Sleep-game writing

[davidn]

I had a dream about a game where you were a film director. It looked reasonably like Habbo, with the scene you were shooting viewed isometrically, the actors in the middle of the set and the crew and cameras around it. Your objective was to move the cameras about and switch between them to capture as much of the scene as possible without also getting any of the equipment, crew or multiple other distractions into the frame (one of the scenes was shot in a living room, with three yellow chicks zooming around the walls).

If you got anything on camera that you weren't supposed to, such as when I moved a camera too far over and saw the bearded lighting director hiding halfway down a flight of stairs, it would announce this with the noise from MGS that can only be described as "!", and your little director jumping up and down with steam coming out of his ears and a giant spiky speech balloon shooting up above his head and proclaiming "ARSES".

I remember another scene where you were filming for the news with a massive crowd running towards you, having to hold your resolve to get it on camera until they were nearly on top of you. But just before they ran you over, the FBI agent among them would reveal himself and stop them - he was the one who was disguised as an ice cream van.

I wonder how workable it would be.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I would play that game just for "ARSES"

[davidn]

You would ;)

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

It sounds a lot more feasible to try and view it as filming documentaries, which is where it seems more plausibly like what happens.

Surely it's more of a camera+editing sim than director, per se? In that you're not actually directing anything.

On the other hand, I've got a feeling that if I mentioned this to my climbing friends, who work in digital effects, this would sound something like a busman's holiday. It feels like to be able to create something genuinely impressive would be beyond the specs of a 'mere' game, but a program to actually create like this, is, well, pretty close to what Pixar does.

[davidn]

The line between working on a game and playing it can blur sometimes in the form of things like Harvest Moon, which I played once on my sister's Gameboy - digging squares in the ground became surprisingly compelling after a while. To get a game out of something, the complexity of it just has to be reduced - quite far sometimes - into something measurable (or scorable).

I've no idea how well the above would actually work if scored on time shot and interesting things captured, but artistic licence for jobs like that in games is often just accepted - lawyers don't actually wander about investigating suspicious evidence at crime scenes like a crazy-haired Jonathan Creek, for example.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

I was more comparing it to people who work in digital effects/animation on film - you're never really going to do that well in comparing that.

However, if events unfold in a predicted way, but you're guiding the recording and which bits are shown, this would seem to lead to make an excellent documentary-maker/newseditor/propagandist sim.

[ikodomoonstrife.livejournal.com]

That sounds pretty cool, and if nothing else, it would at least be unique ^^

[davidn]

It sounds like the kind of thing that could be done as a Flash minigame - if I ever get to a point where I have fewer than ten things to work on simultaneously in the near future, I might have a go of it :)

[kjorteo]

Getting inspiration for what would surely be a massive and ridiculously epic project if pursued, from something you saw in a dream? Now that's just silly.

[davidn]

And you know it wouldn't be the first time for me, either!

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

I'd play it.

It would be like Pokemon Snap, expect that you're judged over a continuous series of events, rather than a single picture.

[(Anonymous)]

I have the "!" noise on my phone as a ringtone, I can give it to you over bluetooth at Christmas if you want! That and the codec ring... I am friends with a massive MGS geek.

[pami-zee.livejournal.com]

That was me, sorry :S

[davidn]

Ever since we first played through MGS3 and Whitney saw the series for the first time, I've been friends with quite an MGS geek as well :)

Just looking at the Youtube uploads of it made me think of putting it on to my phone, though I don't think I'd be able to move away from having it silent and unobtrusive. Though I have wanted to put a scream from Daniel Heiman on to it for when I'm in the office, just to annoy the people around me who have the worst ringtones in the world.