You're a sassy wisecrackin' dog that loves to solve other people's problems, but nobody else can understand you-- even other dogs.
Gameplay would revolve around moving people and animals around an area to try and achieve a goal. For example, if your doggy senses told you two people were meant to be together, your goal would be to get the attention of one or the other person and lead them to one another.
The ways you could achieve your goal would be varied for each level, so even if you messed up one strategy it wouldn't completely lock you out clearing the level.
The game would take place on a 2D plane for simplicity/clarity. Ways you interact with things onscreen might be something like knocking a glass of water onto a guy to make him angry and chase you to a location, or growling at someone to get them to back off/run away from you.
Hints would be given through the dog's inner thoughts, and he'd always hint at the most satisfying/entertaining solutions to the problem (unless the opportunity has already passed).
Image Source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6UVddnKG9rA/hqdefault.jpg
A rhythm game that lets you record a section of your button inputs during the song and replay them when they match up with the onscreen prompts. Gameplay would otherwise consist of pressing the face buttons on a controller in time to the song, like a regular rhythm game.
During the song, you'd be able to hold down the two triggers and record up to 15 of your button presses in a row. If any sequence of those notes comes up again during the same song (they generally would repeat, but there'd be more of a chance if you recorded less notes), then a prompt would flash on screen and an upcoming note would glow red. Instead of pressing that button, you can press the two triggers again (still in time with the red note) and the sequence will play out and automatically hit those notes, regardless of their timing, they just need to be the same button sequence. When the sequence is going to end, another upcoming note will glow red, letting the player know when they need to start playing again.
You'd only be able to record one note sequence for the duration of the song, but you'd be able to activate that recording as many times as it appears. You'd get bonus points for activating a sequence, so high-end gameplay would revolve around finding the best sequence to record for the highest score.
Image Source: http://chromespot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/recording.jpg
A game where you play as a cluster or spores guided by the wind.
You'd be moving forwards automatically, with speed lines to show which ways the wind is blowing, and where currents will take you. So basically you'd be controlling the left/right/up/down movement, with some slight pushing from the wind.
Your goal would be to cover as much of the ground as possible, which would be displayed on a minimap when you fill in the ground. You'd have control over how spread out the spores are, and obstacles would require you to quickly group together to avoid losing a bunch of your spores. Not expanding your spore cluster would be the safest way to play, but you'd obviously cover way less ground that way.
Levels would have a wide variety of environments, to make it feel like you're traveling the world and leaving your gross fungal mark on it.
Image Source: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~abramovo/SpaceShipOne_launch/154-5442_IMG.jpg
2 player game where you and another player control different parts of a puppet in a show.
Players would take control of different parts of the puppets, with one player on the mouth and eyes and another on the arms. The player on the mouth/eyes would have to make the mouth move when their puppet is meant to be talking, and occasionally blink. The player on the arms would have control over the left and right arm separately.
You'd get a small silhouette on the bottom of the screen showing you the actions you should be doing at that moment, and for each change in the action you'd have a couple of seconds to match it to keep the show going.
Later levels would mess with players by obscuring or changing some of the visuals, like mirroring the silhouette or having audience memebers walk in front of the "camera" and block the puppets.
You'd get audio/visual feedback from the audience when you're doing well/badly, so cheering/booing and throwing garbage/roses during performances.
Image Source: http://thephantommoon.typepad.com/.a/6a010535eb253e970c016767e60490970b-500wi
A 2-player game where you're trapped in a pitch-black maze with the goal of finding another player.
You and another player would both be represented as a small ball of light, giving off just enough light to see a metre or so around you. You'd have full 3D movement, just to make navigating the maze less strict/demanding.
The level would be pitch black, and look similar to a hedge maze but with a ceiling, and multiple levels. You and the other player would be placed in a random part of the level.
When you call out, a small wave will radiate out of your character, and if there are any walls/objects close by, they will be highlighted around the edges. You'd be able to pick up (rare) small objects and throw them into the darkness, to either create a small patch of light (to show the other player you've been there), or create a small sound the other player can hear anywhere in the level when it hits a wall.
When/if the two players find each other, the light combines and lights up the entire level. It'd then show you a map of the paths you both took, and where any items were used.
