The first thing I thought of when you mentioned a rogue-like game in which your choices change your relationships and determine who lives and dies... was Until Dawn. It's fairly new to the gaming sphere, but the reason a lot of people are still watching people play it on Twitch (even if they already know all the twists) is because each person playing it can end with different members of the cast alive or dead. Based on your choices, everyone can survive or no one can survive. And the main reason this feels a bit better than the recent Telltale Game efforts (apart from Tales from the Borderlands) is because when you make a choice, you can't go back. There's no searching through your saves to try to keep that person from dying; they are dead for the rest of the game. As for how this would apply to a Hunger Games style-game, I'd see it as a mix of Lara Croft and the best parts of Until Dawn. You choose how you want to train in the beginning, you use those skills to survive the games, and it's possible you might make it to the end. Heck, based off your choice of alliances and knowing people's backgrounds, that might determine how the NPCs off each other and in what order.
I would change one thing about this idea: limit or eliminate character creation. For one, in depth character creation doesn't really flow well in Rogue-likes, but more thematically, one of the major ideas of The Hunger Games is that the competition is fundamentally unfair, because certain Districts are more privileged, and thus better fed, nurtured, and trained, and the best way to represent that is to have the District that your character comes from be randomized, and their stats be determined by a weighted rng based on their district - so, each District is more likely to have certain characteristics, but the lower-numbered districts generally have an advantage over the higher-numbered ones. It wouldn't make for a balanced game, sure, but that's why you don't make it multi-player.
"Do not try this cool thing" is a tough problem to get around-even the books and movies struggle a little bit with it. The roguelike idea is a very good one. Something I'd introduce as an mechanic is the "show" aspect. The main characters don't just have to be good at survival, they have to appeal to an audience. Do things the audience likes, and you get items raining from the sky. Become really unpopular, the game makers will actively try to kill you. If nobody's been fighting for a while, the game makers will do things to make people fight. Also, maybe including a secret victory condition if you manage to become really popular and ally all surviving tributes together.
An element of the Hunger Games that I always found the most fun were the bleak (if slightly overwrought) satire of broadcast television. And I think you could work that into a Sims-like game where you play as the "Game Master", your goal being to design, set up, and produce the most entertaining Hunger Games possible. This can be accomplished through punishing (but not un survivable) obstacles, manufacturing romance and conflict between the tributes, and engineering how the "audience" views the games (maybe tributes will attempt to "rebel" the games or make a scene, which the player will have to deal with). All the while you are trying to make terrible acts of carnage digestible bits of entertainment, and you score greater points with your audience if you manage to present it in a way that's exciting and blood pumping, but NEVER let the "Capital" audience see through the guise and uncover its banality. If done right, it could be better media satire than even what the books could accomplish.
Have you seen the ARMA III mod Battle Royale? it's basically this exact same premise built on top of Arma III, at least the mechanical part of the game. First you are dropped inside a vast arena without any weapons or equipment. Then you have to find resources that are randomly scattered around to stand a better chance at surviving. Lastly there's a "fighting zone" that get's smaller and smaller as the game progresses, if you go outside this zone you die. And it really works. The "realistic" nature of the base game Arma III makes the experience really tense because you know if you get shot once you'll probably die. Resourses are really scarce too so whatever you get, you have to use it only when it's absolutely necesary. These characteristics of the game force players to hide rather than to run around shooting everyone. And finally what ties all of this together is the fact that these are long matches and once you die you don't get to respawn until the next round, that's a pretty heavy punishment for death for a multiplayer game, so people actually care about not dying. The time based "fighting zone" mechanic also ensures that even if a lot of the players die, you won't be playing in an empty wasteland, they will eventually have to face each other because the game forces them to get closer and closer together. I wouldn't say it captures the "society is broken" aspect of the books but it's really engaging in a tense and suspensful way, without any character development or any storyline at all, and remember this is just a mod we're talking about, if something like this was made by a larger company with bigger production values it could be even greater. If you wanna see how it works just look up some gameplay videos, there are a ton of them, but make sure to watch the 30min + vids to really see how it works.
+Nico Gonzalez Man, the ARMA games always hold absolutely zero interest for me, but then there's always some really interesting mod that actually gets me interested. That does sound neat; add more narrative elements and I could really see it being similar to what the video suggests.
+Games As Literature Minecraft, H1Z1, Arma 2 and if I remember correctly Rust. Also have this as mods and in some cases as an official game mode. But deaths of others are not tragedy there.
