Theme Ideas
megabuster on 2012/05/06 04:50
of boomboomgamejam
Not my favorite on paper theme, at all. As someone who has tumbled their way through multiple science degrees I guess I've a bit snide at the subject matter. Nonetheless I decided to riff on it a bit.
I thought about inventors I like, and thought about basing the game around a really novel piece of technology. It would tie the theme in, by either having the protagonist as the scientist or having the tech given to the main character by a scientist.
But I really like to be less direct with themes. Thinking a bit deeper.
My most positive association with the theme comes from remembering the Mad Scientist labkits which used to be advertised during cartoons. I never had one, but they were always so neat.
Think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyQUvMT7tAw
Or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5u3ztcLKw
!
There's many more out there, and the ads are mostly priceless.
This led me down a road of 80s and 90s toys commercials. Including,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlIVx0pE9k&feature=related
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woL9mHC4WHY&feature=related
The Z-bots blew my mind, I had heard that term before and owned like 10 of those as a kid and they were some of my favorite little toys. But I had just received them as a gift or something and never knew the name, so awesome to find that out.
The way these toys were exposed used to be so neat.
So many of the narratives were about pulling you into the storyline as some sort of monster creator, robot maker, demon summoner, or whatever. These things gave a generation such great feelings of wonder, and excitement. The urge to collect! I just don't see it out there in the offerings today as much.
I had seen Skylanders a few days ago and thought that was about as close as there's been in ages.
I will set out to make a game informed by the sheer awesome that were these old toys.