Fake game Friday: Enigma

11:10 AM on 11.09.2007   |   Anthony Burch

14 comments

This week's fake game isn't so much of a gameplay conceit as it is a really neat story idea which lends itself to videogame narrative. It's called Enigma, and it's brought to you by Dexter345 with an accompanying Photoshop by our very own Topher Cantler.

Based on Dexter's writeup, Enigma sounds like a film noir/adventure/action/sandbox game which, all things considered, is probably too cool and multifaceted to ever get made. But that's why we're here, isn't it? Here's a sample of the game concept:

In the beginning, you are on a heist-type of job, except you're being paid by an unknown person not to steal from somebody's safe, but to plant explosives in it to destroy its contents. Once you are successful, you leave the back area of the restaurant where the safe is, pass a beautiful woman while you're leaving, sit down, and wait for the explosion. After that, the police arrive, and you have to go through dialog trees in order to keep from being suspicious, (but lying about certain things may not help because your story needs to be consistent with the other witnesses). 

Hit the jump to hear the rest of Dexter's idea.  

Sez Dexter345:

I just woke up from a dream that gave me an idea for a game. This would actually be a possibly cool game, if made by people who knew what they were doing.

In the beginning, you are on a heist-type of job, except you're being paid by an unknown person not to steal from somebody's safe, but to plant explosives in it to destroy its contents. Once you are successful, you leave the back area of the restaurant where the safe is, pass a beautiful woman while you're leaving, sit down, and wait for the explosion. After that, the police arrive, and you have to go through dialog trees in order to keep from being suspicious, (but lying about certain things may not help because your story needs to be consistent with the other witnesses).

You later manage to be let off because nobody (except the woman from before) could provide any information about the crime. Just before you leave the scene, you notice the police taking HER into custody, handcuffing her and shoving her in the backseat of a patrol car.

Naturally your interest is piqued. Why didn't she rat you out? Does she have something to do with the crime? Who the hell hired you to do this in the first place? Why blow up a safe rather than steal what's inside?

So you do what any criminal-for-hire would do upon a successful job: you set out to find answers and potentially absolve the (probably) innocent woman of the crime you committed. Your search leads you all the back to the person who hired you. At that point in the game, I'm sure there would be a big unexpected twist, so I won't spoil it for you by saying (read: I don't know what it would be).

I just think it'd be a cool little mystery game, with some elements from Indigo Prophecy (the whole, "who am I?" sort of thing), but with more varied gameplay. I imagined it being on the DS, just because adventure games seem to have found a home there, and because the initial safe-cracking part seems like it'd be neat on the touch screen.

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So, what do you think? It could certainly make for one hell of an interesting nonlinear adventure game -- the sort which might actually prompt me to buy a DS just to play it.

As always, hit the official thread and drop your own fake game idea. We might highlight it on the front page.

A note, though: you don't have to create your own Photoshop. You can if you want to, of course, but if your idea is written soundly enough, our own Topher will do up a Photoshop for you. A lot of the recent posts in the thread have included their own Photoshops, which is great, but just know that you don't have to include a Photoshop if you don't really want to.