+Games As Literature I recommend ARMA III, I think its story falls short but there is some interesting stuff going on in it nonetheless, with some good twists, playing with player expectations, inverting the tropes the series itself had come to thrive on in a lot of ways, and appearing to come to a tense climax but ultimately falling short. I think you would enjoy it though.
Before watching the video here are my thoughts. There should be single player and multiplayer. For single player the player gets to customize their own character and whichever district you choose gives you a certain perk. At first the game would be more of an RPG as you try to get sponsors and impress the media. Then during the games themselves be more like a Tomb Raider (new version) kind of game where you're crafting, finding supplies, and improving your weapons while trying to survive. Then of course you try to be the last survivior. For multiplayer, there should also be character customization but skip the whole sponsor stuff. Have a free for all with 23 other players in the Hunger games. Last one standing wins.
Going back to building alliances with the other tributes, I think it would be interesting if based on your actions, some would be gunning for you while some are your allies. Like helping one character that is inherently weaker gains their trust but makes you less of a target for the careers. Also, if the arenas could change over and over again, I think as a nod to the fans, it would be really interesting to play through some of the previous Hunger Games that was mentioned in the books. Finally with the new virtual reality games, if it was adapted that you could accurately feel and fight in the hunger games, it would add to the hate and rage towards the capital while also making you caution every move you make. It is sad that this game will probably never happen but it's nice to dream.
Procedurally generated battle royale in random environments. There'd be twice as many potential characters as districts, and each one would have slightly randomized personality mechanics (a la Civ's randomization of the leader traits) that govern how likely they are to form alliances, backstab on alliances, go for easy kills, submit to despair, act reckless, etcetera. Each character would need to have a lot of enemy chatter dialogue for you to overhear, and deaths should be presented like Shadow of the Colossus deaths. If you play it right, you should also be able to pull off something like what Katniss and Peeta did, though not necessarily the same thing. Dialogue options and survival/crafting mechanics would be a necessity. Also, you'd create or at least randomize your character and district at the beginning, for roleplaying purposes and also your stats.
That would certainly create the basic gameplay setup effectively, but in order to effectively adapt The Hunger Games you'd also need to make it all rather tragic and, arguably, un-fun. That's where things would get complicated.
I feel that "un-fun" is misleading, because fun is a vague term, and even vaguer when applied to things like video games. Shadow of the Colossus is fun, even though every Colossus slaughtered is depressing. Dark Souls is fun, even though every time I'm in a new area I feel so tense my hands start to shake. Even Metal Gear Solid and Spec Ops--two games you've mentioned as being anti-war--are fun. Ultimately, though, all a creator could do with something like this is facilitate meaning; they can't force someone to feel a certain way, and even if there's a story and the potential for touching moments, they'll lose their impact on repeated playthroughs, or just with skipping the cutscenes. After all, you mention doing it with inspiration from Roguelikes, but after a few playthroughs of those, people tend to ignore the story or give it only a casual glance. While this hypothetical game might have social interactions and alliances or betrayal, there'd be people who skip the dialogue and try to outdo their last playthrough.
I agree and would go even further and say that there are already many commercially successful games that might be called "un-fun". But they are still "enjoyable" and worth one's time. It's not always about sitting in front of your PC and grinning, having the best time of your life. At least I feal a more mature audience would really really enjoy such a Hunger Games adaptation. Even I, who generally is not a fan of roguelikes. But this genre would facilitate making experiences similar to those Katniss has in the novels and movies. It is at times like these that I wish I knew programming or had big money to fund such a game project.
I think one way to do it is doing a multiple POV game where when your character dies, you shift to another tribute I want a good Marvel Cinematic univers game
Telltale games, The Hunger Games. I do think it shouldn't be about Katniss, but someone else who didn't appear in the stories, probably during an earlier hunger game
I had an interesting idea. Use the Rougelike to simulate the 73 hunger games leading up to the events of the films. Each time you win or die, a year goes by. Your character is chosen based on which district they are from and your district is random each time. The district wealth and chances of skilled characters are affected by the winners of old games. Districts 1 and 2 have the Careers and it is more likely you will get a character with combat training for example. In addition it would show the affect of the games on varying districts. Winning one hunger game makes it more likely it get a stronger new character from that district but weakens the districts that lost earliest.
I think the game would need to have a way to defeat the hunger games, themselves... perhaps only possible by using the achievements of several completions of the games.
