Game Idea #2: The Mad King

This idea came about when fellow designers Jake Anderson and Greg Mladucky were rolling for Noble Houses using the Song of Ice and Fire RPG book. We rolled a house that had madness as one of its aspects and it took away from a few of the stats houses were given, but added to others. Madness can sometimes be profitable, and it led to this game idea.

High Concept: RTS games where the player creates a kingdom and set of units to assault an enemy have been done several times. Strategy is a serious part of this, being in the title RTS, but never like this. In this game you play an insane king whose madness leads to the profitability of his kingdom. The strategy here is thinking with a fevered mind.

Platform: PC Title

Why it needs to be made: Strategy games that around rely to much on common conventions. Knights are beaten by Knights on horses, defenses are taken down by siege engines. All of these tried and true methods of war have been done and done again in video games. This game puts you in a place where the weight of the crown is indeed too heavy on the head that it lies. You don't so much as defeat other kings as intimidate them.

Description: The player takes on the role king who is more then a little off his rocker. The player sees the traditional screen of an RTS. A large display on most of the screen commands in the lower part and a mini-map on the lower right. The commands area of the of the screen will have the basic command "Build" after a few tutorial levels about how to build buildings and units more commands will appear after selecting units.

For instance, in a level where the player needs to intimidate a superstitious king he will click on his peasant, unit, the lowest unit and builder, and the command next to "Build" will say "Dig Up Corpses" if the player clicks that the peasants will begin to dig corpses. Clicking the corpses will let you place them on buildings, towers and on horses that ride around without player control. The visiting king will be so horrified by the sight, "Look what he does with his dead! He'll do the same to us! We better allow him to...absorb us" that he bends knee there and then.

All sorts of these little options will open as the levels progress. Its really a combination of a point and click adventure game and an RTS. The players discover new ways to make other kings fear them and have fun doing it.

Why it will be fun: There is fun in being daft and ridiculous. The ways you prove to the other kings how rich and insane you are makes them frightened of you. One king is intimidated by show of wealth, so you build 13 towers next to each other. Sure, their ability is redundant that close, but look at how much gold you have! You must be a powerful king!

Final Notes: While I wrote this I should have been writing an paper on how Ireland wasn't conquered by the English until the Tudor conquest. Life imitates blog!