Sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series allow the player to interact with the gameworld in whatever manner their conscience allows, the player is subject only to the generously proportioned physical characteristics of the avatar.
What I propose is a sandbox game, wherein your avatar yomps or minces largely unhindered through the city in much the same way as in GTA, except that before you start the game you can select (or have randomly assigned) a range of physical, psychological, emotional or moral handicaps to have applied to your avatar.
Thus: GTA: Wooden Leg (limited movement, can only drive automatic cars); GTA: Rabies (unable to cross a body of water); GTA: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (leaving a premises or vehicle takes ~15 minutes); GTA: Altruist (compulsively help anyone knocked over or startled during the bank raid you've orchestrated); GTA: Misanthropy (all conversation with NPCs take the form of them mewling "blarh blarh blarh"); GTA: Predestinationist Upbringing (able to do anything you like but your score is unaffected as God has already judged you); and so on and so forth, the possibilities are without end.
The advantages of this system are manifold (where many = 2): Gamers get to live life in the shoes of the different; and Hardcore gamers can challenge themselves to complete the game on varying combinations of modifyer, viz "Well *I've* completed it on "Aspergers Altruist Misanthrope Monoped, so ner".-- calum, Jun 04 2012 Limmy: GTA IV prostitutes - how do you kill yours? http://www.youtube....watch?v=n7b9SbFzIp0the inspiration for this idea. [calum, Jun 04 2012] Eddie Izzard http://www.youtube....watch?v=fbOC0uoKYtUThis idea reminds me of the Eddie Izzard routine (from 6:38 onwards) where he imagines different settings for the Star Trek phasers - not just "Kill" and "Stun", but also "Limp", "Bit of a cough", etc. [hippo, Jun 06 2012] why yes, DrBob, there are many many more http://www.youtube....watch?v=sxkS5Rzr4W0 [calum, Jun 11 2012] Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is http://whatever.sca...y-setting-there-is/ [calum, Jun 11 2012] MPDMMORPG [calum, Jun 11 2012] So, real life, in a sandbox game? What's not to like?-- UnaBubba, Jun 04 2012 Rabies doesn't keep you from crossing open water, that's certain forms of vampirism. Rabies just straight-up kills you. The screen reads: 'You spend the next few weeks in progressive unbearable pain as you slowly lose your mind and control of your extremities, then you die. Game Over.'
However, a sandbox game (my favorite kind) where wounds that a character sustains take a realistic amount of time to heal and loss of limb or disability cannot be magically repaired would be an interesting change of pace.-- Alterother, Jun 04 2012 This is the 'Call of Cthulhu' approach to gaming. Please select your phobia/mania/significant physical handicap.-- DrBob, Jun 04 2012 The Cthulu Mythos is the greatest as-yet-untapped genre in sandbox games. If nobody's working on it right now, they damned well should be.-- Alterother, Jun 04 2012 There's an interesting observation somewhere here.-- rcarty, Jun 04 2012 Yes, perhaps, but what is it?-- calum, Jun 05 2012 So... It's like a modern RPG system, but you can only take disadvantages and quirks? Except this one's for videogames?-- Hive_Mind, Jun 05 2012 GTA: Video game addict (avatar wont stop playing video games)
An interesting version would be GTA: Grand Theft Auto Spectator whereas GTA: Grand Theft Auto Player would be much the same as playing the game, in spectator mode you're basically watching your friend play the game trying to get a turn. Basically you have reach for the controller, and pretend to be leaving at strategic times to get a chance to play. If you win and get ahold of the controller the game goes to credits.-- rcarty, Jun 05 2012 GTA: Psychopathic Kleptomaniac? - or would that be too easy?-- hippo, Jun 05 2012 GTA Luddite. Refuses to use any mechanised technology.-- pocmloc, Jun 05 2012 You don't have to worry if you're a kleptomaniac, [hippo]. You can always take something for it.-- UnaBubba, Jun 05 2012 GTA-Procrastination. I have an idea for it, I just havent got round to posting it yet.-- S-note, Jun 06 2012 GTA Apathy. Avatar can't be arsed to do anything, just sits.-- pocmloc, Jun 06 2012 GTA Neighbourhood from Hell. Set up as per the normal game except that your tasks are such mundane things as 'drive down the shops for some ciggies', 'go and collect grandma from the airport', 'clear the snow from in front of your house' etc. Tasks that are made almost impossible by the constant succession of thugs hijacking your car or stealing your shovel in order to beat someone to death with it. That's a pretty desperate youtube vid, by the way, calum. Do you know if there are any more?-- DrBob, Jun 06 2012 Dr Bob's Idea has already been made, try playing Postal.-- S-note, Jun 06 2012 //Wooden Leg (limited movement, can only drive automatic cars);
