete system of real time, actually passing as you played the game. (One of the coolest situations was a genuine violin recital, performing a Cesar Franck piece in real time and occupying several of the key characters on the train; you can sit and listen to the entire piece [in a pretty good performance, in fact - my opinion as a classical musician], or you can use that time in other ways - to investigate the cabins vacated by characters attending the recital, for example.) Characters would react in different ways depending on your actions. Sure, it had limitations - it was all scripted rather than determined dynamically by AI - but it's probably the closest achievement to the idea outlined above. And the story, despite being a bit uneven, was downright cinematic, combining the occult with pre-World War I politics and international espionage. The ending (i.e., the ending I received, out of several possibilities) hit me with the same force as the movie at the conclusion of Fallout.

On top of all that, it runs under Linux. :)

It's an "adventure game," not an RPG, but I highly recommend it.
 

Otaku_Hanzo

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This reminds me of a game I played back in the day on my Commodore 64. For the life of me I cannot remember the name, but you were a PI on a Hindenburg style zeppelin where a big social party was being held. There was a murder and you had to investigate it. The game was in RT and people wandered around doing their own thing while you traipsed about trying to solve the mystery. The wicked part about it, was you were the only person aware of the murder, other than the killer of course, and you had so much time to figure out who did it before the zeppelin reached it's destination. It was an interesting game really. Ultima I style graphics and lots of text.
 

Megatron

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I was thinking of something similair, but with a whole town. But that'd be too complex.

It'd have to be a busy hotel though, else it'd be boring. After going into some peoples rooms and killing people, there wouldn't be much else to do. It's a bit like a level in Hitman: Codename 47, where you had to work around somones schedule in a hotel.

Mabye instead of a guy with a suitcase, it could be a chain of events that end up blowing up the hotel. A guy with a suitcase could be a red herring as it's so cliche, but perhaps he accidently leaves his suitcase behind, making him late and missing seeing something malfunction, so he doesnt call an engineer etc.

There also could be other events to make it intresting like mabye a murder, a guy whose wondering wether or not to kill himself, a woman choking on some food etc. It's up to you wether to help them. Also some near-misses could happen, like a guy who would trip out of the window, but it's closed. So you could decide wether to cause chaotic events.
 

Sharpei_Diem

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For some reason this whole conversation stirred up memories of playing that old game Asylum (I think that's what it's name was) - where the object was to break out. Weird game, never did beat it, though I'm horrid at adventures (Oh, i shouldve guessed that i had to give the egg the egg to the horse, so i could retrieve the lipstick, in order to dress up the dog, which opens up the room with the ruler that I need for....)

Anyone else kinda remember that one?
 

Greenskin13

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Sharpei_Diem said:
For some reason this whole conversation stirred up memories of playing that old game Asylum (I think that's what it's name was) - where the object was to break out. Weird game, never did beat it, though I'm horrid at adventures (Oh, i shouldve guessed that i had to give the egg the egg to the horse, so i could retrieve the lipstick, in order to dress up the dog, which opens up the room with the ruler that I need for....)

Anyone else kinda remember that one?

You mean Sanitarium? That game throughly freaked me out.
 

suibhne

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Hmm - like that Star Trek:TNG ep where the Enterprise explodes in the opening scene....
:lol:

This also reminds me of a Stanislaw Lem novel, The Chain of Chance, where a detective investigating a crime discovers by the end that everything was simply the result of an extraordinarily complex chain of seemingly chance events (and chemicals) interacting with each other, and that the only identifiable perpetrator is the complexity of high-technological society.
 

suibhne

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OT, but my favorite Lem novel is definitely His Master's Voice. It centers around SETI and it's rather slow, but if you liked Solaris you might find it diverting.
 

Zetor

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Cyberiada is teh win. If you haven't read it yet, read it NOW. Seriously.

:P

Obligatory ontopicness: I remember a C-64 game called "Crime Time" that was something like the original idea in the thread... you woke up in a hotel with no memory of last night and soon found out that you were being framed for murder and had to find the real killer before the cops came and arrested you. That had 'NPC schedules' as well [I remember a guy playing a chess game], though it was sort of limited and mostly depended on you doing the appropriate things like in a standard adventure game. [ie. you break the shower -> the receptionist goes to check it out -> you have some time to do stuff in the lobby] There WAS a time limit, though.


-- Z.
Stanislaw Lem fanboi
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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Sanitarium was quite fun for me at the time. The worst part, i believe, were the puzzles, which, if i recall correctly, had no indication in-game as to how be solved. I think it was the first game i had to look up a walktrough.
 

Elwro

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suibhne said:
This also reminds me of a Stanislaw Lem novel, The Chain of Chance, where a detective investigating a crime discovers by the end that everything was simply the result of an extraordinarily complex chain of seemingly chance events (and chemicals) interacting with each other, and that the only identifiable perpetrator is the complexity of high-technological society.
The Polish title would be imo best translated simply as "The Investigation" - wouldn't suggest anything.
Cyberiada is a must, surely. "Fiasco" is a great SF book with a perfectly crafted ending.

Speaking of Sanitarium, I found puzzles to be easy, but the game was buggy on my computer - I couldn't for example change the vinyl records during one chapter and had to send my saves to a friend. The game was very original and had a great atmosphere. I you can, try to get it somewhere. It's not too long, but it's worth the money it would cost nowadays.
I think my favourite part was when you were playing as a small girl in the abandoned house...
 

taks

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there was also a star trek: tng episode where the away team ends up in some sort of freakish casino based on a novel. they find out the place is doomed and must find a way to save it. i'd say that's a very similar idea...

mark
 

suibhne

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Elwro said:
The Polish title would be imo best translated simply as "The Investigation" - wouldn't suggest anything.
Cyberiada is a must, surely. "Fiasco" is a great SF book with a perfectly crafted ending.

Well, not being a Polish speaker, I couldn't really analyze the English title. :wink: But I agree that Cyberiad is teh 0wn or, uh, whatever. Wonderful stuff. The only thing I didn't enjoy quite so much from him was Eden, which I found to be rather tossed-off, but I've read nearly everything he wrote. So nice to be in a Lem-friendly forum!
 

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