You've made me want to whip out a project. This sounds like a really solid concept and I think it is also feasable even for a small team - indies tend to have less of a struggle killing children (I'll take Binding of Isaac and upcoming 2Dark as my witnesses). I just wish I had the time T_T
Interestingly enough, some of what you said about survival and relationships with others in a limited time reminded me of Gods Will Be Watching. In case you don't know, it's a survival adventure game that tells a sci-fi thriller story about Sergeant Burden. Players had to make some brutally tough choices in intense scenarios. It was a matter of prioritizing efficiency and morality in situations like taking hostages, enduring torture/interrogation, camping in a hostile planet, etc. How far you go and what/who you sacrifice is an uneasy test of character not for the feint of heart. To me, the game did an excellent job communicating to me just how ugly it can be to save the galaxy. Every action had a price. I think if a Hunger Games game took after Gods Will Be Watching, it would be able to tell how discouraging the killings can be as a participant. Throw in permadeath in the intense, sacrificial survival and it could be engaging and even heartbreaking to play.
+Games As Literature If you do, it should take 5-7 hours to beat. Just note that the Original difficulty is randomized, so if you want to remove chance for a more fair playthrough, then switch it to Puzzle when you start a new game. Who knows, maybe playing Gods Will Be Watching could inspire some interesting ideas and discussions. :)
I was thinking up a quick idea while you were going into yours and I came to the same rouge like idea. Though I think you are overthinking how important death needs to be. There should be a basic premise of each system you said but it should still have a lvl up action gameplay feel. Since another main part of the series is developing skills. Instead of lvl up like in other games, you could train skills to increase stats. A lot like how Skyrim works. Random map generation is a must so you can't make a go to strategy that always works, but adapt to the map instead. Singleplayer and Multiplayer just because if everyone takes it seriously Multiplayer could take off as an Esport for a game like this. Hunger meter, energy meter, and personality meter. Personality meter is a single player only mechanic but it would influence how long you can interact with cpu controlled players to some degree. There would always be a chance for them to turn on you, but the longer you are in an alliance with them the lower the meter goes. It recovers while you are not in an alliance. However it would take a full day or 2 to recover it all of the way. When it is low it would increase the chance for cpus to attack you and for cpus to betray you. The phases would be political influence which would determine if a random disaster happens to you while in the field. Training which would be a fairly long period where you train what skills you want to use. The field is the most important portion of a match, obviously. The idea is that you can use the skills you trained to adapt to a strategy. Whether the strategy is to run away, hunt others, set up traps for others, hide or other mechanics not listed here. They should all be viable for victory for this game to truly be competitive. It is unreasonable to expect matches in multiplayer to have 16 players, so 8 player slots and 8 cpu slots for multiplayer matches would ensure that it is still competitive while having enough cpus to keep the match on track. As long as the developer really concentrates on improving the AI. The skills system would ensure that people seriously playing the game would just stomp trolls. The reason trolls are effective in the other games is because they don;t have such systems and everyone is always on an even playing field.This game is not meant to be completely fair with random generation. There would be more wildlife in the field than otherwise would normally be in the movies. However, nothing small or easy to catch would be there. This would serve to be a target to improve combat skills while in the field. The kind of power these beasts should have would be like a raid boss in WoW. If they are defeated you get food sources for a while, but the idea is that they are so strong that they never would be or very rarely be defeated. Concentrating on strategy, rouge like, and rpg elements would be the way I'd go about making a game on it. This way would make a quality game with both a single-player and multiplayer with infinite replay ability.
I've had similar thoughts in the past. I wonder, though, if you might include more of the main story by having a pregenerated "Katniss mode" with the same contestants and arena as the 74th and 75th games.
12 districts, If I remember right. The thirteenth is thought to be abandoned, though things happen later in the books... Also, not sure what you heard about the last book, but it does have a brave ending. Not an ending I'd say I like, but...
I say make a game with the survival elements of mgs3 but eating, going though inventory or healing should be real time. damage whether it be wounds, poison gas, bee stings ect should all be treatable but healing should be slow and take place over the course of days with injuries having an actual affect on gameplay elements (how you hold and use your weapons, climbing trees, vision, combat, speed ect) it should be possible to make alliances and engage in dialogue with random opponents but how they react to this is based on their personality and dialogue options you choose. death results in you being sent back to the previous day but there should be a "hardcore" mode that only give you 1 character. combat should be slow and clunky with different weapons having an eaiser time against others.
