My Nexus is a gamified tool about tackling mental illnesses. A player wins by losing through recreating the symptoms the believe they have at the hand of a mental illness, and they then fight this against various cures.
The game runs through the veil of an action game to play out the act of "fighting an illness" but the game is actually primarily guided through dialogue. Firstly players can pick a base mental illness (for example depression) from a large listing, and then they can delve into symptoms of that illness to find what they are struggling with the most. (As mental illness is often something that cannot be fixed in a simplistic broad stroke, it can be much more effective to break the illness down into pieces and try to manage the various sub-symptoms of the greater problem.)
Once a symptom is selected they can fight it against various cures or forms of management based solutions to their symptom(s), using a dialogue box to tell them game what solutions they have tried when they encounter them, and the game will remember these choices going forwards and visually represent the response through the games action element. When the player encounters a potential solution that hasn't been countered by their symptoms or their circumstances, they are presented further information on the potential solution and real world resources in their area to pursue these solutions further. The game uses internet connectivity to determine the players surrounding town and city (with their permission) to help them locate these solutions in the smallest possible travel distance.
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Dying Star is a game about fighting through hordes of enemies that spawn in waves to hinder you as you attempt to save a significant person from torture and death. The game is sequenced as one giant linear level which the player has to reach the end of, but as the person you are trying to save slowly dies, the world gets darker.
A player (or co-operatively two players) fight through respawning hordes of enemies that strategically try to keep players locked down into choke-points on the map for as long as possible to hold out the torture timer. The torture timer isn't represented with numbers or a meter, but instead from light resonating from a tower in the far distance that you are trying to reach. If that light is getting dimmer, you know your time is getting shorter. The level is laid out in a progressive strip mostly made up of obstacles in the form of progressively harder enemies, but at every new part of the level, a randomly generated set of weapons (from a premade selection) are laid out as a choice for the player to make. As areas and enemies get progressively harder, the player(s) are presented with new choices to counter their new challenges.
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Kings of Blooded Soil is a territory control mmo that is story driven in real time through events that are co-ordinated by developers and players. While some elements of the game are scripted in advance for effect and structure, historical in game events happen over the course of the games ongoing development in real time as a direct result of unpredictable conflicts.
New territories are created and old ones modified and/or destroyed following the games gradually expanding lore. The aim is to create an experience where the story is not entirely preset, rather it is driven through battles with other players in real time, so that players can be the part of a massive universe in which they actually hold influence. This game heavily encourages faction play and role playing. Dedicated players who fit the part will be approached in secret by developers and occasionally receive offers to spearhead revolutionary events and war campaigns in order to drive the worlds story further. Territories will also be monitored by historians who will document significant battles and characters into the history of regions, embedding the past into the future forever.
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Song of Swords is a microphone based multiplayer hack n' slash game where players slay one another using their weapons and their voices.
Players take to a series of pseudo-historical scenarios where famous battles and duels are described. Players are then assigned roles as important commanders in these battles, and are tasked with individual objectives within a larger army. Players will largely spend their time commanding smaller parts of an army to achieve objectives using their voice to give directives, but will also engage in direct fights with enemy commanders. Attacking is a little more complicated; to represent personal stamina and emotion, the player must scream as loudly as they can while they swing in order to unleash attacks with their maximum potential. The idea behind this is that as players scream repeatedly they will eventually tire out their voice, and representing a persons stamina, this will mean that over time, their swings will weaken.
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It's said that when you butcher a lamb, if it sees the knife coming it panics, and the panic taints the flavor of its flesh, spoiling it. So it is with people, as you discovered. Only it tainted much more than that.
Growing up in an orphanage discreetly purposed for the raising of human cattle. You saw the knife coming, they saw you see the knife coming, and you remember their words; "Be careful, or the meat will spoil!" It was time to run and you did, they weren't prepared for an escapee because nobody ever ran before, nobody saw the knife coming but you. Now you're back and this time you're prepared, and so are they.
Use your knowledge of your home and your past as guidance, presented to the player in a short film that represents your life up until the present. You will use your memories of quotes and sounds to determine where your enemies are in complete darkness as you move through the first home you remember, looking to slaughter those who tried to do the same to you. The game is based around memory and rhythm, you will hear quotes from your caretakers as you remember their words, and hopefully remember how they tried to stop you the first time. When you remember their words they will attack you from the shadows to the rhythm of music. Reacting in complete darkness, you will time parries and other counters with the knife you took all those years ago, as you try to find the best way to return it to them.
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Walls are of the Enemy is a rhythm action/psychological game about a man declared legally insane breaking the walls of his padded cell within his mind. He sees the psyche ward and the people in it as oppressors that he can only overcome with murder, but the walls are closing in as he is restrained in the real world. This is a game about fighting those restraints in the mind of a madman.
In your head you must break free of your cell. The walls are closing in around you in a large city, the horizon line is made up of white pads, and if they get too close they will crush you, you will be wiped clean, you will be trapped forever as a shell of your former self. With your hands, beat the walls back to where they came from, driving acceptance and inevitability out of your mind and remaining as yourself for as long as possible. But everyone is in your way, they always have been, and even though they always seem to run they are still obstacles you will have to overcome. Fight off the world for as long as you can to the rhythm of the music that has always resounded in your head detailing the world and all of its actions, use the timing to beat back everyone, retain your (in)sanity.
