Absolute power
Story:[slightly flippant summary] Fantasy environment. 2 gods- at the beginning of time, 'good' one imprisons the 'evil' one "forever" (ha ha), then did the divine version of going off for a cup of tea- anyway, while he wasn't looking Some Stupid Humans (fantasy versions of scientists no doubt) used their magic to access what they thought was a source of ultra-powerful magic- of course, it was the prison. They made a small hole, but were obliterated by the escape of power. It was passed off as a simple (!) accident as all their notes were destroyed as well. Anyway, in this world the majority of people have magical ability of some kind, some with more power than others. Over time, the Evil God (I'll refer to him as 'Fred' for the sake of brevity) tried to get out though the hole, but discovered it was too small- but it did allow him to talk to and influence people in the world and even make brief appearances in a vastly weakened state. He managed to influence the thirteen (being a traditional god) most powerful sorcerers in the world into trying to completely free him and innumerable others of lesser power. You play the part of the fourteenth most powerful sorcerer and must try to prevent the Thirteen getting their hand on the Ancient Magical Ability Boosting Artefacts (TM) which would allow them to break open the hole. You will have to chase them over the world- haunted cities, ship battles etc. facing each of the Thirteen as you catch up with them. Over the course of the game, the world will become steadily more corrupted as Fred's influence becomes greater- also more evil creatures will be created to fight you. NB you may occasionally come across allies who will help you, heal you etc. Gameplay: The general idea is to kill the Thirteen and their henchmen throughout all the levels, using sword and spell skills. I will deal with each separately.
Spellcasting:
Your Character, who I will name Bob, has two 'mind sets' for want of a better phrase- there is the ordinary mind set, where everything runs at normal speed, but where you cannot cast spells and the Focused mind set, where the game enters slow-motion mode when you are under attack (simulating an adrenaline rush) and you can cast spells. Unfortunately, casting spells is very draining and you have limited willpower reserves to harness the huge amounts of power required for spellcasting. You slowly recover your will, but only when in the Normal mind set. There is the added problem the power it gives you- "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" (hence the title). In other words, the more you use your power, the closer to insanity you become. This never goes down, but goes up very slowly every time you use a spell- never resetting throughout the entire game. Insanity manifests itself as hearing enemies that aren't there, seeing friends as enemies, seeing scenery that isn't there (not that bad- unless it's a bridge!), occasionally having a voice in your head spout gibberish in your head (the time to panic is when it starts making sense) and so on. Casting spells is relatively simple- each of the number keys 1-5 represents a certain aspect of magic- (earth, air, fire, water, spirit). When selecting spells, pressing the key alone selects a 'pure' spell- fireball for fire, dispel for spirit etc. But if you press another, a spell is selected which has the aspects of the two combined with the one pressed first primary (e.g. Fire-spirit- makes enemies head explode, spirit-fire- makes enemies think fire is surrounding them, making them cover down for a few seconds). Only the pure spells are available to start, but as the game progresses, Bob will learn how to cast new spells. Because of the drawbacks, another method of fighting is required: swordfighting.
Swordfighting:
Bob carries around a sword, which he uses often. It is easier to fight in focused mind set as everything is slowed down, but you will never recover any willpower, so will be stuck with swordfighting for the rest of the level. Fighting is done by using two keys and the direction controls. One key activates attack mode for as long as it held down. In attack mode, you press a direction key and you attack in that direction e.g. forwards makes you do an overhead slash, down-right makes an attack come from below and the right. The other key is the block key. Obviously, when you press a direction key while this key is depressed, you block an attack from that direction. This is very important, as Bob has realistic health- i.e. can survive minor nicks, but just one solid blow can kill him. By double pressing a direction key with neither button depressed, Bob can make a combat move- ducking, cartwheeling/rolling/diving out the way etc.
Other Stuff:
At certain point, Fred himself (OOOhhh- how threatening [sorry, hopeless at names]) will materialise and try to deal with you personally- vastly weakened or not, he is still way more powerful than Bob, and all you can do is flee, dispelling and dodging as you go until he can no longer stay in this world. The overall aim is to get the artefacts and try to repair the hole. As you get the artefacts, if you activate one, each spell takes less willpower to cast depending on how much that particular Artefact boosts Bob's power. However, the insanity meter goes up faster the more powerful the artefact- the more powerful artefacts will push you over the edge in a couple of uses.
Final Thing: If you actually could be bothered to read this far, congratulations- few have your perseverance.
James Newman
James@cbnewman.freeserve.co.uk
You submitted this idea as an action idea but to me it sounded more like an RPG, but who cares. Besides from choosing an extremely stupid name for the main character (if your name happens to be Bob and feel like me owing you an apologise go else where, Bob is not a good name for any main character!) and talking too much about boring crap, you actually managed to hide an extremely cool idea amongst the usual bullshit that I far too often see in the submitted game ideas. Your idea about an insanity status that will affect how you see and hear the world that surrounds you is way cool!
Idea Reviewer:
-Vegard Aure-