Honestly, I think what you have put up will never happen not because of media acceptance, but because the game developers would rather play it safe. Just think, you're a large developer like Ubisoft, and you get the license to a highly popular series like the Hunger Games. Are you going to risk making a character development-based roguelike, or an Arena combat game where matches take no longer than an hour, with added multiplayer? The games media will praise how innovative the second is (despite it being fairly traditional), but be skeptical of the other. Take a look at Star Wars Battlefront(the new one). It's an example of an extremely "safe" game having a lot of success. It's a bit of a shame, and yes, I think the media would probably have a few articles on it, but the game just wouldn't be made because it's too risky for the developer.
Some edgy dude leads a revolution against Big brother and blows the shit of everything in his way with dual shotguns and swords, lol (like wolfenstein the new order)
We can actually have the killing be fun as long as it is in universe. That is how the games are advertised in universe. It leaves the player with the knowledge that having fun like that is what a morally bankrupt society enjoys.
so this brings up a good question: why is watching children killed in movies and reading about them being killed in novels ok but its horrific in video games??
Since this game really is impossible since it would be about children fighting to the death in the wilderness, let's be as ambitious as we like while thinking about how to do this game correctly. A roguelike can be interesting, but I think that an immersive sim could be a better fit. Here's why. I think that part of the tragedy of The Hunger Games is that the children who fight in them are both victims and victimizers at the same time. They play the game because they feel they don't have any other choice, but in doing so, these horrible games continue for almost a century, one year at a time. Since the games ultimately depend on the actions that the children take, they have the potential to refuse to fight and therefore bring the games to a screeching halt. Even if they were to be executed for such insubordination, they aren't really that much worse off because the odds are already overwhelmingly against their favor that the odds of surviving the Hunger Games might be worse than refusing to fight. They can stop the system, but they don't because they feel powerless to stop it, and that is a key tragedy within the Hunger Games series. As an immersive sim, the most important part of the game would be to include opportunities for nonconformity, subversion, and even revolution within the game, but that they should be hard to spot. For example, let's say that the game includes the preparatory phase the middle of the book focuses on, the part where Katniss and the other competitors train and become celebrity icons in the weeks leading up to the actual hunger games. That section could easily play as an extended tutorial for your character, and maybe give your character some free stat buffs before the actual games begin (like I said, let's think about the ideal version of this game before thinking how to properly implement it). It probably wouldn't be obvious on the player's first play through the game, and would probably have to be hard to accomplish in order to make the game interesting, but depending on how you play that extended tutorial phase, it could be possible to inspire a revolution among the twelve districts like Katniss does in the book. If the player does everything carefully enough, then it would even be possible that after the Hunger Games start, they get cut short because of the revolution happening in the outside world, and the player becomes a hero or heroine. On the other hand, it could also be possible to comply to the hunger games, play them to the finish, and potentially win the games, win the food and supplies for our home district, and become a champion without ever knowing that you could've overthrown the games.
I don't think hunger games would work well as a narrative. Games like Battlegrounds and h1z1 king of the kill only work because they are multiplayer shooters with no narrative and are fast paced. a single player game would have pacing issues if it attempted to be like hunger games
I happened to watch this video while I'm on the initial Hunger Games book for the first time. I have to say, though, that I'm not very impressed with the material.
I bought the special edition with the statue and played it and loved it and cried a lot. I haven't done anything on it in the show yet, but I probably will someday.
I desperately want to play it. I'm a cat person who's very close to her pets. My favorite letsplayer played it and gosh I wish I had the right system XD It was the only time I've seen him get that emotionally invested in a game. I make giant plushies (...or I've made one and plan to do more) and am hoping to make a giant fully feathered Trico
The first thing I thought of when you mentioned a rogue-like game in which your choices change your relationships and determine who lives and dies... was Until Dawn. It's fairly new to the gaming sphere, but the reason a lot of people are still watching people play it on Twitch (even if they already know all the twists) is because each person playing it can end with different members of the cast alive or dead. Based on your choices, everyone can survive or no one can survive.
And the main reason this feels a bit better than the recent Telltale Game efforts (apart from Tales from the Borderlands) is because when you make a choice, you can't go back. There's no searching through your saves to try to keep that person from dying; they are dead for the rest of the game.
As for how this would apply to a Hunger Games style-game, I'd see it as a mix of Lara Croft and the best parts of Until Dawn. You choose how you want to train in the beginning, you use those skills to survive the games, and it's possible you might make it to the end. Heck, based off your choice of alliances and knowing people's backgrounds, that might determine how the NPCs off each other and in what order.
