Alright, so I had a slow night at work and it got me thinking about brawler game ideas. A lot of these are actually years old, but I want to jot them down here for record keeping and to allow feedback.
Fortress of Fantasm 2First of all, I'm finding that I deeply want to do a remake of my Flash brawler,
Fortress of Fantasm. It is simultaneously the game that I am most proud of and most ashamed of, some parts were great, some parts were terrible. There were a bunch of things I never got around to and a lot that I could do better now. (and holy shit, that was 7 years ago) Among my plans was to at least add a 3rd character, a knight with a spear. At the beginning of the game, you'd pick 2 of the 3 characters to go romping through the fortress. (at one point I had vague ideas for at least 18 characters, but I don't think that's a great idea now)
While I don't necessarily want to make a
hentai remake, I don't see why I couldn't. I probably wouldn't have the sort of mid-battle rapings that you usually get from action hentai games. Besides that the inherent conflict in wanting to see porn and not wanted to get caught, I think that spoils the action, I'm either in action-mode or watch-porn mode and switching between the two is jarring. One thought is that defeated enemies might occasionally pass out instead of explode, and you can fuck them after combat to restore health or mana or whatever. Mechanically, the same as if they dropped bonuses when defeated.
Similarly, hentai remakes of Space Amazon Brawler and AxeQuest might be on the table.
Exotic WeaponsI enjoy researching history, and I often find exotic medieval weapons that I would love to see in a fighting video games. It's not a game idea on its own, but as I make other ideas, I'm going to be looking for ways to work these in.
Top of my list right now is a genuine war hammer, with a spike, pick and pronged hammer:
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
One of the things I read about them is that the spike and pick had a tendency to get stuck in their victims, so it was a strategic decision for the combatant to use the more deadly spikes and risk lodging the weapon into them. In a brawler game, I could do a % chance that a pick attack does a special command-grab with a lengthy recovery time. I might use a pole hammer instead of a spear for the proposed knight character in Fortress of Fantasm 2, but I'm not sure I want that much level of detail in FoF's combat system.
Other exotic weapons include the falx, scissor, crook, bill, spetum, satsumata. The falx in particular would make a cool weapon for a sword & sorcery barbarian.
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
Africa ThemeI want to make a game set in African fantasy, in the way in which we often see games set in European and Japanese fantasy. Africa's got a lot of cool weaponry and fairy tales that I'd like to explore.
Weapons:
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
A lot of African fairytale or mythology or legend or whathaveyou involves witches, vampires or werecreatures that can hide in plain sight. I fondly remember a news story about
a man who had been trying to rob a car transformed himself into a goat to escape, so the resulting goat was arrested. And sure, that's kinda silly, but I like the idea that magic is still alive and well and a simple car thief could turn out to be a wizard in disguise. Another example is the Kishi, a monster that looks like a handsome man, but has a hyena's face growing from the back of his head. The kishi seduces young women and then eats them with the hyena head, a perfect fit for an urban environment.
So my plan is to have the African fantasy game take place in an urban setting. Depending on the scope of the game, it might be like an exorcism anime where a secret society of psychics are trying to keep the city safe from supernatural predators, or it might switch between big cities and wilderness adventure like Final Fantasy.
India ThemeNo specific idea, but India also has a lot of cool mythology and medieval weaponry that merit an adventure. In the past I considered doing some kind of adventure about the life of
Shivaji, or a version of the
Ramayana, but it would be in bad taste to pornify these things. I'm sure I could find something to work with what with the
honest-to-god sex temples and
apeshit baliwood movies. One of the distinctive things about Indian mythology is that it involves a lot of fantasy races, similar to elves and dwarves in European mythology, which you don't always get, so it would behoove me to utilize peoples like naga, vanara, rakshasa, etc.
Gang DynastyA
really old idea of mine that I've never gotten around to was to make a game set in modern times using kungfu weaponry. Story behind this is that the government or whatever has successfully banned all firearms, but swords and spears and whatnot are still okay. The local crime lords say, alright, sure, guns are for pussies. Possible big reveal is that you're actually on a city-ship floating in space and guns would risk blowing a hole in the side. Another "more realistic" idea is that qigong has reached such a ubiquitous level that guns just aren't that useful. I really like the Empires expansions of Dynasty Warriors, so I might include some sort of strategic aspect where you are trying to take over and control various parts of the city. Although this wasn't in the original idea, I might do Gang Dynasty with anthro characters because I feel like I don't have enough anthro character synopsis ideas.
Critterpocalypse XAnthro Gang Dynasty reminds me of
Critterpocalypse, a false-start brawler about North American animal anthros (coyote, buffalo, alligator, bald eagle, prairy dog, sidewinder, etc) that fight over a post-apocalyptic hellscape using improvised weapons, like crowbars, broken bottles, baseball bats, etc. Part of the original idea was that there are 3 size classes, big, medium, small, so for example, a buffalo would be huge and use something like a stop sign, while a prairy dog would be tiny and use something like a brass knuckle. This is a fun idea for brawlers, but difficult for porn, and the whole concept runs into the difficulty of doing multiple scenes with multiple combinations of characters.
BosstraliaIn the same vein, I had an idea about Australian anthros living a happy carefree life until they get invaded by aliens (robotic versions of invasive pests in Australia, pigs, rabbits, cane toad, etc). The Bosstralians fight back using weapons based on Aboriginal and other Polynesian weapons, many of which are pretty fucking cool:
Spoiler (click to show/hide):
Unfortunately, similar pitfalls as Critterpocalypse, my primary desire would be to include lots of different animal characters, lots of different weapons, and this creates a lot of work when it comes to multiple combinations.
