Game Idea #6 : Towers of Babel

High Concept:  Try and construct a tower with a friend, against an enemy team, without the use of words.

 Platform:  Facebook Game

Why it needs to be made: Co-op competitive games are fun. Team vs team. Often times, however, you can easily communicate with each other. This game takes away that ability to communicate, and has the players try and complete more of their tower before the other team. 

Description: You and a partner have been put in charge of building a tower that will reach to the Celestial Realms themselves! Of course, the town next door must do the same and so they've begun to erect a tower as well! If that wasn't enough, as you begin to make some real progress, a celestial deity has taken offense to this tower building and has taken away your ability to understand words! How are you going to build the tower now?

There are four players split into two teams of two. The two roles on the team are the Spotter and the Builder. The Spotter communicates to the Builder what to do and the Builder responds by doing it. This could be the Spotter telling the builder to place a box in a location, tie a rope to another rope, pull up a heavy load or tear apart a wall. The partners are randomly matched online so they won't be able to communicate.

The tower is built in square sections and each section has objects randomly generated in it. As sections are completed another square is placed on top and the players move up. The players either play for four minutes or until they finish ten levels of their tower.

At first its easy. A room is generated at the bottom. A rope and wench, boards and hammers, decorations and a concrete like mixture. The Spotter is given an instruction such as: "Lift the supplies to this level". This means the Builder will need to tug on the rope until the supplies are lifted up. The Spotter can choose an action to perform, like a movement, or type a message to the builder. A Builder is unable to perform an action until the Spotter says or does something. After that, the Builder is offered three pictures of actions. One of them is the action that needs to be completed. The builder would click that action and preform it.

As the levels rise, anything the Spotter types becomes garbled. By the fifth level it is completely indecipherable. Now when the Spotter is given a command they need to communicate in a new way. With the above instruction, this may mean moving over to the rope and winch and making a motion that looks like pulling. The Spotter will have a set motions that they can do. After doing a motion the Builder is given the same thing as above, options to choose from. With the increase of the levels more options are added until the end there is five actions.

Why it will be fun: I'm a fan of abusive gameplay as well as a subtle themes. This happens to be a game about communication and how important it is for teamwork and success. It would be fun to have bragging rights to building a tower the fastest with a partner.

Final Notes: This game has a lot to expand on if it is meant for Facebook. Re-playability is major, or figuring out a way to keep making the players play. Its a start.