Used to watch this guy parking cars in Cairo, he had one arm and one leg, opposite sides, he was better with a manual than I am.-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 06 2012 How was he at stealing cars? Had he perhaps lost the limbs following the application of Shari'a law?-- UnaBubba, Jun 06 2012 GTA - Ministry of Silly Walks-- S-note, Jun 06 2012 //Cthulu Mythos
So, shouldn't that be Grand Theft Auto: Erectile Tentacle Dysfunction?-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 07 2012 GTA: Liszt, like an endless piano concerto.-- UnaBubba, Jun 07 2012 GTA: Amish ? Paradoxical to say the least …-- 8th of 7, Jun 07 2012 GTA: English: Mumbled apologies ("Ooh, terribly sorry...") after each brutal murder, carjacking, or blow to someone's head with a baseball bat; After every five acts of extreme violence you have to sit down and have a cup of tea.-- hippo, Jun 07 2012 //shouldn't that be Grand Theft Auto: Erectile Tentacle Dysfunction?
I mean what the point of being elder god who eats minds and will bring the world to end in fire and blood, if all the other elder gods keep pointing and whispering "Mr Floppy" behind your back?-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 07 2012 I'm getting a sense of creeping lead..-- S-note, Jun 07 2012 GTA: Halfbakery. In-game equipment and objects constantly fail due to parts having been cannibalised for experiments or repaired with string and food remains. Whenever anything new happens in the game, Avatar stops to compose a idea based on it, and must then find an internet connection, log on, post the idea, and check previous idea for new annos before continuing game play. Subsequent behaviour of Avatar is affected by buns and bones accumulating on the checked ideas.-- pocmloc, Jun 07 2012 What about if the GTA world was made up of HB ideas. Restore your Health with a slice of Ben Frosts toast....-- S-note, Jun 07 2012 GTA: Vagina Jam... a whole world of wonder.-- UnaBubba, Jun 08 2012 GTA: Firestarter You're the firestarter twisted firestarter.-- rcarty, Jun 09 2012 GTA: Beanangel: you're growing new appendiges due to lots and lots of experimentally-modified genetic drugs.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 10 2012 I suppose the thing I was thinking about here was not so much the physical or brain chemistry handicaps that could be applied to your avatar (gingivitis, bipolar disorder, u.s.w.) as the ones that might, perhaps, be conveniently ascribed to the player's upbringing (timidity, for example, or an overabundance of moral fibre) because these are the attributes which are, in relation to sandbox games, the ones where the player is permitted greatest flexibility when compared with how in the real world they comport themselves. Physical attributes, though, are easier to model because they are limited in terms of their impact on the avatar's interaction with the gameworld.
Anyway, some links thrown up, including one for just for DrBob.-- calum, Jun 11 2012 Speaking as someone who is profoundly bipolar, the action in sandbox games sometimes is a fairly accurate model of living with bipolar disorder: you spend long periods tooling around not doing much of anything, running up against obstacles you don't understand, becoming increasingly bored and frustrated. Then something drops into place and you stay up all night frenetically zipping back and forth accomplishing multiple tasks, many of which are left unfinished as something that seems more important or attractive comes to your attention. After that, it's back to (virtual) weeks of banging your head against the wall trying to figure out why nothing is going the way it should.-- Alterother, Jun 11 2012 Ah yes, calum, I remember now. Adventure Call!-- DrBob, Jun 11 2012 Perhaps that explains why the world is as it is. It is by definition bi-polar.-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 14 2012 Until the next pole reversal, which we suspect your species will find unpleasantly loud and expensive ...-- 8th of 7, Jun 14 2012 random, halfbakery