Ball of Game Ideas

Listening to the Big Ideas episode of A Life Well Wasted podcast, and reflecting on an episode of the Experience Points podcast, Taking Action in Open Worlds episode.

In the Exp Podcast, they talk about the size of the world of GTAV, and all the mini games, and how many hours people can dump into this game.  And then, on the other hand, they also talk about how the mini games are okay, but not that great.  But apparently there are a whole ton of them.  I wholeheartedly endorse the inclusion of bunches of mini-games.  Okay, so combine the idea of an open world game, with an idea for a 3d browser I'm lifting from my friend Ghost, with another idea I had when I played Earthbound and went to the Arcade, and I have a new nifty idea.

So, the Earthbound idea was that I wanted to be able to play games in the town arcade.  I thought that would be so rad.  Like, to move my character to a pinball machine and then play pinball.  Or Tetris.  Or Ninja Turtles or a clone of those games.  I don't know why, but I really really liked this idea.  And I know it exists somewhere in that era... maybe Legend of the Mystical Ninja...No, that's not it...Oh, the Gold Saucer did this in FF VII.

This combines well with the game mechanic article I posted the other day.  The mini game is a game mechanic I always wanted to see more of.  Here's another article on mini games.  Looks like I got my wish, too!  Animal Crossing lets you play NES Games.  But this is a different idea.

Okay, so here's the  idea.  It's for Console makers, Sony, Nintendo, Valve or Microsoft.  So, the browser in your console -- is a game.  Right?  So, you boot up your Wii Z (fictional game system from Nintendo) and you control your little Mii around in some funny in-game world.  Perhaps like Animal Crossing.  Yes.  Exactly like Animal Crossing.  So, in your Animal Crossing world, you can set up your sweet living room with a TV, console and a bunch of games.  Or you can set up an arcade room, where all the games are represented by arcade cabinets.  And you just have to pull up to them, and play the actual games in your library.

But-But-But, the game is also Wii-Sports, and you just have to go to the bowling alley if you want to play bowling.  And, of course, it's the magic inter-dimensional Bowling ally that allows Miis from all over the world to bump into each other online and bowl.  Of course, you can have your own private alley to play with your friends who are actually physically with you.

Right?  This makes sense, right?  The file browser is a game, with its own mini-games a-la Wii sports and Animal Crossing.  But on top of that, you can access and play the games you own from within the browser.So yeah, there's the idea:  Animal Crossing is preloaded into the Game System firmware, and you can access your video game library through it.  All the Social Media of Animal Crossing, combined with your Console Browser.  I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't done this yet, especially with the huge success of Animal Crossing.

-D


P.S.  Also, here's a goofy Animal Crossing/Sim City game idea:  It would be hilarious if one of the disasters in Sim City was that a Katamari would come rolling through your city, snatching up pieces of it.  Same for Animal Crossing... But like, if the Katamari was big enough,  you could just walk around like normal, because it would have taken your whole town as a single piece.