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From the Shadows is a third person free for all tactical action game about literally hiding within shadows. The objective is to eliminate other players by exposing them from the shadows and murdering them while they take physical form.
Players can use light sources such as lanterns to lower the darkness in an area, but light casts shadows, which means stealthy players can remain obscured from view if they choose their positioning relative to objects in the world wisely. Players have to emerge from the shadows in physical form to hunt one another, however physical manifestations are far slower than players in their shadow forms, they are also visible and vulnerable. A player in physical form will be open to ambush from the back if undiscovered players still lurk in the shadows behind them, meaning players will have to be ultra certain they have cleared the area of any other players before progressing. An undiscovered player who sees a physical players back within a certain range will gain the ability to briefly manifest as a physical shadow hybrid, gaining insane mobility and invincibility for a time, allowing them to rapidly punish a physical player for their ignorance before returning to the darkness.
If however a physical player does locate a hidden player, they can shine light on them to force them out of the shadows whilst completely immobilizing them, allowing the player to execute them in physical form.
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Magic the Fisting is a tactical card/action vr game taking heavy inspiration from Magic the Gathering, with a virtual reality twist. Players can flip the table at the end of a match and try to fist fight their opponent to asset their dominance and that they are the true victors.
Players duel one another in a card game where they form a deck of 30 of their personal cards, and tap them in game to cast spells and summon creatures based on elemental counters to defeat the other player. The player has a certain amount of hp and when they lose it the game is over, assuming the player isn't a sore loser. If the player is a sore loser, they can choose to flip the table and try to beat their opponent in a vr fist fight to prove who the greater wizard is.
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Fan the hammer is a first person shooter mainly based around revolvers in a western setting. The game attempts to make revolvers feel as immersive as possible by changing up the conventional controls of a keyboard and mouse with a motion sensitive controller that is tailored to allow for accessible and engaging control over chambering the revolver, shooting, moving the gun freely, and of course, fanning the hammer.
The idea behind the controller is to allow players to freely move the gun across their screen for precise aiming without also altering their vision, giving the game a level of control similar to time crisis. The controller would also feature a trigger on the lower side to allow for ease of firing, and a scroll wheel on top to allow players to motion the revolvers hammer easily in order to increase the guns fire rate.
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Fatamari Damacy is a puzzle action game about entering a Wall-Mart, finding an extremely obese person on a rascal and capsizing it, forcing them to gain infinite momentum as they consume everything in arms reach out of reflex. If your anomaly grows to a large enough mass within the time that it takes for store security to accost you, you might even be luckily enough to launch them into space in an attempt to give the Earth a second closer moon.
Find the perfect Fatamari based on weight and roundness and try to tip it out of a rascal. If you succeed, the Fatamari based on it's roundness and weight will build up momentum as it rapidly rolls around the supermarket consuming everything in its path out of self defense. Your objective is to make your Fatamari as large as possible by making it consume as much as you can within the time limit, and launch it into orbit.
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People kill people is an action simulation game about being a gun that kills people by its own free will. For a long time, pro gun lobbyists have made the argument that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." You are a gun intent on killing people and you are going to use that previous statement to your advantage.
When nobody is watching, you will have the ability to move the gun from four pivot points and wiggle yourself around, and you can discharge yourself at will if you so choose. Your objective is to cause a domestic or public shooting and then have it blamed it on a person. Don't get caught! If someone catches a gun wriggling around all by itself it's going to raise suspicions and the game will be over.
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Grabble is a 2d puzzle/action game based around precision and a large grappling hook that you utilize for everything. Grabble takes place in a hostile world filled with environmental disasters which you can only overcome with the power of your grappling hook. You will have to solve puzzles, move obstacles, and navigate the environment whilst being chased by a group of cultist zealots who believe that your device is the result of witchcraft and you are therefore a witch.
The world is yours for the grabbing, but there is only so much you can grab at one time! The game is driven by frantic action that forces you to attempt to overcome obstacles on the fly, you can fling enemies, fling yourself, fling objects, hit buttons and levers, but you will have to choose carefully what you want to fling as timing is key in escaping the hostile world that is also trying to grab you. (Then promptly beat you to death)
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This is a team based kidnapping game that acts as a variation on the classic FPS game modes Capture the Flag and Last Man Standing.
Teams start in two forts that are conflicted through a shadow war intent on destroying one another, as each team lacks the means to overwhelm the other by force because each fortress is too fortified to be sieged. Instead teams must engage in covert operations to eliminate the other team one by one, and players can achieve this by kidnapping other players. Each player has only one life.
If the enemy is caught trying to capture a teammate, they can be executed on site. However if a teammate is kidnapped, your team has two choices; allow the enemy team to kill their hostage, or pay a ransom to retrieve them. Each team has a limited amount of money however, and paying too many ransoms will mean that you will not be able to afford the continued fortification of your base, making you vulnerable to a raid from a strengthened opposing team.
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- 6v6 tactical warfare with a unique twist on classic gamemodes
- One life per player, making every death carry serious consequences
- A monetary system that simultaneously keeps your team safe and empowers their potency
- Sacrifice and evaluation, what is more valuable? Your money or your friends lives?
(img source: http://mobile.wnd.com/files/2015/06/kidnap.jpg)
