Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Video Games In Real Life
This probably sounds really dumb, but have you ever been someplace and thought "you could make a pretty cool level out of this"?
The thing that springs to mind for me is the whole U.S. Capitol complex. First off, you have the Capitol building itself, which is full of member's only passage ways, entire sections that can be locked down during emergencies, cloak rooms, and all kinds of hidden stuff (including an empty tomb). Add to that the fact that the Capitol is connected to a series of office buildings and the giant Library of Congress via a system of labyrinthine underground tunnels and a couple of subways.
I am mostly thinking all that stuff would make for a good platforming level. Come to think of it though, the Capitol might be a good setting for a survival horror game too.
Going off that, do you ever see an inexplicably locked room in a building or maybe spot some shack in the middle of nowhere while driving by and think "that would be a good place to put a secret star/energy tank/heart piece etc."? If not, you are probably a completely reasonable person. Even so, I am kind of curious whether anyone else thinks like that.
Comments
Yellowstone. Any part of it ever.
All the time.
I used to hang out in this abandoned industrial building, but I never explored the entire thing; it was too dark, even during the day, and it was full of pitfalls that may or may not have gone on for multiple floors. My friends and I worked out which rooms had the best combination of safety and accessibility, and these became our hangout spaces. But we never explored the full extent of the complex, and I occasionally find myself imagining what might have been down there. In particular, the ground floor, and any possible floors below that, remained a mystery to us, with the higher floors generally being more secure despite the drops.
There was once a situation there where I spent the night expecting to be attacked by thugs due to some bad news via a friend. They never showed up, but we made preparations anyway; improvised weapons, barricades, individual stations, fallback plans and everything. The people who might have shown up are pretty tough cookies and we would have had to meet ruthlessness with ruthlessness, so we didn't leave any calculation out of our plans. A personal "Helm's Deep" moment in an environment I didn't fully understand, even if it thankfully never came to violence.
Also, I suspect just about any castle or palace would have good potential as a game level, given that those places are specifically designed to have complex elements confusing to attackers.
But abandoned or disused places in general contain very interesting stories, I think. Just signs of who lived there and what they were doing, plus specific marks of particular events. It could be something as simple as a fire poker being semi-melted from being left in the fireplace while it was active -- perhaps someone fell asleep there, tending the fire? Or it could be a cat's scratch marks on old furniture. Or anything like that. I find disused places fascinating, and I think plenty of them would be fantastic additions to games in general.
^^^ Castlevania: Capitol of Sentiments
And long before IJBM was ever a thing, I came up with Castlevania @ MIT. The sometimes odd juxtapositions of different architectural styles on the MIT campus really inspire totally different background music to go along with the atmosphere. Now add to that the fact that MIT is sometimes nicknamed "hell"...
Alex,
But abandoned or disused places in general contain very interesting stories, I think. Just signs of who lived there and what they were doing, plus specific marks of particular events. It could be something as simple as a fire poker being semi-melted from being left in the fireplace while it was active -- perhaps someone fell asleep there, tending the fire? Or it could be a cat's scratch marks on old furniture. Or anything like that. I find disused places fascinating, and I think plenty of them would be fantastic additions to games in general.
Having to barricade yourself like you mentioned sounds pretty scary to me, but I am totally with you when it comes to abandoned places. While a lot of the places it mentions are disused rather than abandoned, you might like this BBC article about huge empty places in China since it has pictures of stuff like this.
Another one of the deserted places it mentions is full of giant highrises. I think it kind of gives it a post-apocalyptic feel if that makes any sense. Really though, any of those deserted Chinese cities and theme parks would probably make for a good game level.
That sort of "real world" design is why Sonic Unleashed has my favorite aesthetic of any game ever.
Also, I think at some point I sketched up an idea for a TF2 map set in (an equivalent of) downtown Vancouver. I also tend to look at things like Petra and think "this would be an awesome Zelda dungeon."
There's a TF2 map named like "godzilla" or something that looks like a nighttime Japanese urban slum area.
Skocjan Caves.
^ Upon seeing that I immediately thought of scenes from Ys: the Oath in Felghana.
Bryce Canyon.
For something more urban, Habitat 67.
Come to think of it, I think there's a subway in the Nintendo 64 Castlevania games.
New Belgrade. Admit it, the first thing you think of when you see this picture is "rooftop chase".
My first thought was "What the hell's that woman doing there".
^^ NANOHA FPS GAME NAO PLZ
Blueeyedrat,
For something more urban, Habitat 67.
Are you sure that was not in Galaxy? I could be wrong, but I think it could definitely work as one of those stages that has a ton of gravity changes.
This is probably not as fitting as some of the other things in this thread, but I feel like the Milwaukee Art Museum might make an okay Zelda dungeon (albeit a futuristic one).
It has a great hall, long winding hallways, multiple levels, and the whole sailboat thing gives it a theme. The fact that its wings can open and close seems like a decent gimmick to me too, so maybe there would be some puzzle to figure out how to operate them to reach a higher area.
The Wooden Gangster House of Arkhangelsk. Wouldn't surprise me if the trash tower in inFamous took a leaf from it.
Cant get pictures to post from my phone, but Phoenix Trotting Park is an abandoned 1960s horse track i think would be cool as a CS map or something and its supposedly haunted
*edit: Picimatures!
^^^ That and the Calatrava is an art museum, so some sort of collect them all mini game or something.
If I remember correctly, one of the inspirations for the Mazuri levels in Sonic Unleashed was the Great Mosque of Djenné:
An impressive structure.
Dang.
I sometimes have this problem just when I leave my house, and I imagine a HUD and that I'm in some REALLY open world sandbox game.
You are. Your HUD is right there already; it's just that this game doesn't like showing you stats. You have to generate them on your own, using in-game items like paper and pen to write things down yourself. You also don't get stats on your health either; you just get vague feelings every so often.