You may have recently heard of a highly acclaimed, somewhat groundbreaking strategy game going by the name Black & White. Whatever description I give will not encompass everything this game has to offer, so check out the links below.
This expansion follows on from the original in that there is another need for a godly entity, but in a place far removed from the ambigious ancient islands in the original: a post-apocalyptic world. You can either start off new to this world, neither good or evil, or come through a vortex and keep your alignment (and creature) from the first game.
I propose things that should have been in the original, such as the ability to pick up water, terrain deformation and smarter, non-whining, autonomous villagers.
However, this post-apocalyptic world also features rather interesting features not in the rather idyllic islands in the original.
Added to the landscape would be vast cities, abandoned highways, deserts etc populated with stuff such as cars, trains and such and such. Tides occur, rain can fill up dry rivers, and natural diasters happen without input from you.
Radiation patches and fallout threaten the well being of both your subjects and your creature. Over exposure to radioactive elements can also create mutations to living things, so while horribly disfigured children may not go well with the locals, you might warm to a two headed cow with laser shooting eyes. Radiation also creates foes such as giant ants for you to contend with.
The hopefully smarter villagers aren't the just peaceful tribes as before. They may raid other villages for badly needed resources, or to even forcibly spread word of your greatness (basically a crusade). Especially strained relations may result in a tiny virtual war between them. Even if the abuse your creature is giving them is a bit too much, they might even take it out on him.
Villagers would also have a larger number of "roles" than before with certain people doing better at things than others, such as dropping a doctor near a disaster area would help heal people without the need to conjour up a miracle. Most are automatically assigned, but some can be assigned by you when the need arises. You can give your creature a "squire", who'll take care of him until he/she dies. Maybe they'll learn some miracles and become a wizard!
More silver scroll quests, some random (like finding a lost person), others context sensitive (like the previously mentioned fetching a doctor at a disaster area). Of course, you can just ignore these, and they'll go away after a while. Things may also just happen not through your actions. A train crash might just happen. You having to fight off a rival god's ten thousand strong villager army might just happen.
Aliens would make an appearance if your (un)lucky.
More miracles such as radiation, distraction (so they won't notice you grab kids for scarifices), offensive odor, haunting, mind control, gossip, impotence and potence (also works on irradiated crops). A wider variety of offensive miracles would be included such locust plague, tsunami, earthquake, tornado and Rocks From Space - in various incarnations.
And of course, there'll be new creatures! Maybe a Godzilla knock-off.. And if anyone has seen The Iron Giant, they would know how cool it would be if they included a huge robot creature.-- mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001 Planet Black & White http://www.planetblackandwhite.com/Excellent resource page. [mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Official Black & White site http://www.bwgame.com [mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Games are getting pretty surreal these days. Black and White has artificial intelligence that reputedly exhibits emergent behaviour.-- Aristotle, Apr 12 2001 Actually, you've a point there UnaBubba. I sometimes feel I'm reading rough translations of Lost Languages.-- thumbwax, Apr 12 2001 I like it - who knows, maybe Peter Molyneux reads Halfbakery and you'll get your wish!
I caught my pet (the monkey) break-dancing with the villagers for the first time recently - it was the first time I've laughed out loud at a game since Sam & Max!-- cjlove, Apr 12 2001, last modified Apr 17 2001 please, I'll do ANYTHING for smarter vilagers even go along with this slightly warped idea. If they are starving have them build a farm. Also an ever so slightly better method of movement - have you tried that godawful(pun intended but didnt realy work) sub- quest trying to follow that yogic guy down his spiraly mountain - ARGGG! Pet godzilla would be nice. Id also like a wizard but mine would either end up like rincewind - completely useless at magic, whos only talent is running away, or stomped by some sort of radioactive hamster.-- RobertKidney, Jun 04 2001 random, halfbakery