I've been imagining this type of game on the iPad since the Appe tablet rumors first started. This game type hasn't much been used or mastered on the iPhone/iPod Touch due largely to the screen size. Here is the concept: A 2D/3D hybrid action RPG utilising elements from Diablo and Fallout. Set at some point in the near future, climate change has run away with itself and beset the world with flooding, famine and disease. As oil supplies ran out, international diplomacy degenerated into wars between world powers and developing nation proxies. You play a member of Climapol, a new division of Interpol, part of what remains of the United Nations. You are tasked with hunting down a kidnapped scientist who recently made a breakthrough in cold fusion power, a technology capable of restoring civilisation once again. The main arch of the game sees you tracing the kidnapped scientist from one location to another, learning about his shady capturers along the way. Whilst at each location you are obliged and drawn into various mission and side quests. Each locations is geographically unique and highlights what happens when different facets of society degenerate, for example: New York City - starting location, society has degenerated into warring gangs/tribes, the rule of law is gone and various parts of the city are ruled by different warlords. Congo - Small quantities of untapped oil in the Congo has led to massive attempts at neo-colonisation by Western and Chinese corporations and their PMCs (private military corporations - their mercenaries). You enter amidst conflict between these PMCs and the local rebel groups. Dublin - Being somewhat isolated from the chaos occurring on the continent and remaining neutral during the fuel wars, Ireland is one of the few countries where the rule of law prevails, if only superficially. Under the surface Dublin is rife with organised crime and homicide, you arrive on the tail of the kidnapped scientist and whilst attempting to uncover information about his whereabouts you are drawn into a film noir-like plot of murder and corruption. Levant / Middle East - during the fuel wars, religious fever in the levant became more intense than ever, as a new "sun worshipping" cult springs up. Religious conflict between the two sides leads to much cruelty and into this mess you arrive and have to diplomatically navigate the two sides in order to find what you're looking for. etc. etc. Arctic - Finale I've put together a mock up of how I imagine the game to look: Your character is garbed in a kind of power suit. The game has a heavy emphasis on loot collection and levelling up to improve your stats. Movement is controlled by clicking on a part of the terrain to which you wish you move, as in Diablo, and then your character runs there. Ranged and melee attacks can be fired off while moving/standing still by clicking on an enemy to target them and hitting the relevant button on the interface. Likewise, other combat skills can be triggered by hitting their icon on the central skill bar. Each location (NYC, Congo etc.) contains one major hub town/NPC area, various smaller towns scattered around it and combat wasteland between them, including various areas to explore. The player can move between each area when the main story missions in each are completed, so that all the sidequests and "dungeons" can be completed. I feel that this style of gameplay, with a strong back story, addictive loot based gameplay and rich, hand drawn environments with 3D character and building models, would be perfectly suited to the iPad. To augment this experience, a simplified, more arcade based iPhone/iPod Touch game could be made which takes your character and allows you to fight enemies, slowly gaining XP and money which is transferred back to your iPad game via. Wifi/3G. This would be an absolutely HUGE project, taking a hell of a lot of time and no doubt requiring a lot of very advanced programming, but if anyone does ever want to work on it, I'd be happy to lend my services. Everything above is protected by CC, expect the image which is just a mockup. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us
That actually sound like a good idea (nice mock-up, by the way). I wonder if centering the story on a kidnapped scientist may make the whole thing a bit too linear, though. Perhaps you're a new agent for the organization you describe, and you're going from assignment to assignment, with the scientist storyline revealing itself slowly through the game. Perhaps there's something more personal at stake for the character. Anyway, good luck with that.
That's exactly right, the idea would be you are drawn into all sorts of situations involving many different organisations within the over arching search for this scientist. On top of that, being a member of Interpol, you are obliged to assist in issues of law and order and so can optionally involve yourself in many side quests and side mission chains. It would be an open world not just in level design but also in gameplay, allowing you to explore a rich and complex future society and it's various components.
Would the combat be real time or more like a grid based Fallout layout? In other words, strategy RPG or action RPG?
Action RPG, with one finger you click on the terrain to move around, with the other you click on enemies to target them and use the skill bars to execute various commands against them. Raised structures and character models in the environment would be 3D, everything else 2D. This would allow for a Gears of War style "cover system", executable from that arrow icon in the bottom left - when you are standing next to a raised structure like a wall or a car, you would be able to click that to duck and cover behind it. From there, clicking fire would have you pop up over the top and fire at the targeted enemy. Together this should allow for real time, but tactical, combat, suited to the touch screen. There's also the possibility of being able to stack a sequence of commands on the pause screen, ie. you click pause and can tell you character to move to point A + attack target + cast "spell" + move to point B + take cover, then unpause and watch it play out, and, if needed, cancel out of the sequence by issuing another command during it (just like The Sims).
If games of that calibre and complexity aren't produced for the iPad then it'd be a waste of it's potential imo! With the release of the iPad as an App Store format we should really start to see games that really push into full, plot driven experiences.
