Pastadventure

[davidn]

My dreams often alternate their viewpoints back and forward between being from my own point of view, and controlling a different person from a third-person perspective as if playing a game. So I'm not entirely sure if this was meant to be a game or not in the dream, but that's how I remembered it. This was an adventure set somewhere very much like the city environment of Flashback - I remembered talking about a sequel to Toonstruck with rakarr, but this might have been a detail that the dream made up and didn't happen in real life... either way, this was meant to be related to it and had something to do with the daughter of the antagonist from the first game coming back and turning the cartoon world into a dystopian future.

The most striking feature of the setting was its use of pasta as currency. The storyline was mainly about this main character being Arthur Dented along in an effort to stop the evil forces, because for some reason he had been transported to this world with a huge bin-bag full of various types of pasta, which had become somewhat rare in this world - an assortment of smaller ones like macaroni as well as long strands of fettuccine and spaghetti, all very distinctly dyed for the benefit of the colourblind. The longer varieties played a double role, not only as currency like the rest but also as a means of puzzle solving - some points in the game would require you to feed a certain length of a certain colour of spaghetti into a machine to progress. I remember having to activate a control panel for something by cutting off an inch of bright purple and sticking it on to a board on the wall, then expending smaller lengths to rotate each control a set distance.

I sort of want to try making it, more for the puzzle aspect than the adventure one (which didn't really come into play at any point during the dream).

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

The idea being that you would have a fixed number of spare tries at solving puzzles, across the entire game?

[davidn]

That, or you could find certain stations at which you could trade in other varieties for more supplies, or cook up or dye more of it. I vaguely recall something like that in the dream as well...

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the fact that he got zapped into this universe carrying a bag made me think it was a "can you make these hold out until the end of the game" thing... definitely interesting, adding an in-game economy to a puzzle/adventure game! I feel like it runs the usual risk of mixing genres though, which is to just alienate everyone who isn't lucky enough to enjoy both halves of a game that they would have enjoyed either half of on its own....

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

So glad that dream is not real, because then I would be very poor from eating all my money.

I would also like to see that game be made.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

I was reading and thinking that sounded like a really good game. In fact, it would also make an excellent game for the Wii as you could have the bowtie ones as keys for turning, needing to line up the spaghetti ones, thread the macaroni ones along wires, use the shell ones to cover traps or enemies.

Just thinking a bit more, the bow ties ones could unlock the doors to puzzles and the rewards could be to open up the other levels.

So in short...Drop all projects and make the pasta game!

[kjorteo]

You should always undertake major ambitious projects based on ideas you got from a dream.

[davidn]

I think that you have a wonderful mind for this sort of thing, the sort of... charming absurdism that can really make games especially stand out. Based on that assessment, I should probably do it!

[davidn]

Always - no exceptions. They lead you to places you never thought you were meant to go.

[davidn]

It may raise the question of whether it makes more sense to have currency be something directly edible... either way, I think I may have doomed myself even further to never finish my current project!

[kjorteo]

God, tell me about it.

Er, I mean, yes, they certainly do.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

I experienced the issue of running out of currency with Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders.

I didn't think it was possible to lose a LucasArts game. I was wrong.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Huh! Really o.o

[davidn]

You can also make the game unwinnable that way in Monkey Island, but only if you're really, really trying - it involves feeding the grog machine with pieces of eight about two hundred times.

I was very surprised in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis when I was first taken to the Game Over screen, and it slowly dawned on me that it was actually genuine.