Let's Get These Made Into Video Games
It's Just A Thought, but it Would be New Content
So I was reading something yesterday, and it got me thinking. Brian Niemeier, over at Kairos on Substack recently threw up a post about the decline of remakes in the gaming industry. It’s a good one. You should check it out here.
I’ve got one of his books for review. Now ask me when I’ll have time to get to it.
SIGH
That’s life in the salt mines, I guess.
But I was thinking. (Don’t tell my mama I said that. She told me never to do it, because it always gets me in trouble.) If these video game companies can’t remake the same stuff they’ve been making for the last forty years, they’re going to need some new content. Now, where could they find something like that?
The answer is, to me at least, obvious. Crossover content has always done well. Marvel and DC have made TV shows, movies, toys, and video games from their content. Actually, they’ve made more but I don’t want to be here all day. Star Wars has made crossovers into about everything imaginable as well, as has Star Trek, and probably about ninety percent of Disney content. Crossovers are huge.
And I, being the guy who promotes the Science Fiction and Fantasy stuff, have some ideas about some things that all of these AAA gaming companies could make into powerhouse franchises. Good ideas are what I do. (Or at least I like to think that.) So I am here to assist the video game industry identify properties that will translate well and which I believe (the video game company assumes all risk) will make you buckets of cash, which you may then toss into a giant vault and swim around in like Scrooge McDuck in Ducktales.
First off, two disclaimers:
Disclaimer Number One: I, being me, realize that my favorite authors will be paid licensing fees for the use of their intellectual property if it gets picked up. I am okay with this. Extra money provided to my favorite writers can be seen as a form of motivation for them to continue writing. Some people may actually accuse a sweet, innocent type like me of attempting to bribe said authors into writing more books using your money. I find myself okay with that as well. I’m even willing to make the sacrifice of being forced to read more quality content that would surely result for this and review it afterward.
A reviewer’s life is a rough one but it is the life I’ve chosen.
In this case, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make if it helps everyone else out.
Disclaimer Number Two: I make no representation, implied or explicit, that I own the rights to these properties or possess the authority to negotiate on behalf of those who do. I’ve never even met most of these people. These are ideas, not offers of products for sale.
On the other hand, and I am being one hundred percent totally serious here:
I work in sales. I have experience in Business to Business sales and appointment setting. If you need someone to get to one of these perspective authors and/or companies, I know how to figure out who to talk to and how to get past gatekeepers. I’ve done it before. All I ask for in return is money. And, let’s face it, you’re trying to make money here, too. If you deserve compensation for your efforts, why wouldn’t I?
Having said all of that, here’s what I’m thinking:
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Listen folks, this one is a no-brainer. It is one of the biggest untouched literary properties out there. Dungeon Crawler Carl is incredibly popular and already has merchandise available in stores. DCC hasn’t reached Harry levels of popularity yet, but it’s only a movie series and a video game away from doing so. Who doesn’t want to make a game that comes with a pre-built huge following? Isn’t that the whole point of doing remakes in the first place?
And Dungeon Crawler Carl is LitRPG. It mirrors a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). That makes it fairly easy to translate. Mechanics already exist. There are different sized boss fights in the books which would make great dungeon/raid sized boss fights. The AI that runs the dungeons in the books is freaking crackers, and that would leave developers a lot of leeway to add new things into the game.
The dungeon in Dungeon Crawler Carl has multiple floors. I see two ways to handle this: Either you set it up by levels, so that Character A starts the first floor at level one and can advance to the second floor at level 10 or whatever. This allows character growth and advancement through the dungeon and provides variety for the player. The floors are big enough to provide a bunch of different challenges, with commensurate rewards. There are eighteen floors and players could work their through all of them this way. Different boss encounters could be added with patches, similar to the way World of Warcraft adds new raids. This would own.
The other, albeit similar, option would be to go with progressing through the floors based on character levels, but limiting the amount of floors available for a time, then adding in (and charging for) expansions from time to time ala every MMO ever. This approach, of course, generates monthly subscription fees on top of the price of the software and would make whatever company oodles and bunches of money over time.
The Four Horsemen Universe
The Four Horsemen Universe (4HU) is freaking huge. There are multiple alien species. There is a plethora of technology available. There is space combat. There is ground combat. There are as many possible targets to point your players at as you can imagine. It’s awesome. And the cool part is that the whole milieu is based on mercenary units, so your players can do pretty much whatever set of tasks you feel like assigning them to. There are a million different factions, too. I think you’d definitely need to go open world here, but you could limit it the size based on what you needed to.
The Four Horsemen Universe is a shared universe similar to the Star Wars Expanded Universe or Dragonlance or a million other things. It might be best to start this one off slowly and build a franchise out of it. Different conflicts (including, but not limited to, The Revelation Cycle, Guild Wars, The Omega War, etc. provide plenty of room to expand your story mode or your MMO.
What really has me excited about the Four Horsemen Universe is the Player Vs Player option. A grand melee works. So does a team concept. (Although I’d call them “companies” to fit the flavor of the series, since the 4HU is made up of mercenary companies.) Capture the flag and other objective related battlegrounds would work as well. Small combats would work well, such as the two on two or three on three option in World of Warcraft. I live for the chance to put a couple of humans in CASPers up against a Tortantula with a Wrogul healer. That would be way too much fun.
A ranked PvP system would be awesome if you could come up with prizes for people who win the overall season and would provide good online content. Running a
Monster Hunter International
First off, there’s a really good tagline from the books that would make awesome marketing material. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is because I don’t want to get sued. When you sign Larry Correia and/or Baen Books to a contract to make a game out of Monster Hunter International, you can ask them. Tell them I said it involves looming and cowboys. They’ll know what you mean.
But more importantly, Monster Hunter International is the kind of universe a player could get lost in. This would once again have to be an open universe game. I could see it as an MMORPG, with players forming their own companies (as opposed to guilds) to fight monsters and make bank. Raids could be against some of the big nasties from the books.
In the first book, main character Owen Pitt gets attacked by a werewolf and goes through newbie training. That would be a good starting point. And, given the fact that being a monster hunter is all about getting paid (unless you’re a government dweeb from the Monster Control Bureau) assigning quests, or tasks or missions gets really easy. Go here, kill the thing, collect the PUFF (I forget what that stands for but it’s a bounty for every monster killed.) and continue onto the next one. It might take a bit of creativity to keep things from getting repetitive but it can be done with events like the Christmas party, etc.
There is also a main series and a side series (Monster Hunter Memoirs) that would make for easy expansion fodder. You could blow this thing up huge. There is already merch that exists. You could go full Blizzard and sell even more. It would be terrific. Especially if you made something with Skippy flying the Hind. IJS.
And that’s what I’ve got for today. I’ll have to revisit this at some point in the not too distant future.
But if any of you video game companies out there want to talk about me attempting to talk to these guys, hit me up. I’ll do my best to help you out.