South America, you're on your own.
RPGMaker ThemeNot too long ago, I was musing over the idea of updating RPGMaker class/characters using 3D prerenders. I realized that I still kinda like that idea, even though the RPGM community has been rubbing me the wrong way, so why not do it as a beat 'em up game? I would still probably want some hommage to JRPGs, I'll have to think about what would work or not work. Maybe worth pointing out that I don't see RPGMaker as a good way to attract attention, compared to Flash, but I don't have any problem with it as a program, so if I already have a decent patron base when it comes time for this idea, I might just use RPGMaker, but then again, if I wanted to have a brawler battle system anyways, it would still work better with Flash.
The hilarious notion here is to name it something stupid like Reproduction Power God Madness that spells out RPGM, and do one project with the older jobclasses, hero, warrior, wizard, etc, then a sequel with Zack and the other RPGM2k3 characters, called Reproduction Power God Madness 4006, and the story is actually set in the distant year 4006, since the 2k3 characters were more modern themed anyways. Fucking brilliant, I tell you, fucking brilliant...
FF7 Harem ParodyAnother idea from my distant past was to do a harem comedy version of Final Fantasy 7, wherein our blond swordfighting hero, Link, err, no, whatever, gets into more romantic situations than those limp wristed schoolgirls who wrote the real FF7. A friend mentioned to me once that FF7 was really cool and original until you leave Midgar city, then it's just same old fantasy fair, and I found myself agreeing, plus I prefer the S&S personal drama over JRPG save-the-world epics, so FF7 parody will be set completely within the city of not-Midgar and involve more exploring of the slums, plate and a new section of subterranean ruins that gets revealed later. I actually did get into some serious plot writing for this one. The original concept was harem comedy, not straight up porn, but whatever, easy rewrite.
Our golden boy wakes up with amnesia in the train tracks in the slums, where a huge-boobed bartender finds him and takes him in. (Unlike FF7, they have no past history) Besides getting involved in slum scuffles, it becomes obvious that not-Shinra agents are looking for not-Link, and thanks to his amnesia, he does not know why, except that he seems to have unknown mystical powers and a charming unfamiliarity with modern technology. Not-Tifa falls head over heels in love with Link in the process, and they end up needing to run for their lives. They eventually escape into the underground ruins, where they meet not-Aerith and not-Red XIII who reveal themselves to be not-Link's fiance and pet, respectively, who were worried sick about him disappearing. He and they are members of an Ancient race with mystical powers that have lived in secret deep underground, but not-Shinra has gotten wind of their existence and is trying to capture them to extract magic or secrets or whatever. Not-Aerith is dick-starved and wants to get married right away now that not-Link is back, but not-Tifa is not super happy about that. Not-Aerith challenges not-Tifa to an Ancient duel, which not-Tifa wins. The Ancient elder reveals that winning the duel has given not-Tifa the right to marry not-Link, but because she did not do whatever esoteric thing was necessary to official complete the duel, not-Aerith also still has the right to marry not-Link, so polygamy saves the day, yay! More adventures would happen after that, but that's as far as I wrote the first time. Although, we are getting kinda long for either a Flash game or a classic beat 'em up, so that might be a decent place to stop.
Character designs. Not-link is pretty similar to ...FF7-not-Link, but with more of a fantasy knight characteristic, to allude to his being a member of the Ancients. I didn't write much for not-Barrett in the plot, as I'm not sure what to do with him. Primary thought is to turn him into some kind of complete robot, possible like an astromech droid, just so that not-Link is the only actual man in this fantasy. Not-Tifa would also be pretty similar to FF7-Tifa, but I would want to give her some sort of cooler weapon, currently thinking something similar (or identical) to
GA2's Bullet Note. Not-Aerith I'm imagining as more of a kung fu warrior girl, with kung fu staff fighting techniques and less of the healy magic-user bullshit. Not-RedXIII can be anything, might become a dragonoid or unicorn wolf or something if I decide I need to make him Really-Not-RedXII. I should probably think of some way to include a not-Yuffie character, but for now the plot works well without her, and I'm sure I can think of an excuse to put sexy ninja girls into something else.
River City RansomI briefly mentioned it on LoK in the past. I'd love to do a Hentai River City Ransom type of game, but my mind positively boggles at the possibilities thereof. One previous thought was to combine RCR mechanics with Marune's SimBro premise. You play as the proprietor of a not-quite-legit stripclub/brothel and hire goons to raid other establishments and defend your own from such raids, collect girls from around the city and try to make money. Or an easier system would be to do all-girl gangs instead of all boy gangs, and instead of eating burgers or reading magazines to get power ups, you have various kinds of sex. I'm a big fan of World's Strongest Student: Kenichi, so I might combine RCR mechanics with Kenichi-esque characters and specific martial arts disciplines. And of course I could use the RCR mechanics of exploration, random encounters and power-ups for completely different themes, like, I don't know, an all female version of King of Dragons or Knights of the Round.
Queen of DragonsAn all female version of King of Dragons. Probably with more fighting mechanics, but the original worked without detailed fighting mechanics and it would certainly be easier not to make that. I guess I would want to make it at least as complex as
AxeQuest.
Knights of the Round TittiesI'll be honest with you, the title is funny, I have no idea other reason to make this. Except maybe to use that war hammer I mentioned back at the top.