I would change one thing about this idea: limit or eliminate character creation. For one, in depth character creation doesn't really flow well in Rogue-likes, but more thematically, one of the major ideas of The Hunger Games is that the competition is fundamentally unfair, because certain Districts are more privileged, and thus better fed, nurtured, and trained, and the best way to represent that is to have the District that your character comes from be randomized, and their stats be determined by a weighted rng based on their district - so, each District is more likely to have certain characteristics, but the lower-numbered districts generally have an advantage over the higher-numbered ones. It wouldn't make for a balanced game, sure, but that's why you don't make it multi-player.
I agree. The "character creation" niche would be best-filled by that pre-game period when you train, or curry favor with the public, or make allies.
"Do not try this cool thing" is a tough problem to get around-even the books and movies struggle a little bit with it.
The roguelike idea is a very good one.
Something I'd introduce as an mechanic is the "show" aspect. The main characters don't just have to be good at survival, they have to appeal to an audience. Do things the audience likes, and you get items raining from the sky. Become really unpopular, the game makers will actively try to kill you. If nobody's been fighting for a while, the game makers will do things to make people fight.
Also, maybe including a secret victory condition if you manage to become really popular and ally all surviving tributes together.
An element of the Hunger Games that I always found the most fun were the bleak (if slightly overwrought) satire of broadcast television. And I think you could work that into a Sims-like game where you play as the "Game Master", your goal being to design, set up, and produce the most entertaining Hunger Games possible.
This can be accomplished through punishing (but not un survivable) obstacles, manufacturing romance and conflict between the tributes, and engineering how the "audience" views the games (maybe tributes will attempt to "rebel" the games or make a scene, which the player will have to deal with).
All the while you are trying to make terrible acts of carnage digestible bits of entertainment, and you score greater points with your audience if you manage to present it in a way that's exciting and blood pumping, but NEVER let the "Capital" audience see through the guise and uncover its banality.
If done right, it could be better media satire than even what the books could accomplish.
+Biran 53176 This is an interesting idea and unique take on the story.
Have you seen the ARMA III mod Battle Royale? it's basically this exact same premise built on top of Arma III, at least the mechanical part of the game.
First you are dropped inside a vast arena without any weapons or equipment.
Then you have to find resources that are randomly scattered around to stand a better chance at surviving.
Lastly there's a "fighting zone" that get's smaller and smaller as the game progresses, if you go outside this zone you die.
And it really works. The "realistic" nature of the base game Arma III makes the experience really tense because you know if you get shot once you'll probably die. Resourses are really scarce too so whatever you get, you have to use it only when it's absolutely necesary. These characteristics of the game force players to hide rather than to run around shooting everyone.
And finally what ties all of this together is the fact that these are long matches and once you die you don't get to respawn until the next round, that's a pretty heavy punishment for death for a multiplayer game, so people actually care about not dying. The time based "fighting zone" mechanic also ensures that even if a lot of the players die, you won't be playing in an empty wasteland, they will eventually have to face each other because the game forces them to get closer and closer together.
I wouldn't say it captures the "society is broken" aspect of the books but it's really engaging in a tense and suspensful way, without any character development or any storyline at all, and remember this is just a mod we're talking about, if something like this was made by a larger company with bigger production values it could be even greater.
If you wanna see how it works just look up some gameplay videos, there are a ton of them, but make sure to watch the 30min + vids to really see how it works.
+Nico Gonzalez Man, the ARMA games always hold absolutely zero interest for me, but then there's always some really interesting mod that actually gets me interested. That does sound neat; add more narrative elements and I could really see it being similar to what the video suggests.
+Games As Literature Minecraft, H1Z1, Arma 2 and if I remember correctly Rust. Also have this as mods and in some cases as an official game mode. But deaths of others are not tragedy there.
+Games As Literature I recommend ARMA III, I think its story falls short but there is some interesting stuff going on in it nonetheless, with some good twists, playing with player expectations, inverting the tropes the series itself had come to thrive on in a lot of ways, and appearing to come to a tense climax but ultimately falling short. I think you would enjoy it though.
Before watching the video here are my thoughts. There should be single player and multiplayer. For single player the player gets to customize their own character and whichever district you choose gives you a certain perk. At first the game would be more of an RPG as you try to get sponsors and impress the media. Then during the games themselves be more like a Tomb Raider (new version) kind of game where you're crafting, finding supplies, and improving your weapons while trying to survive. Then of course you try to be the last survivior. For multiplayer, there should also be character customization but skip the whole sponsor stuff. Have a free for all with 23 other players in the Hunger games. Last one standing wins.