Image Source: http://www.micahray.com/mainblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/single_star.jpg
A stealth game where the main mechanic is stealing shadows.
Game would take place on a 2D plane, so it doesn't get overly complex. Your character would have the ability to select an object and steal the shadow it's casting at that moment. The shadow on the object would disappear, but you'd have the shadow in you inventory to place anywhere you like.
An example of this mechanic in use would be an area with one guard and nowhere to hide. You could steal the guard's shadow, place it somewhere along his path and then move in front of the shadow. You'd then get the option to "hide", wait for the guard to walk by, then emerge from the shadow and continue.
More difficult scenarios would involve moving lights, where the lights would change the shapes of shadows and you'd have to select the most useful shape to capture. There would also be situations where a light would shine over your placed shadow and "erase" it, returning it to its original owner and leaving you out in the open.
Image Source: http://housearrestgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/manshadows.jpg
A VR game where you have to figure out if you're awake or asleep. The main goal would be to look around in a space and look for anything that might point to the fact that you're dreaming (a giant dog outside a window, someone with an upside-down moustache, the HUD elements acting up). The changes wouldn't always be obvious.
The game would regularly fade into and out of blackness, and act as a sort of "time limit" before the state would change (this would be random, so you might fade out of an awake state, and then fade back up to another awake state).
Since you'd be in a public space for each level, you'd have to act accordingly in those spaces, measured by a suspicion meter. For example, if you were drifting in and out on a bus, you wouldn't be able to move around and get in people's personal space too much without raising suspicion. Suspicion would raise in a dream and awake state, and maxing your suspicion meter would fail the level.
Image Source: http://www.amdac.com.my/images/benefits/sleeping.jpg
You're a knight that's been completely trapped in their armor by rust. Completely immobile, you decide to order some fast-acting, short-lasting Derusting Gel, but on your salary you can only afford a limited quantity each day.
Each day, you'd receive enough Derusting Gel to ease up and restore two points of your armor's articulation. You'd preferably want to focus on the jobs you're intending to accomplish that day, and which limbs you'd need to use the most to achieve them.
Gameplay would be physics based, where you'd have one joint's movement mapped to an analogue stick, with raise/lower on the triggers (on the same side of the controller as the analogue stick in use). The other joint would be mapped to the other stick/triggers.
If your job for the day was to patrol a set path around the castle, you'd probably want to derust your legs so you can walk, but you might also decide that you'd need the use of one of your arms to swing your sword if any ne'er-do-wells attacked the castle: so you'd derust one arm and one leg, and then you'd need to crawl around by contorting your arm and leg in alternation to physics-fudge your way along the patrol route.
Another example would be if you were attending a dinner, you'd need to be able to move your arm to pick up/eat food, and possibly your head if you wanted to turn and converse with the other guests.
Players would eventually get the hang of doing these jobs and what joints they'd need to derust, so later levels might only give you the use of one joint, or give you multiple conflicting jobs in a day-- both scenarios where you won't be able to do everything perfectly, but you'll need to think creatively and play around enough to accomplish goals.
Image Source: http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c370/Paradisio/epsxe_old2007-11-2814-05-56-50.jpg
A game about protecting the intellectual property of your Original Character™. The game would begin with a screen that lets you draw your own Original Character™ or randomly generate one from some prefab elements. After doing so, you'd proceed to set up the picture in your personally owned art gallery, fully equipped with a secret room full of monitoring devices for preventing your Original Character™ from being stolen.
You'd have to defend your Original Character™ once a day for a week. For example, your monitoring systems might tip you off to a guy in advertising skulking around your gallery. In that case, you'd be able to fight them with the law, and you'd be required to go down to the gallery in person and convince them of your immaculate legal standing through dialogue options.
In the case of a regular old thief who is jealous of your sweet artboy skills, you'd need to choose from a list of defenses (like turrets and sleeping gas mines) to set up, and which defenses work best on which type of thief will be learned throughout the game.
