I often have an idea for a game that keeps coming back to me over and over again. I’ve decided to start writing these down to train myself on how to articulate gameplay ideas.

To that end I am starting a new recurring feature on this blog: Game Idea of the Week. Okay, sure, it’s not a very catchy name, but it gets the idea across in five words. Starting today, my goal is to write down at least one game idea every week. The description will probably be no longer than a paragraph; but if I really like one of the ideas I may flesh it out to a full page or more.

Without further ado: The Wild. The Wild is a game that takes its inspiration from the lost-in-Alaska-after-my-plane-crashed-into-an-icy-lake genre. The player takes control of a small party of survivors who must attempt to make their way home from the crash site. The terrain is randomly generated, yielding a different game each time. The player is presented with a map once, at the beginning of the game, but they have to work from memory while playing. The characters’ equipment consists of whatever the player salvages from the rapidly sinking plane in an action mini-game at the beginning. Gameplay is from a top-down or isometric viewpoint and falls into the RPG genre. (i.e. characters gain experience to increase skills, etc.)

The player is primarily concerned with trying to keep the characters alive and must balance activities like hunting for food, gathering firewood, building shelter, and making progress home with a limited supply of energy. Characters’ skills and attributes influence how much energy they must spend to complete various actions.

Periodically a larger event occurs, which may involve a combat encounter (such as with a wild animal) or a mini-game (for example, trying to flag down a passing search helicopter). The climax of the game has the player facing a nemesis which was introduced in a previous encounter. This nemesis could be a member of the party or a wild animal, such as a bear. Emphasis is on a game that can be played to completion in a few hours, but with strong replayability due to customizable characters and randomly generated terrain.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Game Idea of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.