I’m not a big "April Fools" participant. I don’t feel the need to try to fool people into thinking I’m giving up designing games to pursue a career in Interpretive Dance, or install a java-script that makes all the hyperlinks run away from the mouse (Ok, that would be kind of funny). But I am going to take the somewhat belated opportunity to kick back and throw out a little feature I like to call:

7 Things That Should Be Made Into Games

7. Dead Like Me (Showtime Original Series)

A series about a girl who gets killed by a toilet seat that breaks off from the re-entering MIR space station, only to comeback among the living as a grim reaper. As a reaper, she is responsible for freeing souls from their bodies before death. As a recently (sort-of) reincarnated young woman, she struggles with her day job, her co-workers and relationships.

The game: Stealth soul-freeing gameplay meets Japanese dating sim. Can Georgia reap the Nun in her cloister and make it back in time for her hot date?

6. The Culture Novels of Ian HM. Banks

The cutting edge in galaxy spanning space opera. Massive AI warships, human intrigue in the form of Special Circumstances Agent, threats from alien species and transdimensional…(outside of context problem).

I’m not rocking the boat here…straight up galaxy-spanning space sim, thank-you-very-much.

5. The Transitive Vampire

A fantastic book and entertaining book about English grammar.

Wha..? Yes, you heard me. Ever since getting Brain Age at the Nintendo Keynote at GDC this year, my wife has been the sole keeper of the DS. Do I not have brain training needs too? So give me a series of fast-paced grammar-centric puzzles, and let’s get those centers a work out. Ok, so there’s no easy way to localize a grammar-based game. Thanks for raining on my parade.

4. The Venture Brothers

A wonderfully irreverent Adult Swim take on the Johnny Quest Mythos. You probably didn’t even know there was a Johnny Quest Mythos. That’s part of the valuable service I provide here. Dr. Venture is the tragedy Johnny Quest would have grown into; overshadowed by a brilliant super-scientist jet-setting father, Dr. Venture lives a life of not-so-quite desperation, plagued by super villians (most of whom he went to college with), and two clueless offspring, Hank and Dean. The only thing that usually stands between the Ventures and oblivion is their reasonable loyal body guard, the murderous killing machine Brock Sampson.

A party-based action RPG, where most of the fighting is done by Brock, and Dr. Venture spends his time looking for more diet pills, and a compatible liver donor. The boys look for clues.

3. Wallace and Grommit

If you aren’t familiar with the adventures of England’s preeminent plasticine inventors, you are beyond my help. I’m sorry.

The Game: A GTA-Style open world covering Wallace’s home town surrounding countryside. Players explore the world looking for people to help, problems to solve. The answer to every problem is a contraption that you collect pieces for and construct Incredible-Machine style.

2. Bourne Identity

Jason Bourne: CIA trained super assassin who loses his memory and regains his conscience.

The Game: An Action RPG in the line of System Shock and Deus Ex. Light on the inventory, and you gain skills by finding physical artifacts in the world that unlock the memory of an existing skill: Find a gun, "remember" how to shoot it, find a piece of rope, "remember" how to bind an enemy. Find a magazine, "remember" how to fashion it into a melee weapon.

1. Poseidon

Ok, I just saw the trailer Poseidon, the remake of PoseidonAdventure, and it looks like a lot of noisy, mindless fun.

[Editors note from the future: Mindless, yes, fun? No. No sir. Uh-uh.]

The Game: An 3D Platformer. You set up the game by getting to know the ship while it’s upright, setting up plot points and intrigues that pay off after the ship overturns. I have it on good authority that one of the Tomb Raider games did some "ship upside-down on the bottom of the ocean gameplay. I think the fun here is designing levels that you get to interact and learn about while the ship is upright, and then navigate one the ship is inverted and underwater. Doors become pressure traps, ceilings are now floors, covered with water and electric lights, the fun just goes on.

Ok, I’ve got that out of my system. Probably.

-game over-

Thanks for reading another action-packed installment of Design a Day. For background on the Design A Day challenge, take a peek here and here.