Game Ideas, Metamorphoses Books 1-3

1.      Cosmogony

Cosmogony is designed as a Real-Time-Strategy game in which you bring a society from its origin to the time of antiquity. As the player, you create a god which will serve as your in-game persona. You can define your god’s affinities (i.e. water god, food god, etc.) that will give you civilization certain boosts throughout the game.

The main goal of the game is to assert yourself as the dominate god in the pantheon. There is a pact among the gods, however, that keeps the gods from attacking each other directly. Therefore, the only way the gods can compete with each other is through the followers they have influence over. Throughout the game you will advance the civilization that worships you and eventually challenge surrounding civilizations for supremacy.

Your civilization can (and needs) to progress through four ages: Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. You advance ages by meeting advancement requirements and paying a certain amount of resources.

The graphics and sound in the game would progress from stylized and cartoony, to gritty, bloody, and realistic in order to reflect the shift from a peaceful, golden age into a war-filled iron age.

 You begin in the Golden age with only a handful of workers and resources to begin building your civilization. This age is simply gathering resources (which are limited to food, water, and wood at this stage), building structures and increasing your population. This age has no war between people, but there are monsters which roam the land. You must use special powers as a god to defend your people while you have them build.

 Next is Silver. The seasons begin to change in this age and with it, the resources available change also. More resources are consumed at different seasons and some are easier and harder to find (for example food is harder to find in winter). Also, animals can now be captured and harnessed to increase resource yield (i.e. oxen plowing a field instead of workers picking the field will increase income of food).

In Bronze, civilizations can finally build military units. Before they can do his however, the must mine the newly available metals in the environment. In Iron, enemy aggression is heightened and there are more powerful units and upgrades/structures available. At this stage, you can also inspire an “epic hero” to follow your will. This hero is extremely powerful and on top of doing more damage and having special abilities (determined by circumstance and at creation), can give stat buffs to surround troops.

This game would be designed for play on a PC or Mac due to the interface. It would be much easier to play with a mouse and keyboard setup than with a controller or touch screen.

2. Giant Smash

Giant Smash is designed as a Tower-Defense-esque game in which you must defeat hoards of giants climbing mountains. The player plays as Zeus/Jupiter and must stop the marauding giants from destroying his holy shrines on top of three adjacent mountaintops.

The only area the player can navigate is a circular, cloud “catwalk” that surrounds all three mountains. The player must navigate around in order to kill the giants ascending mountains. There is no “end” to the game, but the player receives a ‘might’ rating at the end depending on how many giants were killed before the shrines were destroyed. If the player massacres the giants before the shrines are destroyed, the rating will reflect the fact that the people still respect you as a god.

There are three types of weapons you can use against the giants. The first is your standard weapon which is the lightning bolt. This bolt is a one-hit, one-target weapon that does moderate damage. It can be thrown a long distance, much further than any other weapon. The second weapon is the thunderclap. This is an area-of-effect attack that does damage to multiple enemies in a frontal-cone. It has a much shorter range than the bolt and it can only be used a limited number of times during a given time span. The third is the rain cloud. The player has a limited number of these, and the randomly appear for pickup. The rain cloud can be used to slow the climb speed of the giants on a mountain for a limited amount of time.

This game would be designed for play on a PC, Mac, or console. The control scheme of mouse and keyboard and controller would work the best for the first-person style of the game.

The defining aesthetic looks of the game would hinge on weather effects. These would range from believable storms to heavenly ray-shafts. The player needs to feel like he is a god of the sky, and dazzling lighting would be key to conveying this fact.

3. Constellation Race

In Constellation Race, you play as Phaethon riding Phoebus’ chariot through the cosmos. The game is played from a third-person perspective and is designed for play on touch screen devices. The game has no official “end,” and continues to increase in difficulty until the player finally dies. The object of the game is to see how far you can ride the chariot before you succumb to the cosmos.

The game is not necessarily a ‘racing’ game, but more of an ‘avoidance’ game. The player cannot control the acceleration of their chariot, but must maneuver about the screen to avoid obstacles. The player maneuvers their chariot by simply dragging their finger across the screen; the chariot will follow the player’s finger. The chariot cannot turn on a dime however, so the player must keep in mind that an insanely quick swipe will not always get them out of danger.

The aesthetics of the game need to be visually dazzling and filled with bright colors. In the myth, Phaethon was no doubt amazed at the sights of the cosmos. The player should be made to feel the same. Constellations need to animated and fly through the sky as they attempt to mutilate the player. The art style needs to cry out to be looked at. The player should feel a dilemma with whether or not to look at the beautiful art and die, or glimpse it for only a second and continue to live.

4. Actaeon’s Vengeance

In Actaeon’s Vengeance, you play an alternate scenario where the player (playing as Actaeon) has a chance to cheat fate and seek vengeance on Diana for transforming him into a stag. The game is played from a third-person perspective.

The game is divided into two sections: stealth and vengeance. The game begins just after Actaeon has been turned into a stag for gazing on a bathing Diana. From here, the player must navigate through the forest to a magical pool that will return them to human form. However, the player must avoid Actaeon’s dogs as they make their way across the forest. There are two things the player must avoid: the dogs’ sight and smell. To more easily avoid a dog’s sight, the player can hide in the shadows of trees and wait for them to pass. However, when the player is in close proximity to a dog, the dog will slowly begin to drift toward the player, reflecting the dog’s sense of smell. The player can break this attraction by entering streams, ponds, and rivers to throw off the scent.

Once the player finds the magic pool, they are returned to human form. The player must then trek back across the forest, fighting killer nymphs along the way. Once the player returns to where they first saw Diana, they must fight her to the death and enact vengeance on her.

The game is designed to be played on a PC, Mac, or console because the control figuration would best fit those platforms.

The aesthetics in this game would primarily be used to reinforce gameplay mechanics. For example, when the player is hiding in the shadow of a tree, the colors would fade to give the feeling of hiding. If the player was being chased by a dog, the edges of the screen would pulse to reflect a rush of adrenaline. If the player were to enter water in order to lose the scent of a dog, the screen would flash a calming white to signify the coast has just become clear. These are just a few examples of how the aesthetics would reinforce the gameplay.

5. Apollo’s Hunt

Apollo has become infuriated by Cupid’s attempt to usurp his role as the premiere marksman. Apollo goes on a hunt to prove once and for all there are none who can match his skill and prowess. The game is a first-person shooter designed for touch screen devices.

The mechanics to the game are simple. Each level is played “on-rails” where the player has no control where he can walk in the environment. He instead, must focus on shooting enemies and powerups in the environment to maximize the score. There are a variety of levels, and each ends with a boss encounter where the player will have to shoot both offensively and defensively to survive. An example of shooting defensively would be shooting Python’s venom as it sailed across the screen toward the player. Upgrades in the game would include, but are not limited to, multi-shot, faster shooting, more damage, and elemental effects such as fire (which would do damage over time) and ice (which would slow the attack speed of the enemy).

The actual process of shooting would mimic the act of shooting a bow. There is a navigation “stick” on the bottom left hand of the screen and a ‘bow’ meter on the right. The “stick” is used for looking around the environment and aiming. To fire, the player must touch the top of the right meter and drag it down as powerful as they want to shoot. Depending on how far they draw it back, it will arc differently and travel a different distance.

The game’s aesthetics would need to be most pleasing in the sound department. The fact that the gameplay is repetitive in nature would necessitate satisfaction and not annoyance in these actions. The sounds of the bow shooting, enemies dying, and powers being picked up would need to be creative and pleasing to hear over and over again.