Freemium combined arcade cabinet

What if we brought the free to play with micro transactions business model to the traditional arcade?

What if we combined a racing game cabinet with a light rail shooter, to emulate the car chase scenes we see in movies?

These questions have been running through my mind lately.

A new player could sit down at either the driver or passenger seat, grab the wheel or a gun, and select one of the few stages or weapons available, to start playing. After completing a mission, a card would come out (or a direct link to a mobile app?) which would store player data, allowing a player to keep score and unlock new play options. A timer would then start counting down to the next free session (keeping an interested player within the arcade or nearby shops) or one could pay to continue. One could also purchase cars, tracks, weapons, cosmetic modifications, music tracks and more, pair up and compare stats with other players, locally and globally.

A Passing Parcel Game

Played Unlocked yesterday, one of the physical board game takes on the escape room genre. It was fun solving puzzles as a group, but I'm not sure I'll dare do a real one, even though I have some friends who have asked me.

Anyway, back on subject: there's no replayability to the game. Once you solve the puzzles, there's no way to change the clues. It's similar to a legacy game in the regard. As soon as you open envelopes, stick on stickers and modify the board, there's not much else you can do with it.

Could you make a game in which you are presented with a puzzle to solve, but once it is done, you'd change something about it that will give a different experience to the next group that solves is, maybe even so far that a few playthroughs by other people will change the game enough that you could play it again yourself, without already knowing how to solve everything and how it ends?

Co-op Minis - Kaijus

A kaiju theme for the co-op minis game I came up with.

Take command over policemen, soliders or super sentai heros to defeat mini-bosses until the conditions are right for the main boss to arrive

Maybe everyone controls a different team of plucky teens that turn into themed super heroes (i.e. Masked B-Boys, Construction vehicle robots or natural elements, including weird ones like mud or clay) and have squad cars or attack helicopters as support units

Harass monsters to enrage them for different abilities and to guide them to preferred locations. Complete different goals such as rescuing citizens and saving as many buildings as possible, while ultimately still needed to defend the boss.

Spaceship MMORPG

Would it be interesting to have a sci-fi MMORPG where you play as crew of a spaceship?
I'm thinking something along the lines of a Battlestar or Enterprise, and less like a space version of Guns of Icarus.

The big selling point would be the need to pass tests if you want to take part in the more interesting missions aboard. Similar to the story mode of Gran Turismo in which you had to pass tests with a certain grade to earn the right to participate in races, so too will you need to try a flight simulator to be a fighter pilot, or earn a certain score in a mini-game to have a mechanics license to repair or modify certain parts of the ship.

Those in leadership roles might need to assign manpower and resources to accomplish their goals, so there might be a limited number of fighter pilot positions available, and only the best scorers might be chosen to fly out to fight threats.

Cooperative miniatures game

Is there a cooperative miniatures game out there? Most are based on the idea that you build a force and fight against one other player, which I can see the appeal of, but it also seems limited to me.

Board games have themes that go far beyond that, and explore a wider array of mechanics, so why not bring more of that into the hobby of collecting, building and personalizing your own force. Even as I've been writing these words, I've started thinking about the viability of collecting farming miniatures for a game. :D

An idea of thought of last night while writing about lore in games was a game inspired by SRPGs - starting out with a force of low tier soldiers and evolving them through combat experience to specialize in different roles - think Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics. You'd bring a squad (say, 3) of soldiers into playing field, and have the board game set up a scenario for you and a friend or 3 to get through.

A base set might have one or a few such scenarios, and a couple of options to evolve your characters - say from a grunt to a brawler, archer or cleric. Further expansions might through new scenarios, enemies and character evolutions to build on the experience.

Lore in Board Games

The second expansion of the third Race For The Galaxy arc recently showed up on my radar.
I started thinking about lore and stories in board games.
Some games tap into the rich lore of big IPs such as Star Wars, the Call of Cthulhu or Song of Ice and Fire.
Some games are a one time experience of pushing tokens across a board.
There aren't too many games that explore deeper story lines the way RftG attempts to do, and I'm not sure how well it succeeds in the attempts, with most of the gameplay revolving around combos of icons.

Legacy and campaign games offer more interesting examples, with storytelling done through changing the board and player abilities, leading to emotionally investing in the game.

I'd like to create a game with it's own unique lore, that will come through during gameplay.

Puppet Alien Avatars

Inspired mainly by Star Control and to a lesser degree Star Wars as well as Vangers, I've begun imagining creating a space opera game in which you interact with aliens through screens (similar to Star Trek as well, as to how ship captains would interact through view screens.)
The real difference would be in how each alien would be represented in a completely different technique - humans might be live action actors, while a friendly species might be portrayed like the Yip Yip Martians from Sesame Street, while an evil alien might be a hand marionette in the style of Barnaby Dixon, while others yet might be made of clay or other animation techniques, maybe even old school 8 bit graphics or more modern and familiar techniques.

Could be cool to have different freelancers work on different races, and see what they produce with loose briefs, then try to create the actual spaceship game objects in a similar visual language.

Also have some thoughts on the actual game itself, and combat in a truly 3D environment, ships slowly maneuvering to bring their guns to bear in similar fashion to naval tactics in the age of sail. Have I written about that before? I've had the idea for a while.