Design: Movie-Game

Sorry for the wait, but stuff happened on Tuesday. I really will try to keep a regular schedule to these updates - I'd like this to become a real, solid, ongoing blog by the time people actually start coming here.

Today I'm going to be writing about an idea that I've been tossing around in my head for a while. It's the idea of, effectively, playing a video game that is an interactive movie. Basically, you'd be watching a movie, but you could cut in and adjust things slightly as you progressed. For example, if you just set the controller down and watched the game (pressing A to move through dialogue, perhaps), it would form a cohesive plot - you'd end up getting one of the worst endings, of course, but stuff would happen - unlike most games, where if you don't do anything, nothing at all happens.

To clarify, you'd be able to do things like nudge objects slightly - perhaps hiding or revealing something to the characters. You'd be able to influence a character's decisions - things like deciding dialogue choices in typical games. Or during an action sequence, you could perhaps control a character directly, fighting off bad guys or what not. One potential way to go with the branching paths is that the game goes on regardless - even if you lose, or an important character dies because of your actions, you can continue to see exactly what happens to the rest of the characters. The idea is, after all, that you're controlling a movie - a movie that would go on regardless of what you did. And ideally, you'd be able to cut in and control things at any time - dialogue, action, whatever - you could adjust it as you chose, but as the next paragraph will say, not all the time.

Your ability to cut into the movie/game would be limited - you'd be able to control things here and there, but you would only be able to control bits and pieces, not 100% control 100% of the time. Though it would be interesting to have a game that you could choose just how involved you wanted to be - anywhere from 0% to 100% - but that's a post for a different time. Expect an eventual "automation to the extreme" post - the idea of having only limited control over aspects of a game has always intrigued me, and the idea of letting computers control most of a game is interesting as well. (Sidebar: Reminds me of the game that the Ellimist (of Animorphs) was playing with his friend at the beginning of "The Ellimist Chronicles" - a set of worlds, try to make yours the dominant one by the most subtle means possible.)

So to summarize, the game would have the following qualities:

-Have a plot that would reach a conclusion with no intervention from the player.
-Have the player be able to cut in at any point (though not necessarily for a long period of time) to adjust something - perhaps something physical, like a hidden object, or something mental, like a main character's attitude.
-Have the plot continue even if you made mistakes or "lost" - the show must go on.
-Intricate branchings of possibilities.

Another, slightly easier to justify, perhaps, way to flavor similar powers would be to say that you're a guardian spirit of some sort, sent to safeguard a specific person, or prevent/enable certain events. However, you can only adjust small things or people's attitudes slightly, things like that. This would also allow for a more standard plot progression (assuming that "the show must go on" would be a feature of a movie-flavored thing), in that if you failed in your charge, that would be a game over, and that would be the end of that.

This is just a thought I've been rattling around in my head. Don't be surprised if I come up with more ideas relating to this and post them later.