The movie Westworld starring Yul Brynner. It’s an exotic amusement park where guests get to interact with androids in 3 different worlds – actually I only remember 2 of the worlds – a Roman world and a Western. The Western was the featured world in the movie. The conflict comes from the androids malfunctioning and the safety controls which were programmed into the androids fail and guests get seriously injured even killed.
The novel-turned-film, The Maze Runner. The synopsis, as taken from the official movie site, reads:
When Thomas wakes up trapped in a massive maze with a group of other boys, he has no memory of the outside world other than strange dreams about a mysterious organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his true purpose and a way to escape.
When Thomas wakes up trapped in a massive maze with a group of other boys, he has no memory of the outside world other than strange dreams about a mysterious organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his true purpose and a way to escape.
I envision a shifting maze, a social negotiating mechanic, and time-sensitive decision-making.
I can think of a lot that I’d like to make an RPG out of: Avatar the Last Airbender, Steven Brust’s Taltos series, Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. As far as an IP for a tactical game, Starship Troopers would be cool. There’s a lot of potential there. But the original Starship Troopers, not the silly movie.
I would love to see a Ghostbusters game. Perhaps when mobile devices have evolved enough to project tabletop holograms where we can witness the ghost sucked back into the “trap”. But aside from the teamwork required to capture ghosts, I can see the final boss battle being a blast. Everyone might have to discard cards from their hand, freeing their mind of any possible “thoughts” that could destroy them. Whatever cards you cannot part with risk becoming the form of the destructor!
Charles Stross’s The Laundry Files book series, revolving around a secret British government agency dealing with occult threats, combines Lovecraftian horrors, 007 spy antics, computer hackery and office bureaucracy. There’s apparently an RPG in print already – a variant of Call of Cthulhu – but I’d like to see a board game where agents must navigate the red tape of The Laundry to obtain information, personnel and materials necessary to hold back the threat of incursions from other dimensions.
I can’t answer this, because I’m actually designing it now with intentions to gain the IP someday. But my second choice would be Star Trek. I could design a ST game like I’ve always wanted to play.
Your Turn!
What intellectual property would you love to get your hands on? Let us know in the comments.
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Brad Brooks
iOS Developer
Brad designed Letter Tycoon (a word game for capitalists) which won the 2015 Mensa Select award, and the upcoming Rise of Tribes. He is currently in need of a time machine to address his idea vs. execution imbalance.
11 Readers Commented
Join discussionI second Avatar, the last air bender. Also, I would like to see a better Ender’s game based game. I think Ready Player One by Ernest Cline could create an awesome setting for an RPG.
Ever since I was pitched a certain game at the Publisher Speed Dating at Gen Con, I have wanted to see a game based on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog. This game pitch I saw would have gone perfect with that IP.
Star Wars!!!! 😛 ha ha. Really though I would love to see a good Supernatural or Hellboy game. Either one has plenty of lore to base a good game around. Another interesting one would be Image comics. You could play as Savage Dragon, The Maxx, Spawn and the like possibly even an expansion for Legendary???
No one said Fight Club yet? Actually, any of Palahniuk’s work could be made into a great theme. I also say that not being a huge fan of his writing style, but the stories and characters he’s created are so larger than life that it’d be a fun project for sure.
The first rule of Fight Club games is no one talks about their Fight Club game.
Yes to Ghostbusters!
I also love the Secret of NIMH as a great family co-op game. But the IP I want most is Terminator.
The BBC sitcom “‘Allo ‘Allo!” would make a great boardgame!
Harry Potter Universe.
I would like (and am making) a game where Harry Potter and it`s fellas have no influence in the game.
Something where you could only be a student at Hogwarts, and explore its marvel without worrying about Voldemort and Harry Protagonist.
I would love to see a game having the tv series “Lost” as a theme , I think that it would give a designer many choices for cool and innovative mechanics , it’s a great theme with a lot of possible twists .
The world of Mordant from Stephen R Donaldson’s book, ‘The mirror of her dreams’
Movie – Scream or any other Slasher film. I’d love for the players to be able to play as the slasher, and try to avoid being caught/found out. I guess some people might not like the idea of killing people (especially high school students), but I think there’s enough fans of the slasher genre that it would appeal to them. If the setting was a summer camp, that could be really cool too.
Video Game – Paper Mario. I’m thinking a Paper Mario LCG, where players choose a character with some amount of HP, FP, and BP. HP is your health, of course. FP is what you use to perform special attacks, and BP determines how many badges you can use for the game. Then you’d choose say 5 partners to use throughout the match. I don’t exactly know how it would work from there. You’d fight monsters, complete quests, and so on.
Book – The Spiderwick Chronicles. I don’t read a whole lot of books, but I think it could be cool to have an eyeglass component that let you see things on the board/cards that you couldn’t see without it. So for instance, fighting off monsters would be tough, because you can’t always see where they are. There’s a lot of interesting magic in the book, and I think if that was added into a game, it could be pretty cool.