An arty idea

[Dog Pants]

I've just had a stroke of inspiration that elaborates on an old idea of mine, but since I'm at work I'm jotting it here for my own benefit and a bit of discussion. The idea is based on the famous Omaha beach level in Medal of Honour. A standalone program set up as a public display which people could come along and have one go at. Maybe a run through the 'boot camp' tutorial first. Anybody who dies during their one playthrough is given a little wooden cross to write their name on and plant on boot hill on their way out. Each playthrough is saved and accumulated, so the first man in the wave has lots of cover but not many people to attract fire, while later players will have predecessors taking up cover and ultimately dying ahead of them.

[shot2bits]

I like that idea, seems like a conglomerate of frozen synapses simultanious turn based gameplay with fps's ( is that right? i wouldve thought fps was a noun rather than a plural) and cannon fodder, unless i read than wrong and you dont mean people have a go at playing an individual solder running alone into the frontlines of an enemy ai army and then once X amount of people have had a go they are all played out simultaniously for the proper fight.

I have a feeling my brain hasnt quite got that right so please correct me if im wrong.

edit:
actually on a second readthrough it looks like a got that completely wrong and you mean every time a new player has a go all the previous players characters are present in that game and play out what they did in their go, still a very nifty idea, would be interesting to play and see the graveyard, could also be cool to have something to record and show those who survived

[Dog Pants]

Yeah, you had it right the second time. I was rushing to post on my phone before my lunch break ended. The idea was to imply the risks faced by the men on the beach at the time and give people an idea of how hard survival was, which was an idea which occurred to me while I was playing that level. In my head the accumulative gameplays worked because the first men in a wave probably wouldn't last too long or be aware of what was happening behind him. As more people play they see the ones before them coming out of the landing craft, and being set back a few paces means generally there's people ahead of them. There's significance in the fact that everything you see people do ahead of you, cowering behind obstacles, running in panic, charging heroically, dying, was actually done by a real person. And of course the war cemetery at the end is ripped right out of Cannon Fodder. The demonstration is more an execution of an idea to demonstrate 'games' can have more significance than entertainment rather than any political anti/pro war statement, although there is a little personal agenda aimed at people who might think that being a soldier is glamorous or those who think anyone who fights a war there through choice. If only I had the skills to make it happen, but maybe one day.

[FatherJack]

Nice idea, it sounds like a cross between that rendering of where everyone died in Just Cause 2 and racing against your ghost in a driving game, only with thousands of 'ghosts' who were all previous players and who don't necessarily look ghostly. As an art project I suppose it would be interesting, but it would also make a good singleplayer game where all the 'ghosts' were your own previous attempts. I thought of something similar for a platform game, but decided it was a bit too much like Super Meat Boy.