Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Calling All Game Developers

It seems to me that the more the world goes to pot – WWIII threatening in Ukraine, another holocaust threatening in Iraq, Cloud storage going up in smoke – the more the masses are going to want to escape from the unending media misery by diving into digital worlds of their own making. And being an opportunist kind of chap I figure I could make a fast buck or two and thus escape the impending Western Armageddon for real by cashing in on this virtual life-hacking industry by coming up with my own digital games.

Having little or no hard programming skills I see myself more as the conceptual engine behind the venture and will be looking for a few code monkeys to actually copy and paste all the binary gubbins into a working software platform. Or whatever it is these Visual Basic nerds do when they’re not checking their emails on their Androids.

I’ve already come up with some amazing games concepts which I am convinced will effortlessly fly off the shelves at Steam or Game. Or even Argos.

Moancraft – people are randomly spawned into a world where they have to dig for the resources to survive by moaning and complaining themselves into ever deepening holes and pits of despair. The more they moan about their lives the deeper they drop until they either reach the Epiphany Layer or plough on through the bedrock of misery and drop completely out of the world to the sounds of cheers from the other inhabitants.

Grand Theft Otto – this is a World War II simulation game. Sort of. You play Otto, a blond despot who goes on a violent retail spree across Europe and much of the world (kind of shopping with menaces) and accrues as many of the world’s treasures and artefacts as possible. This is a sandbox game where you can drive the vehicle of your choice (a tank is a good option) and do pretty much whatever the hell you like, destroy what you like and kill whom you like. Imagine a pre-United Nations world unfettered by any kind of global moral compass. Or if you can’t imagine that read the newspapers and imagine it’s the real post-United Nations world. There is very little difference. On the bright side your tank is very shiny. With the blood of countless innocents. And you can give your avatar a very severe moustache. Older version of the game may also be available: Grand Theft Ottoman.

Skyeram – set on a sprawling but illogically tiny Scottish island you play a male sheep who battles dragons, runs around through vast underground burial cairns fighting the undead and who frequently dies by jumping off massive cliffs whose height you have totally miscalculated. You can either join the Blue Coat faction and fight for independence or join the Old Empire and fight to keep the masses under the unthinking yolk of traditional oppression. Or you could just kill everybody and mess up every quest contained within the game as you say no to life both real and virtual and submit yourself to solipsistic armchair autocracy.

Other games currently in mental development are:

Assassin’s Crud – an assassin with OCD cleans all his weapons daily and collects all the resultant smeg, blood and gristle and stores it in a jar that he keeps on permanent show on top of his highly desirable Venetian sideboard.

BO Shock – a man who hasn’t bathed for 17 years shuts down a chemical weapons plant by wandering through the front doors by accident and rubbing himself off against an air conditioning vent.

Unreal Tourniquet – you have to invent the most unlikely and useless bandages possible. The player with the most resultant deaths (frags) wins. Ingredients will include Blue-tack, a fax machine, a nude photo of Jennifer Lawrence and a Muller Crunch Corner.

Super Mario Bros (Real Life Edition) – 2 normal plumbers come round to your house, overcharge you for fixing your blocked pipes and then freak out when you show them your pet terrapin.

Now don’t worry guys, there’s plenty more where they came from – I’ve hit a rich seam – there’s more than enough to go round. If anyone is interested in coding these up just PM me on Facebook. Or Pinterest. Or Twitter. Or some other social networking platform that I am currently not allowing to connect me to the outside world.


19 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

The male sheep one has potential. You would have thought it had no chance against the dragons, but a ram has horns and dragons don't like it up 'em. You should also consider a game called "Beardcraft", where the bearded hero is mocked, jeered and insulted by everyone he meets, but just grins at them like a smug git, causing his beard to grow in length.

Steve said...

Gorilla Bananas: hmm. You seem obsessed with my beard. Is this a case of beard envy? Were you mocked by the guitarists from ZZ Top as a young primate?

London City (mum) said...

Skyeram.
Brilliant. Still chuckling to myself.
Am going to have weird dreams tonight. All you fault of course.

LCM x

Steve said...

LCM: another ambition crossed off my bucket list. ;-)

Being Me said...

(You forgot LinkedIn... and it will hunt you down for that)

I'd like to see/play Assassin's Crud (which I nearly just typed as Aladdin's Crud - which is probably another game worthy of your consideration)

Steve said...

Being Me: Aladdin's Crud? Euw! After thousands of years there's gonna be a helluva lot of crud in that lamp...!

Rol said...

Enrolment week at college - I've bgeen battling some BO Shock myself.

As for your Super Mario Brothers (Real Life Edition) - the first few rounds should involve trying to find a plumber who's not too busy and then staying in all day waiting for him to turn up. Extra points if you don't end up pacing holes in your carpet.

Steve said...

Rol: I'm guessing we're going to have to factor copious tea breaks into the gameplay too. Hmm. This could end up being completely open ended play.

English Rider said...

What would you call a game wherein someone of warped mind, with too much time on his hands,sat around and thought up twisted game scenarios?
You did make me smile:)

Steve said...

English Rider: hmm... sounds like some kind of real life simulator. I don't think that type of game would really take-off.

Marginalia said...

Are the police/social services knocking on your door? Do you have police/social services in your Royal Borough?

I'm drawn to Skyeram - me and Adele have this thing going on - but... if you're a male sheep all you'd be thinking of is shagging or being shagged. Frankly little dramatic development. Unless you have this innocent policeman...

Steve said...

Barry: police and social services are indeed knocking on my door - demanding that I unlock it and let them out.

Fredulous said...

I can't wait for the DLC.

Steve said...

Fredulous Yo: OK. Techno-fail on my part. I had to Google DLC.

The Sagittarian said...

Crikey Steve you may well have some good ideas there...

Nota Bene said...

Yes. I think you grasped the nettle there. I suggest we have an ongoing strategic discussion about future gaming scenarios which we can run up the flag pole and see if they fly or croak like the frog on the lilly pad of life. Obviously I'm submitting my application for strategic director of your venture

Steve said...

Amanda: I'm full of them. At least I think that's what my wife said.

Nota Bene: cool. I need a blue sky engineer wallah thing.

Fran Hill said...

These made me laugh! I don't play computer games although my friends try to make me, sending me links to Candy Crush Saga or whatever it's called.

Steve said...

Fran: Candy Crush? I've only just discovered Angry Birds.