In special levels (taking the place of a boss encounter), you'd need to defend your beautiful beloved creation in the regular turn-based fashion, but upon defeating the thief you'd enter into dialogue with them. It'd be very difficult, but you could just talk them down at this point, but otherwise you'd be transported to a courtroom to pitch your case in front of a judge. Depending on the opponent (which could range from leads of huge companies to mob bosses and pacified clowns), your strategy would change and the dialogue options you choose will be successful based on the opponent's knowledge/abilities (so a businessman will have a counter-argument to any of the standard "fair use" arguments).
At the end of each week defending your painted son, you'd have the option to create another Original Character™ or stick with the one you already have. Making a new character will give you a one-day "creative" boost, meaning you'd see percentages next to dialogue options that show their chance of succeeding. Continuing on with the old creation will prevent the "boss" encounter at the end of the next week.
Image Source: http://orig04.deviantart.net/3d86/f/2013/321/6/d/original_character_do_not_steal_by_flippingchicken-d6uo308.jpg
A game where you control one element in a 3-dimensional space and try to turn into another element.
For example, you might start off as water and need to end up creating fire. You get to move around as a blob of water, and you can find an electrical socket and cause electrical sparks, then control the sparks and direct them through the air into a stack of paper or something, setting it on fire.
Movement for different elements would be different, for example water can only move across surfaces (ie. across floors and down walls), while something like fire would be able to move across any surface, but it would grow and leave a vulnerable trail. Electricity can float through the air but is very fragile and fades out after a short amount of time.
There would always be multiple ways to solve a level, but each different way would generally take the same amount of effort (although more difficult solutions might require less steps or something because more effort is going into planning etc).
Later levels would have more steps to complete and more obscure solutions (and maybe timing could come into it at some point).
You look out onto the city to see a looming crisis hanging on the skyline. The Mayor has decided the giant monster heading toward the city, crushing everything in its path, is "allowable", as it will bring a boost to tourism. At odds with his decision and guided by your strong sense of justice, you return home to pull out the ol' giant mech you built for your son's 8th birthday party to save the city from the impending doom.
Your first job is to evacuate as many people as possible. This section is done from the cockpit of your mech, and involves scanning with heat sensors to check which buildings have people in them before a time limit expires. It'd be a first-person view with controls to turn the heat sensors on/off, and to zoom between "layers" of buildings (so the buildings that are further away would be on one plane, closer buildings on another plane etc, just to make it less cluttered/easier to navigate).
You can evacuate buildings by shooting fire alarms to set them off (evacuate the whole building), shooting breakable objects like vases to cause panic (would clear out one floor), or taking out an innocent (would clear out a few floors, but give you a penalty).
When the time limit expires, you transition to fighting the giant monster from a 3rd-person view, with some basic melee combos and ranged attacks (missiles, etc). Buildings would be fully destructible, and if you've evacuated enough places you can pick them up and use them as melee weapons. You can also be knocked back into buildings, or just destroy them in other ways, so you'd better hope you managed to clear out as many people as you could.
At the end of the stage, you get a score, and a brief summary of the outcome of the fight based on how many people survived. If enough people are left, the town will continue on (and the game will too). If enough people are left but you caused too much terror (you destroyed too many buildings with civilians, or killed too many people in the evacuation phase), you will be imprisoned and the game will end. If not enough people survived, the town will be abandoned and the game will end.
Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CVIQ_0-VRRo/VrGBb-FW0jI/AAAAAAAAOXk/fqBhTf89zn0/s1600/mecha_vs_kaiju_by_basil81-d6jrzzk.jpg
A game that only lets you move through liquids. The gameplay would be set from a 3rd-person view in a 3d environment, with the ability to zoom in and out a good distance so you can get bearings on a wide area of the space.
The player would have full 3d movement within liquids, but be generally unable to move outside of them. There would be a jump ability that the player can aim, but distance would be limited. Liquids would have a slight visual cue on them so the player can easily identify where they can move to.
In terms of level design, you'd have to solve puzzles to create paths through areas, like moving a crane into a pool of water and then dripping a trail across the floor so you can jump through it, or making a guy stand outside in the rain so he tracks wet footprints across an area so you can traverse it. There would also be hazards like electricity that make you unable to travel through liquids until you find a way to disable the source. Could also have some moving liquids so that you have to time jumps and movement.
Image Source: http://s3.amazonaws.com/blenderguru.com/uploads/2013/04/render21-580x326.png
A game about playing catch with a ghost.
You and your ghost buddy are really in the mood to play catch, the only problem being that they're a ghost and you're not-- meaning the ghost can't catch the physical ball you're throwing to them.
Gameplay comes in where you need to find a way to bounce the ball so that it "dies" on its way to the ghost. The game would utilize VR, by setting you up in a 3d room from a first-person view, and placing a bunch of dangerous obstacles between you and the ghost (like flamethrowers etc). You'd use motion control to aim/throw the ball for a better sense of control. Basic idea is to throw the ball through a flamethrower so it dies horribly, turning it into a ghost ball so that your ghost friend can catch the ball.
More difficult levels would set up situations where you need to hit a switch and then bounce into the deathtrap with the same ball, and so on until you're basically setting off a Rube Goldberg Machine with the ball.
Image Source: http://www.jebiga.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/One_World_Futbol_Soccer_Ball_6.jpg
A game about saving your refrigerator.
Gameplay would revolve around the premise that people are breaking into your home to raid your refrigerator for tasty refreshments. Your goal would be to set up traps in a timed "Preparation" section, and then thieves will be released and attempt to make it through your gauntlet.
The big problem is that the only thing you can find to make traps out of are the contents in your fridge. There would always be more than enough objects in the fridge to stop the thieves, but having leftover items will mean you get to eat tonight (and you'd get bonus time in your next Preparation" section), so you'd be incentivized to use as few objects as possible.
Levels would get more difficult by having more thieves and fewer items (meaning you'd also have less chance at getting the bonus Preparation time). You'd also have the ability to combine multiple items from your fridge to create stronger defenses, and deciding whether that is going to be more beneficial/cost effective in the long run will come into play in later levels.
Image Source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03027/fridge-thief-artwo_3027279b.jpg
A game about causing stupid chain reactions.
Gameplay would be puzzle based, and give you a situation to cause a chain reaction in. As an example, you might be on a bus and you have to make people cough and cause chain reactions. In that situation you'd have to set up a bunch of cough-inducing things (like a cloud of smoke) in front of the bus's path. Each person would have a certain amount of coughing they can handle before they get the urge to cough too, so you'd have to position stuff to effect the "most likely to cough" people, so that when they cough, it sets off someone else, and so on.
In later levels/situations, you'd have to position multiple things in different places, so you might need to trigger someone else's coughing fit by using an object so that the chain doesn't stop.
The levels would be set up so that retrying isn't really a penalty, basically you can just fudge around with placement and keep playing the level through to test how things are working.
Image Source: http://dharmaforlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chain-reaction.jpg
A game about clicking many times, in quick succession.
Game would be a multiplayer setting, where players are split into random teams and eventually pit against each other.
The first stage of the game would be set up with "jobs" for players to do, and it's up to the teams to allocate their people to whichever jobs they think will benefit them. These jobs are stuff like cutting wood and building defenses, training troops and stuff. And this is all achieved by clicking objects on the screen. Rapidly. Repeatedly.
After a certain amount of time has passed, the game will pick another random team and set the two against each other. This phase will involve two armies running at each other, with visual representations of the resources/defenses each team developed. The team with the most resources has an advantage, but there would also be some strategy around which resources would have an advantage over other resources. The two team's troops will battle it out in the center of the screen, and here players will aid their troops by clicking them on the screen. Rapidly. Repeatedly.
The game ends when one team prevails over the other, and then you can either do it again or delete the game in disgust and never think about it again... until you start to get the itch.
Image Source: https://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/school-and-education-vol-4/48/176-512.png
A game where you forget.
Gaemplay would probably be turn-based RPG combat, since it seems like the most malleable type of gameplay for the premise.
Basically, the game starts you off at max level, with heaps of abilities and spells and items etc., but as the game goes on you forget how to use your abilities (or they become less useful versions, with an eventual downgrade to being worthless). Your experience and levels go down, you have less options in your command box (in combat).
Effects would happen outside of combat to, for example you'd be too forgetful to map out dungeons ingame, so you'd have to blindly stumble or make a map outside of the game. You'd also have less options in the main menu-- with the eventual "endgame" being the point where you can do literally nothing but pause and quit the game.
It'd mostly be a test of endurance (since the gameplay would get more and more exhausting to achieve anything with). Maybe there'd be some really satisfying conclusion where you remember everything suddenly and beat the crap out of a final boss, but I also kinda like it just ending with nothing but the "quit game" scenario and frustration.
Image Source: http://hdimagesnew.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Question-Mark-HD-Wallpaper15.jpg
A man with a gross clayboy face has decided to turn to a life of crime by using his malleable mug to trick face scanners at local businesses to steal their valuables.
The game gives you a front-shot picture of the person you're trying to impersonate (not to the same scale as your character's face, just to make it more difficult). Your character's face can be manipulated in 3-dimensions, so you have to look at the shadows on the photo you're given and stuff to try and figure out the proportions of their face that are harder to see from the front (eg how far their nose sticks out).
You'd have 3 chances to scan your face before the system would lock you out and alert the police (aka giving you a game over). If you scan and get it wrong, the scanner will highlight the areas that don't match, so even if you can't figure out the proportions it'll give you a hint as to how you'd need to manipulate the character's face to get it right.
Image Source: http://www.dunun.com/image/amalgamation_Micael_Reynaud.gif
A character action game where you have many weapons and many arms.
The basic gameplay would be the usual combo-based stuff with dodging and blocking, but the main mechanic focuses on the multiple weapons.
Since your character has many arms, you have 6 weapons equipped at all times (mapped to the face buttons and triggers, probably customizable) that you can seamlessly chain together during combos. Weaker enemies would be able to be damaged by any weapon, but stronger enemies would require strategy based on the weapons you're using.
Some enemies might only be damaged by one type of weapon, some enemies might change resistance mid-combo, and some might change resistance with every hit (that would be reflected visually somehow, so you don't have to just guess at which button you need to hit next).
The combos would be slow enough that you'd be able to watch the enemies for the visual change so you can switch weapons and keep the combo going. Combos would break when you get hit or hit an enemy with a weapon that doesn't damage them. Later on to increase difficulty, enemies will absorb damage from weapons they're not weak to, meaning if the player isn't careful they can completely restore an enemy's health.
Image Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4d/ab/b4/4dabb4bad6c86a4af8e375b7e051336c.jpg
You're a veteran superhero and you find yourself brushing up against the most cliché villain of all time. Everything down to his pointy chin and black latex gloves: you've seen it all before. But it's not all bad, because your foe also acts only in villain clichés, meaning if you're smart enough you can figure out how to stop them before they even get started.
The game would randomly create an "origin" story from a list of clichés (for example, "absolute power corrupts, absolutely"), and your main goal would be to figure out that origin so you can put an end to their plans once and for all.
You'd have a journal with a list of cliches available at all time, but no knowledge of the one you're looking for. Gameplay would be action-based, and you'd get a mission every so often to combat your enemy's latest scheme. At the end of each level, you'd get the chance to beat some information out of your foe that you can use to start piecing together their origin story.
At any point after the first mission, you'd be able to select a cliché from your journal and confront your foe in a "final" mission designed around that cliché (so the above example of "absolute power" might give you a mission to go back in time and prevent them from ever getting that taste of power in the first place). If your assumptions were correct, the game would end and allow you to roll a new villain to combat.
If you chose wrong though, your mission will be impossible (so for the above example you'd go back in time and be searching for the day your villain got that taste of power, only in this case "power" wasn't the catalyst to their villainy, meaning you'd just be lost in a time portal forever with no way out). At this point the game will end, and force you to roll a new nemesis if you want to continue. This is mostly just to prevent or discourage people from randomly guessing, or guessing before they're absolutely sure.
Image Source: http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/ximages/cartoons/Snidely.jpg
A game where you have to avoid everything.
By its nature, the gameplay would be very broad but simple to understand within seconds. The basic setup would be a flow of sequences where you have to figure out the controls and then avoid anything you can see on the screen to avoid.
An example would be a sequence where a title tells you to "Avoid Answering The Question", and a Windows-style popup thing shows up and asks you to click "Yes" or "No" to continue, at which point you'd need to move the mouse cursor to the "X" in the top right (which closes the window) to avoid having to answer the question.
