So today’s Extra Punctuation over on The Escapist discussed some thoughts on hybrid game design. An example of hybrid game design would be the Mass Effect franchise, which takes role-playing games and fuses them with third-person shooters (because Lord knows an RPG must otherwise be turn-based in order to be “pure”).

In his article he almost brought up a game idea that I’ve wanted to make for a couple years now (you know, assuming I actually had the motivation and millions of dollars worth of resources to get it done). He mentioned a game similar to Left 4 Dead, where instead of an A.I. Director controlling the monsters you’d have a single human player doing so. The problem he arrived at was that the A.I. Director was still developed to give the players a bit of a breather, whereas a human would mercilessly throw monsters at the players without end.

When I came up with this sort of idea it was a bit more simple. Instead of trying to rework a game like Left 4 Dead to accommodate a human in control of the A.I., I simply thought of taking an RTS and dropping human players into the role of a small squad. Have four human players treating the game as a third-person shooter (or first-person, but I feel there are more gameplay possibilities when you can actually see your character) fighting against the armies commanded by the RTS player.

The beauty of the system is that an RTS is already designed to balance and manage how many soldiers or monsters can be produced by requiring resources. Since it would be pointless to have the RTS player, referred from here on as the General, creating units just for resources, allow them to obtain a certain amount of resources based on the condition of their “base”. The “base” would pretty much seem like a typical shooter level to the other players, referred from here on as the Squad.

When a round begins the General should only have limited options in terms of foes to load. They can place automated defenses around the base and spawn and drop in basic grunts at any key points in the level. However, the most powerful enemies and beasts are locked away for now. The Squad remains unseen by the General, allowing them to figure out a way into the base that gives them the best possible advantage. The General should know of any weak points in his defenses and do his best to accommodate them.

Once the players have infiltrated the base the General can load new foes. They’ll cost more to create, of course, and will likely take longer to create than regular grunts, but they’ll be a more formidable foe. As the players progress through the base, completing objectives and destroying important segments of the facility, more and more powerful enemies will be unlocked for the General to use.

What I’m not sure of is whether the General should gain more resources to spend during this time or not. This way they could pull out more of the tougher monsters in a moment of desperation, but could simultaneously overwhelm the players. The goal is to create a dramatic sort of effect. You want the players to feel as if they are going up against a video game’s co-op campaign, but controlled by another player. As such you want to create the dramatic feeling of rising action that leads to a huge climax, while making sure it keeps in the spirit of true multiplayer by allowing the General to win.

Originally the only plausible platforms for this sort of game were PC and Wii. The downside to putting it on the Wii is that it lacks proper online support. Sure, you can play online, but most players will lack any form of communicating with their teammates. The game could be put on PC, but…well, that’s a completely probable option. Except that I prefer consoles, so screw that.

Now, two years ago if I were a developer, I’d have the option to take a risk on Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Move peripherals. If I were to make a game for either of those devices to convince the hardcore that it were worth it, this would be it. Instead of relying on a keyboard and mouse, the General would use the Move or the Kinect motion and gesture recognition to manipulate the battlefield.

Of course, it truly would be a risk. Technically the game would only need said motion controls if the player were to take the role of the General. Anyone else can just use a regular game pad. However, if no one was willing to invest in the additional peripherals you’d have an extreme shortage of Generals and surplus of players. The game would end up being a failure.

On the other hand, it could be just what you need to convince players to get one of these shiny new peripherals and show them the possibilities.

It’s the sort of game I’d love to develop, if it were to be worthwhile. Which is the problem. Even if a game sounds great, it can easily be a disaster.