An idea...Let's Nope, the video game

[Garwulf]

Hi all!

I had this weird little idea in the Let's Nope last night, and it's kind of grown since then. So, in the tradition of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (seriously, if you haven't seen it, look it up on YouTube), I would like to propose Let's Nope, the video game.

Format - presented by its creator (name to be determined), the bad boy of horror himself, so edgy that he teabagged Stephen King after a traffic accident (particularly impressive since it was after his OWN traffic accident), and the only author who has ever been divorced more times than he has been married. The creator provides a commentary at the beginning and end of each level, telling stories of the game's development and his philosophy of life. Possibly best portrayed by Cameron Lauder.

Content - determined by generating a Let's Nope horror bingo card, and just putting everything on it into the game...preferably at least three at a time. The more ridiculous the better.

Characters - everybody is a Steve...and named Steve...except for any female characters who are named Stevie. The player character possibly best voiced by Alex Steacy ("What do you mean, ABSORBED?!"), mad scientist by Paul Saunders, and Spoopifer by Kathleen DeVere.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts on it...what does everybody think?

[Phailhammer]

Sounds interesting. Personally, I would, in the first instance, scale it back to a row rather than a full card.

[empath]

Well, maybe release it in episodic content, with a row for each episode?

But YEAH, I'm interested!

[Amake]

I like it. I figure the default game mode could be like developer's commentary mode in Portal, where our "author, visionary, unifying force*, and creator" talks about how great he is and explains everything the game is trying to do. Although, and this is important, while he's very verbose and ever-present, you should be able to play with the commentary off and still have a fulfilling laughable experience.

*He likes Unity, you see.

And I'm just spitballing here, but I imagine his name could be Oliver A. Shiva, and he keeps telling people the L is silent.

[Garwulf]

I like it. I figure the default game mode could be like developer's commentary mode in Portal, where our "author, visionary, unifying force*, and creator" talks about how great he is and explains everything the game is trying to do. Although, and this is important, while he's very verbose and ever-present, you should be able to play with the commentary off and still have a fulfilling laughable experience.

*He likes Unity, you see.

And I'm just spitballing here, but I imagine his name could be Oliver A. Shiva, and he keeps telling people the L is silent.

That is a much better name than I had in mind...

Two thoughts, though - first, would this author actually allow the game to be played without the commentary (just in terms of his character); and second, if there was a mode that was without the commentary, we would need to ensure that it's clear that it's a parody of bad horror games, and not just a bad horror game.

[Amake]

I got it, we'll put out an unofficial patch you need to get from a third source to turn the commentary off. It'll be made by someone who really loves the game and just wants to help Oliver get the editing he needs, and Oliver is so mad he accidentally advertises the patch and lets people download it from his own dev blog whole ranting against it.

And yeah obviously nailing the parody hard enough to avoid Poe's Law is the great challenge (beyond getting a game made at all). Probably the best way to see how it works is watching Darkplace over and over.

In fact, maybe we should organize some little meeting in a private video streaming channel where those invited can talk this stuff out while watching the show?

(I guess engaging some of the LRR talent in this highly experimental project is but a pipe dream at this point, as probably anyone else around with commercially viable game design or acting skills. But I'm sure we can figure it out.)

[Amake]

I just realized, the game probably needs a name. Maybe "Shiva's Destruction"? Works on multiple levels.

So maybe just start brainstorming game. There's two fronts to approach here: The design document, that should "sell" the game in 300 words or so and then outline in exhaustive detail the specific features it's going to have, in terms of basic mechanics, art direction, narrative structure and level design.

That's probably going to take a cohesive, committed dev team before it's finished.

And the other thing to do is start writing how we envision the game playing. I have some ideas here I can present in script form. Obviously, since this is not even my project, this should only be taken as the loosest of suggestions. (I know I tend to sound like I think what I say is written in stone, but please ignore that. I assure you I'm well aware that I have no idea what I'm talking about.)

EXT., NIGHT: A street view of a run-down, abandoned old insane asylum, all dirty white walls and cracked windows and wild-grown trees and bushes pushing against the building, trying to reclaim it. A flash of lightning hangs frozen in the sky. Heavy rain pounds the camera and blurs our vision for a while, before dissipating inexplicably from the glass as if the director realized we can't see shit. As the vision clears, we realize we're in a cheap 1990s first person shooter game that looks like Quake, but with poorly drawn and overy Photoshop-filtered JPG textures.

STEVE 1, THE PLAYER CHARACTER narrates:
"My name's Steve. I had no idea what anyone could possibly want with the old insane asylum, but the trail had led me here and by God I wasn't going to give up. Not before I found out who took my wife. The bad thing was just the place. It was a bad place. I felt a shiver down my back just standing there looking at it. But I had to. . .go inside."

We move around during this monologue, walking slowly along the narrow path up to the front door, probably getting used to our WASD and mouse controls and turning around and seeing two spinning little word balloons in the air behind the starting location, shining in inviting yellow colors. Putting them in the crosshairs makes them stop spin and displays the message "Press E to interact" on top of the screen, but of course we can't do that until Steve 1 finishes his monologue.

Then, pressing E on either word balloon starts another voiceover monologue, by the ESTEEMED LEAD DESIGNER MR OLIVER A SHIVA:
"Greetings, traveler. I am Oliver A Shiva: Author, visionary, creator, and unifying force. I have made this terrible, dark place you see before you; and I have gathered the people and the tools to make its twisted nightscape horrors into reality: The spectacular, virtual reality which you now inhibit. And I must warn you, player: Now that you have entered my cruel world, you may find it. . .difficult. . .to leave."

