I did not draw this, google images did
Sometimes I get a feeling or theme stuck in my head. A culmination of different experiences that lead to a niggling idea or want. Through Penny Arcade I found the Joss Whedon’s free online mini musical Dr. Horrible (as I am sure plenty of you did) and then through Kotaku found an unusual flash game called Pandemic 2. I also saw the Dark Night which did an amazing job with the bad guys. All featuring the idea of villains. Dr. Horrible and Batman focusing on the actual human who is a villain and Pandemic 2 on the act of doing villainous things.
Dr. Horrible is a musical about a failing ‘Super Villain’ and his struggles with love and the respect of his peers. The thing that stuck with me was, (not just the catchy cheesy songs) but the conclusion to the story, which I won’t give away.
Pandemic 2 is a pretty horrible and sadistic idea hidden behind a simple interface and goal, to exterminate the entire human race with a super disease. Over time you evolve your disease to better spread and kill.
SO what I want is a game where you play the role of super villain in a large open and sandbox city where you as the player can go about being villainous. Games like City of Villains, Evil Genius, Overlord and even Black & White have dealt with this same idea, but not in a way where the player can take the initiative and formulate evil plans for themselves. Basically a huge open place for the player to concoct bank heists, freeze rays, diseases and all that. With a system in place that allows and encourages ingenuity and emergent ways to get things done.
Perhaps a goal of reaching #1 city villain could be the motivation, also having to deal with the city police and other heroes set about to stop you. The player should be able to create their Villain much like City of Villains. Eventually hiring henchmen to handle other operations for you, with a built in crime simulation too. So eventually the player can become a kingpin and manage many operations at once.
A system like Medieval 2’s campaign mode could even work. Think civilization but being able to have direct control over certain crimes.
Lets not kid ourselves… I just want a bastard simulator.
I really like this idea. It would be good to have it set in different ages aswell e.g. Victorian Age, Present Day, Future. Haven’t seen the Josh Whedon one yet, although it makes me think of that episode of The Simpsons, with Scorpio as Homer’s new boss when he moves to that new town for a bit. I forget the name or season of the episode, but it really is laugh out loud funny (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, scorpio is some arch villain in this episode but also homers boss - you really need to see it).
Great villain drawing btw, definitely how one should look.
1 | Continental Drift July 23rd, 2008 at 9:26 pmI think this would be a great idea for a game. There was a game {by an ex-Lionhead guy, I think his name was something like Demis Hassabis ?) called Evil Genius which went halfway towards this but it was always going to be limited (only 1 type of ray gun etc). It was basically Dungeon Keeper with a 60’s kitch feel (No One Lives Forever and the like.)
What’d you’d really want is a modular invention system to create various doomsday machines (such as a Ray Gun, then you could install components to either make it a laser, heat ray, cold ray, death ray…maybe combine them. A heat/cold ray which would presumably make an object room temperature.) but then a ray gun would have to be a static device so no good to rob banks, so maybe some kind of goon-portable spray gun with corrosive spray stuff but that wouldn’t been effective against large targets and so on. So you constantly have to tinker and adapt your gizmos to match the situation and mission in hand.
Also, the Simpsons episode your thinking of is called “You Only Move Twice”. At least, I think it is. My memory isn’t what is once was. Damn you, booze!
2 | Samorai July 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm