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11. Choose Your Own Adventure
The license: Everyone loves books, but their narratives can be awfully linear. Enter the Choose Your Own Adventure series, which lets readers choose which page to jump to at key points in the storyline.
Do you run from the tiger, or attack it with a sword? Do you marry the rich contessa, or abandon her for the plain, funny girl next door?
With the CYOA books bringing some of the interaction of video games into the literary realm, bringing it back to the video game realm should be a snap!
The game: While there have been plenty of games that resemble choose your own adventure books, no game yet has actually captured the thrilling stories contained in books such as The Cave of Time, The Dragons' Den and The Throne of Zeus.
Ideally, the actual text of these books would be read aloud as the character wanders a staging area, making inconsequential decisions such as which skeleton to kill, what bit of scenery to look at, which person to talk to, etc.
When an important decision comes along, a quick player-decision can lead to anything from an untimely death to unexpected riches. The games could even improve on the books with features like an item inventory and an easy "undo" function (no more dog-eared bookmarks!) Cheap, episodic download releases can lead to an endless array of possible stories.
The developer: I'd love to see the team behind the Grand Text Auto web site take a stab at this license. As experts in the interactive narrative field, the result of their work would likely be surprising, mind-expanding and entertaining at the same time.
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On the other hand, I don't agree with any of this list's references to "reality TV" productions. And could you really make Shaun of the Dead without getting sued? Capcom's already having enough problems with George Romero as it is....
Big Lebowski Bowling - would have to be a killer bowling sim, but the charachters and teams are pretty much laid out in the film. Would have to liscense Gypsy King's version of Hotel California for the theme music.
Hellraiser- survival horror with puzzle boxes and intricate ways to cause pain.
Auto-Duel- an update to the Steve Jackson pencil and paper game and to the C64 port. Half RPG, half Twisted Metal where you could drive city to city and compete with people online in the arena after battling them on the road like Road Rage.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre- an update to the Atari2600 game where you play as Leatherface. TCM lends itself to more structure than other slasher films as Leatherface's family has control of his actions making it easier for a designer to structure.
Gonzo:The Game- You play as Hunter S. Thompson, you are given assignments and your goal is to warp your view of reality in the most extreme way you can while still making deadlines and meeting expense budgets.
Another good series would be the Chronicles of the Shadow War by Chris Claremont and George Lucas (based on his movie Willow). There are a lot of interesting characters and locations in these books that would make for a good action rpg type game.
something like Guild Wars PvP, where players could unlock weapons and items for their vehicles with earned experience
I was taking a racquetball class back when my friends and I were really into Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast. I thought it'd be awesome if Sega made a racquetball game -- so I could relive the thrill of the sport on my couch at home, of course. I tried thinking about how it'd work but it seemed like a difficult game to translate because of the ability to play off of the ceiling and back wall.
Later I discovered that Sega released Cosmic Smash for Dreamcast in Japan, which seemed pretty damned close to a racquetball game. But played more like a one of the Virtua Tennis challenges with visuals like Rez.
As bootleg as it may be, I'm interested in checking out Street Racquetball to see how they executed it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dZND99l6LM&feature=related
Speaking of Alan Moore comics, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would make a pretty awesome team battle game like X-men Legends or something.
I agree with Rose Aloseth regarding the Discworld series. The series is just waiting for a great walk around adventure game and imagine if it'll look like 'Curse of Monkey Island!' it'll be heaps of fun!
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/out-of-this-world
Flashback: The Quest for Identity
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/flashback-the-quest-for-identity
BlackThorne
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/blackthorne
The Lost Vikings
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/lost-vikings
Cybernator
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/cybernator
Metal Warriors
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/metal-warriors
Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/desert-strike-return-to-the-gulf
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/zombies-ate-my-neighbors
The games speaks for themselves.
@Ribas...Out of this World and Flashback. Great choices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringeworthy
The second of my list's Underutilized Licenses is Brave Soul, a an unusual combination of the role-playing game and dating sim genres.
An updated and Yuri edition of Bave Soul, a game that never made it past the talking stage, would something I would love to see developed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_Soul
The third and last franchise in my list of Underutilized Licenses is Tékumel, a fantasy world created by Professor Muhammad Abd-el-Rahman Barker. This is a very cool world and one that could be linked with the Fringeworthy franchise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9kumel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081633/