The shadow of the colossi did a good job at making the death of the opponent a tragic event.
Going back to building alliances with the other tributes, I think it would be interesting if based on your actions, some would be gunning for you while some are your allies. Like helping one character that is inherently weaker gains their trust but makes you less of a target for the careers. Also, if the arenas could change over and over again, I think as a nod to the fans, it would be really interesting to play through some of the previous Hunger Games that was mentioned in the books. Finally with the new virtual reality games, if it was adapted that you could accurately feel and fight in the hunger games, it would add to the hate and rage towards the capital while also making you caution every move you make. It is sad that this game will probably never happen but it's nice to dream.
Procedurally generated battle royale in random environments. There'd be twice as many potential characters as districts, and each one would have slightly randomized personality mechanics (a la Civ's randomization of the leader traits) that govern how likely they are to form alliances, backstab on alliances, go for easy kills, submit to despair, act reckless, etcetera. Each character would need to have a lot of enemy chatter dialogue for you to overhear, and deaths should be presented like Shadow of the Colossus deaths. If you play it right, you should also be able to pull off something like what Katniss and Peeta did, though not necessarily the same thing. Dialogue options and survival/crafting mechanics would be a necessity. Also, you'd create or at least randomize your character and district at the beginning, for roleplaying purposes and also your stats.
That would certainly create the basic gameplay setup effectively, but in order to effectively adapt The Hunger Games you'd also need to make it all rather tragic and, arguably, un-fun. That's where things would get complicated.
I feel that "un-fun" is misleading, because fun is a vague term, and even vaguer when applied to things like video games. Shadow of the Colossus is fun, even though every Colossus slaughtered is depressing. Dark Souls is fun, even though every time I'm in a new area I feel so tense my hands start to shake. Even Metal Gear Solid and Spec Ops--two games you've mentioned as being anti-war--are fun.
Ultimately, though, all a creator could do with something like this is facilitate meaning; they can't force someone to feel a certain way, and even if there's a story and the potential for touching moments, they'll lose their impact on repeated playthroughs, or just with skipping the cutscenes.
After all, you mention doing it with inspiration from Roguelikes, but after a few playthroughs of those, people tend to ignore the story or give it only a casual glance. While this hypothetical game might have social interactions and alliances or betrayal, there'd be people who skip the dialogue and try to outdo their last playthrough.
I agree and would go even further and say that there are already many commercially successful games that might be called "un-fun". But they are still "enjoyable" and worth one's time. It's not always about sitting in front of your PC and grinning, having the best time of your life. At least I feal a more mature audience would really really enjoy such a Hunger Games adaptation. Even I, who generally is not a fan of roguelikes. But this genre would facilitate making experiences similar to those Katniss has in the novels and movies. It is at times like these that I wish I knew programming or had big money to fund such a game project.
The weeks up to the games after tributes are chosen would enable you to build relationships between characters to enable alliances...
I think one way to do it is doing a multiple POV game where when your character dies, you shift to another tribute
I want a good Marvel Cinematic univers game
I really liked this episode. It had so much passion that it leaked off my tablet. He looked really sad at the end of the video. I feel for ya buddy.
Telltale games, The Hunger Games. I do think it shouldn't be about Katniss, but someone else who didn't appear in the stories, probably during an earlier hunger game
I had an interesting idea. Use the Rougelike to simulate the 73 hunger games leading up to the events of the films. Each time you win or die, a year goes by. Your character is chosen based on which district they are from and your district is random each time. The district wealth and chances of skilled characters are affected by the winners of old games. Districts 1 and 2 have the Careers and it is more likely you will get a character with combat training for example. In addition it would show the affect of the games on varying districts. Winning one hunger game makes it more likely it get a stronger new character from that district but weakens the districts that lost earliest.
I think the game would need to have a way to defeat the hunger games, themselves... perhaps only possible by using the achievements of several completions of the games.
You've made me want to whip out a project. This sounds like a really solid concept and I think it is also feasable even for a small team - indies tend to have less of a struggle killing children (I'll take Binding of Isaac and upcoming 2Dark as my witnesses). I just wish I had the time T_T
A way around the killing children thing is to change the story a bit so the tributes are adults
Interestingly enough, some of what you said about survival and relationships with others in a limited time reminded me of Gods Will Be Watching. In case you don't know, it's a survival adventure game that tells a sci-fi thriller story about Sergeant Burden. Players had to make some brutally tough choices in intense scenarios. It was a matter of prioritizing efficiency and morality in situations like taking hostages, enduring torture/interrogation, camping in a hostile planet, etc. How far you go and what/who you sacrifice is an uneasy test of character not for the feint of heart. To me, the game did an excellent job communicating to me just how ugly it can be to save the galaxy. Every action had a price.