Pressing E on either of the word ballons again activates ANOTHER MONOLOGUE BY MR SHIVA:
"My humble dev team and I spent over twenty years creating this torturous masterpiece, then only to find no publishers willing to risk alienating their audience by letting our shocking, groundbreaking title out in the wild. So we were forced to go undeground, through the seedy back alleys of the uncharted Inter Net, to bring to you this purity, this incandescent, unfiltered vision of unparallelled terror and magnificence. And yet I must warn you, again. The very nature of this interactive medium of the videogame can create an experience of such intenstity that the Earth-shattering strangeness of my little manifesto here could seriously hurt you, inside. Traumatize you. Wound your soul. My guiding voice, which you will find throughout the game in these artifacts, will help you make sense of the twisted terrorscape of my mind, but I cannot follow you everywhere. For the hardest, most soul-rending painful trials you face ahead, you must stand alone. You're going to find bloodstained viciousness and stark confrontations with the darkness of the human psyche in this twisted maze that the horror master Clive Barker in his most uninhibited interactive visions could not even dream of."

At the end of this interminable gobbledygok, the front door of the asylum slowly opens with a thin rusty noise, followed by a rolling thunderclap and a flash of light as the lightning bolt in the sky streaks at last, followed by complete darkness and YET ANOTHER, COMPLETELY UNINVITED VOICEOVER BY MR SHIVA:
"So, you are brave if you choose to continue down this twisted path. But welcome, then. Welcome, player. Come on in. Welcome. . .to my DESTRUCTION."

The game title drops over the dark screen: SHIVA'S DESTRUCTION - written in blood-dripping Halloween font, white with red outline. The sound of the blood drops can be heard over the dramatic music.

Fade to black again.

STEVE 1 NARRATES IN THE DARK:
"Where's my wife?"

And now we open the floor to audience suggestions cause that's all I've got.

[Garwulf]

Amake: I fear you might be channelling Garth Marenghi's Darkplace a bit too efficiently...it must, in the end, be ours as well. Although, as far as a title goes, what's wrong with "Let's Nope"?

The thought I had about this guy has the game starting with the author staring at the camera.

"Greetings. My name is Oliver A. Shiva - the "l" is silent, and the space after the "a" is pronounced "r" - and you may know me as the bad boy of horror. People condemned me for my willingness to push the envelope. They were shocked when I had the hardcover of my first novel decorated with real human skulls. Teabagging Stephen King after a traffic accident was too much, they said, but it was MY traffic accident, and I could do what I liked after it.

"I have decided to create the ultimate horror game. Even though I have never played a video game in my life - I still use a typewriter, because it's the only way to write manuscripts using a ribbon of my own blood (and sometimes that of my many gardeners) - I will use my natural brilliance to create an experience of sheer and utter terror. Welcome...to Let's Nope."

I do love your idea for an opening line, though...it's perfect. Particularly if Alex is delivering it.

Speaking of which, though, a lot of this idea happens to rely on the participation of Loading Ready Run. So, it might be an idea to actually approach them with the idea, and see what they think.

[Garwulf]

One additional thought comes to mind...

The idea is to just go with a bingo card, and let the Let's Nope Horror Bingo guide the way, but this may be just too perfect an ending..."Pretentious statement about humanity."

So, the game ends with all of the human race destroyed except for the player character and one NPC...both of whom are the same sex. Then the player character gives a speech about how the human race will always survive.

[Volafortis]

When standing still, I assume all characters will be in the default Unity character model pose, correct?

[Amake]

"Let's Nope" seems a bit inside baseball for a title in my opinion. And I figure Shiva would want a title that screams "trying very hard to be the scariest thing since Stephen King stopped doing coke", while also indulging his massive ego.

Maybe something like "The Oliver A Shiva Project", like your average self-absorbed art school concept album. Or "Fear Itself", to go really ambitious. At some point Shiva probably needs to talk about rejected names for the game. Ooh, how about something all-over-the-place like "Shiva in Fear at the Horror of Oliver A Shiva's Elemental Plane of Terror"?

Having the game begin with Shiva showing up in person is probably better than my thing, though. Is it the hospital setting or the overabundance of adjectives that make it too much like Darkplace? I guess starting immediately at the inevitable abandoned asylum is a bit much, but that's just where my mind went.

But I do think we can pull of an even greater level of overconfident author praising his own work than Garth Marenghi. Imagine that self-aggrandizing speech delivered with breathless melodramatic passion, like he's actually frightened by how awesomely scary his game is and also putting on what he thinks is a suitably Vincent Price-style gothic horror-host character.

Not in the exact words I wrote, of course. Your bit about teabagging Stephen King and all that has to be his introduction.

PS. That would be a sweet twist ending, where Steve obliterates all humanity just to save his wife and then we finally meet her and it turns out she's another Steve wearing a dress - identical to Steve except for her prefered pronouns.

"Steve and I may never have children", Steve narrates, "but life will find a way. Humankind will find a way to survive. I know this because I know her, and I love her."

And then they kiss! \ツ/

[Phailhammer]

When standing still, I assume all characters will be in the default Unity character model pose, correct?

And any outdoor scenes are comprised mostly of the default Unity trees and grass textures.

[empath]

*all the wonderful ideas*

My response to this...nascent thing of beauty

[Garwulf]

So, just so everybody knows, I have emailed Alex and pointed him towards the thread. I imagine he may or may not reply?

That said, I do kind of have this image of a trailer for the game with Mr. Shiva talking in voiceover about how they they got all this talent by giving them offers they couldn't refuse...and smash cut to a copy of The Quivering landing in front of Alex.

Alex: ALRIGHT! I'LL DO IT! I'LL DO IT! JUST DON'T MAKE ME PLAY THAT HORRIBLE GAME AGAIN!

(Bonus points if it's a reproduction of the scene from the Godfather with the horse's head, but a box of The Quivering instead.)