Another example of something more straightforward would be just moving a character around onscreen to avoid running into obstacles. But always the actions/controls would be hinted at with the level name, and the gameplay would be simple and never involve more than WASD/^v<> movement and mouse control, so that the levels can be short and come at the player quick enough to create a sense of desperation and confusion.
Image Source: 1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCURo_30VuY/VkAwdr5B_KI/AAAAAAAA2b4/NGq5TAn_Ml8/s1600/dbkai5-20.png
A game where you bounce off any enemy you attack, racking up a combo.
Gameplay would be top-down, with attacking + aiming on the mouse and movement on the keyboard. You'd only have melee weapons, so you'd need to move in close to an enemy, turn the player character with the mouse ("aiming" him) and then swipe at the enemy. You'd immediately be bounced back, and your aim then would be to find any other enemy around and aim towards them. You'd have slight control over your bounceback by aiming, but mostly you'd just be trying to face in the right direction to hit an enemy behind you or something.
When you get a combo going, your speed and damage increases with it, so it's always beneficial to try and keep the combo as long as you can. The combo breaks if you attack the same enemy twice, so a strategy to beat a stronger enemy efficiently would be surrounding it with weak enemies and using them to bounce back and forth between the strong enemy and the weaker ones.
Levels are ranked with the common letter grade system, based on highest combo, clear time, and damage taken. There would be upgrades to make the later levels more mechancially interesting, like increasing how far you bounce back, for example (so you can keep your combo going longer if you know what you're doing).
A game where you need to fix items in obscure ways.
A level would be set up so you receive a broken object that needs fixing, and very unhelpful advice on how to repair it. An example would be a broken TV, where the instructions are something like "Cool it down for a while".
Gameplay would have a 3d rotatable model of the object, and you'd also have a top-down "workshop" mode when you need to find something to use on the object to fix it.
Walking through the TV example, to solve the issue of cooling it down, you'd have to search your workshop for anything that could be considered "cool"-- water from the tap, a slab of meat in the fridge, or a sweet pair of sunglasses-- and then apply it to the TV. In this case, the instructions are obscure enough that you can get creative.
Overall the levels would only last a few minutes at best, but harder levels would require you to think outside the box more (so a similar situation to the TV example, but without the obvious options anymore).
Image Source: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--pRv8VTmv--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18dyhom0o1gqkjpg.jpg
You're just chilling in a cardboard box on the side of the street when you're suddenly whisked away by a garbage fairy to places unknown.
The goal of the game would be to get back to where you came from-- only the cardboard box was welded shut (back off, it makes sense) and so the only way you can move is by awkwardly shunting the box around.
Gameplay would be from a top-down perspective, and movement would be timing based, where you'd press a button to a rhythm. The rhythm would change based on the terrain, and also how long you've been in the box for that level-- you're wasting away inside that thing after all, meaning it'd be easier to move the box and so a quicker rhythm would be required, for example. You wouldn't be directly told the rhythm, rather you'd be encouraged to figure out the timing for each section on your own (level replayability and all that).
Your aim for each level would be to move the box to one of a few exits as quickly as possible. Some exits would be more difficult to reach (or require you to pick up a postage stamp from elsewhere in the level to hitch a ride), but the more difficult exits would always end with you getting closer to your final goal of "the side of the street you were chilling in a box on that one time". Progress would be displayed on a map, and you'd be scored based on your overall time to make it "home".
A game where you fall down so you can climb up.
Game would start at the top of a tall object, and you'd have to jump off the side and use hammers to break holes in the side. You also have a limited stock of ladders and ropes that you can attach to the side of the tall object, and you can collect them on the way down by steering into them and pressing a pick-up button.
When you reach the bottom, you'd be tasked to use the holes you made as handles to climb back up the surface, as well as any ropes and ladders you attached on the way down. If you can reach a ladder/rope when you're not directly attached to it, you can pick it back up again. The goal would be to make it as far up the wall as you can, and take back as much of your climbing equipment as you can.
Image Source: http://www.digitalistmag.com/files/2014/12/mountain-climber.jpeg