I think if a Hunger Games game took after Gods Will Be Watching, it would be able to tell how discouraging the killings can be as a participant. Throw in permadeath in the intense, sacrificial survival and it could be engaging and even heartbreaking to play.
+GiantTabby I've been meaning to play that, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Your comment makes me really, REALLY want to.
+Games As Literature If you do, it should take 5-7 hours to beat.
Just note that the Original difficulty is randomized, so if you want to remove chance for a more fair playthrough, then switch it to Puzzle when you start a new game.
Who knows, maybe playing Gods Will Be Watching could inspire some interesting ideas and discussions. :)
The Hunger Games would work well as a Telltale game.
I was thinking up a quick idea while you were going into yours and I came to the same rouge like idea. Though I think you are overthinking how important death needs to be. There should be a basic premise of each system you said but it should still have a lvl up action gameplay feel. Since another main part of the series is developing skills. Instead of lvl up like in other games, you could train skills to increase stats. A lot like how Skyrim works.
Random map generation is a must so you can't make a go to strategy that always works, but adapt to the map instead. Singleplayer and Multiplayer just because if everyone takes it seriously Multiplayer could take off as an Esport for a game like this.
Hunger meter, energy meter, and personality meter. Personality meter is a single player only mechanic but it would influence how long you can interact with cpu controlled players to some degree. There would always be a chance for them to turn on you, but the longer you are in an alliance with them the lower the meter goes. It recovers while you are not in an alliance. However it would take a full day or 2 to recover it all of the way. When it is low it would increase the chance for cpus to attack you and for cpus to betray you.
The phases would be political influence which would determine if a random disaster happens to you while in the field. Training which would be a fairly long period where you train what skills you want to use. The field is the most important portion of a match, obviously. The idea is that you can use the skills you trained to adapt to a strategy. Whether the strategy is to run away, hunt others, set up traps for others, hide or other mechanics not listed here. They should all be viable for victory for this game to truly be competitive.
It is unreasonable to expect matches in multiplayer to have 16 players, so 8 player slots and 8 cpu slots for multiplayer matches would ensure that it is still competitive while having enough cpus to keep the match on track. As long as the developer really concentrates on improving the AI. The skills system would ensure that people seriously playing the game would just stomp trolls. The reason trolls are effective in the other games is because they don;t have such systems and everyone is always on an even playing field.This game is not meant to be completely fair with random generation.
There would be more wildlife in the field than otherwise would normally be in the movies. However, nothing small or easy to catch would be there. This would serve to be a target to improve combat skills while in the field. The kind of power these beasts should have would be like a raid boss in WoW. If they are defeated you get food sources for a while, but the idea is that they are so strong that they never would be or very rarely be defeated.
Concentrating on strategy, rouge like, and rpg elements would be the way I'd go about making a game on it. This way would make a quality game with both a single-player and multiplayer with infinite replay ability.
I've had similar thoughts in the past. I wonder, though, if you might include more of the main story by having a pregenerated "Katniss mode" with the same contestants and arena as the 74th and 75th games.
12 districts, If I remember right. The thirteenth is thought to be abandoned, though things happen later in the books...
Also, not sure what you heard about the last book, but it does have a brave ending. Not an ending I'd say I like, but...
we discussed this at uni.. the idea of making it roguelike solves all the problems we had with it xD
I say make a game with the survival elements of mgs3 but eating, going though inventory or healing should be real time. damage whether it be wounds, poison gas, bee stings ect should all be treatable but healing should be slow and take place over the course of days with injuries having an actual affect on gameplay elements (how you hold and use your weapons, climbing trees, vision, combat, speed ect) it should be possible to make alliances and engage in dialogue with random opponents but how they react to this is based on their personality and dialogue options you choose. death results in you being sent back to the previous day but there should be a "hardcore" mode that only give you 1 character. combat should be slow and clunky with different weapons having an eaiser time against others.
Hunger Games would be an amazing video game. (Handled correctly of course)
I'm surprised you didn't mention a TellTale game!
"Heard pretty dismal things about the third" it's not a bad book. The other 2 are both better, but it's a good story and is worth reading.
