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[Parsely]

Also it's iCrap only.

They're releasing an Android version.

[itisnotlogical]

A new collect-em-all mascot 3D platformer, like Mario 64 or the old Banjo games.

[SealyStar]

A new collect-em-all mascot 3D platformer, like Mario 64 or the old Banjo games.

For those who have been living under a privileged rock the entire last month...

[JoshuaFH]

I just had an idea, not for a game but rather for altered perception on how the classic "Easy/medium/hard" difficulty settings that we've all grown accustomed to and probably take for granted.

Basically, instead of the game asking for what you think is the correct difficulty for you, it instead asks for your age. <12 is the 'easiest' setting, 12-16 would be the 'medium' setting, 16-21 would be the hardest setting (just because at this point a player's coordination has developed sufficiently, they've grown up in the digital age, and probably have the most free time to improve) and then >21 slowly tapers off the difficulty to account for an adult's likely decreasing amount of free time due to this stage in their lives when they pick up full time jobs, start a family, and other concerns that compound a need for easy-to-pickup games.

The largest trouble I see for this system are those that don't fit into the stereotypical demographics, 30 year olds that are actually dead beats that play videogames all day and want the hardest experience possible. Children that are gaming prodigies. High Schoolers that are just mentally challenged in some way. The only way I could see to work around that would be to provide full disclosure upfront on how the system works, but then I'd feel the game designer is being too intrusive in how s/he perceives the game player's life.

It'd be cool if it could be stretched to include the content of the story as well. Where very young players would have the story presented to them in simpler words and the theming of the story would be less complex for younger minds to grasp; whereas with an older player, the story is altered to be have dialogue that is freer to be witty and complicated, and have themes that an adult could understand and appreciate more fully. I'm not talking about just things like violence or nudity, but themes that are down-to-earth and personal that might distress a younger mind, like the difficulty of starting a family, how friendship fades away as you grow apart, the death of a parent or loved one (not violent death, but rather through aging or disease, where you actually have very little agency in their fate), substance abuse, things of that nature.

Just an idea, though obvious creating a game that had a dynamic story like that would probably would far too large of an undertaking even for a AAA game.

[Parsely]

I don't think that quite works. There are people in each demographic who are good or bad at games. Being particularly older or younger doesn't always reflect one's ability at gaming. But you're right that kids tend to be way better than adults. I should know, working as a computer tutor at the library. Kids are never the ones who need help. Only adults, older people, and the occasional high school kid who doesn't know how to use a scanner.

[EnigmaticHat]

Vague idea but one I think could work well in practice:

Take a handcrafted story and put it into a more procedural game.  But instead of the full story being there every time, you have different story events happen depending on the conditions of the game, and there are multiple endings.  The actual gameplay areas are all procedurally generated although the general gist of them will follow what's going on in the plot, that way you can have a branching plot without having to handcraft a million different levels no one will ever see.  BUT, due to the randomness of the game, you can't possibly see the majority of the story content on the first playthrough.

So, to apply the concept to something like Xcom, you have a party consisting of unique characters that are the same each playthrough.  But its random which ones you meet, and they can leave/rejoin the party or die as the game goes on.  So alongside the main storyline, you have conversations that are triggered if certain conditions are met.  If two specific characters are in the party they have a conversation, if a certain character is dead at a certain point someone talks about it.  Sometimes depending on how these side plots are going options open or close in the main plotline.

Basically, it would be a way of adding a character based plot to a game like FTL or Xcom.  Each game would be sort of like fanfic for all the other ones; it would be the same general story but things would turn out very differently, and each playthrough would reveal new dialogue and story directions that weren't there in the previous ones.

[Bohandas]

Also it's iCrap only.

They're releasing an Android version.

Excellent!

[itisnotlogical]

A 2.5d shooter like Doom that does the "implied storytelling" thing that Valve does, except without the "stop having fun and listen" non-cutscenes that plagued Half-Life 2 (and HL1 to a lesser extent).

Actually, any sort of new 2.5d shooter would be alright. I'm surprised that I haven't heard of at least one, with "retro" being the default style of indie games nowadays.

[Devastator]

I suspect that what he wants is a pseudo 3d 2d game, like Doom.

[Bohandas]

A 2.5d shooter like Doom that does the "implied storytelling" thing that Valve does, except without the "stop having fun and listen" non-cutscenes that plagued Half-Life 2 (and HL1 to a lesser extent).

Yeah, Half-Life 2 had a lot of problems

[Bohandas]

I agree. Doom was 3d.

[Devastator]

Ahh, I suppose I should apologize for judging things as to what they actually are, rather than what I merely think they are.. This is 2015, after all.

That said, Ispil, you might want to read up on some of the techniques used to fake those sorts of effects.  If you have the itch, that can make for some interesting reading.

[Graknorke]

Well really every game is pseudo-3d 2d. Unless you have a holodeck or something.

[UXLZ]

Doom 3D was not, actually, 3D. At least world and movement-wise. Graphically, the art style it used was fairly convincingly 3D, at least in still frames or single perspective, if pixellated.

Think about it, the world is actually still in a 2D plane. There is no up or down. At the time it was a new perspective, sure, but ultimately the movement wasn't actually that different to something like the original 2 GTA games.

[itisnotlogical]

There was up and down in Doom though. There were stairs and ramps, and you could go up elevators and fall off ledges. You couldn't have a room on top of another room, meaning that the entire map can be seen from a simple top-down projection, but that's far too technical for me to say anything else about.