Nice upload! :D
Honestly, I think what you have put up will never happen not because of media acceptance, but because the game developers would rather play it safe. Just think, you're a large developer like Ubisoft, and you get the license to a highly popular series like the Hunger Games. Are you going to risk making a character development-based roguelike, or an Arena combat game where matches take no longer than an hour, with added multiplayer? The games media will praise how innovative the second is (despite it being fairly traditional), but be skeptical of the other. Take a look at Star Wars Battlefront(the new one). It's an example of an extremely "safe" game having a lot of success.
It's a bit of a shame, and yes, I think the media would probably have a few articles on it, but the game just wouldn't be made because it's too risky for the developer.
How would it be an adaptation of "1984" to a videogame?
+elias contreras Ooh, interesting question. That might have to be a future episode. ^_^
Some edgy dude leads a revolution against Big brother and blows the shit of everything in his way with dual shotguns and swords, lol (like wolfenstein the new order)
adapting ghost in the shell stand alone complex?
We can actually have the killing be fun as long as it is in universe. That is how the games are advertised in universe. It leaves the player with the knowledge that having fun like that is what a morally bankrupt society enjoys.
the last of us pulled the "not fun killing" part pretty decently
As you mentioned, the unfortunate thing is that it'll never happen, or it'll probably end up being some boring licensed action/adventure title. :(
"but a guy can dream" killed me
so this brings up a good question: why is watching children killed in movies and reading about them being killed in novels ok but its horrific in video games??
Since this game really is impossible since it would be about children fighting to the death in the wilderness, let's be as ambitious as we like while thinking about how to do this game correctly.
A roguelike can be interesting, but I think that an immersive sim could be a better fit. Here's why. I think that part of the tragedy of The Hunger Games is that the children who fight in them are both victims and victimizers at the same time. They play the game because they feel they don't have any other choice, but in doing so, these horrible games continue for almost a century, one year at a time. Since the games ultimately depend on the actions that the children take, they have the potential to refuse to fight and therefore bring the games to a screeching halt. Even if they were to be executed for such insubordination, they aren't really that much worse off because the odds are already overwhelmingly against their favor that the odds of surviving the Hunger Games might be worse than refusing to fight. They can stop the system, but they don't because they feel powerless to stop it, and that is a key tragedy within the Hunger Games series.
As an immersive sim, the most important part of the game would be to include opportunities for nonconformity, subversion, and even revolution within the game, but that they should be hard to spot. For example, let's say that the game includes the preparatory phase the middle of the book focuses on, the part where Katniss and the other competitors train and become celebrity icons in the weeks leading up to the actual hunger games. That section could easily play as an extended tutorial for your character, and maybe give your character some free stat buffs before the actual games begin (like I said, let's think about the ideal version of this game before thinking how to properly implement it). It probably wouldn't be obvious on the player's first play through the game, and would probably have to be hard to accomplish in order to make the game interesting, but depending on how you play that extended tutorial phase, it could be possible to inspire a revolution among the twelve districts like Katniss does in the book. If the player does everything carefully enough, then it would even be possible that after the Hunger Games start, they get cut short because of the revolution happening in the outside world, and the player becomes a hero or heroine. On the other hand, it could also be possible to comply to the hunger games, play them to the finish, and potentially win the games, win the food and supplies for our home district, and become a champion without ever knowing that you could've overthrown the games.
I can't be the only one who thinks Gone With The Wind, Doctor Zhivago, and The English Patient would have been better as games?
I wouldn't be so sure to say they would've been better, but they would certainly adapt well as Visual Novels. Did you have other genre in mind?
Historical epics I guess haha
I don't think hunger games would work well as a narrative. Games like Battlegrounds and h1z1 king of the kill only work because they are multiplayer shooters with no narrative and are fast paced. a single player game would have pacing issues if it attempted to be like hunger games
Metal Gear Solid 3 minus the story could work as an analogous; game mechanics and world building.
I happened to watch this video while I'm on the initial Hunger Games book for the first time. I have to say, though, that I'm not very impressed with the material.
That kind of AI makes me think of Trico. Have you looked at The Last Gaurdian at all?
I bought the special edition with the statue and played it and loved it and cried a lot. I haven't done anything on it in the show yet, but I probably will someday.
I desperately want to play it. I'm a cat person who's very close to her pets. My favorite letsplayer played it and gosh I wish I had the right system XD It was the only time I've seen him get that emotionally invested in a game. I make giant plushies (...or I've made one and plan to do more) and am hoping to make a giant fully feathered Trico