Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

You can talk about almost anything that you want to on this board.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
tokumaru
Posts: 12427
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:43 pm
Location: Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by tokumaru »

I'd also like to make a proper game of one of my favorite anime series, Saint Seiya. There are already 2 RPG games of it for the Famicom, but they're kinda boring and pretty ugly.

There are also some interesting fighting games of the series for PS2, PS3, PS4 and PC, but one of the most interesting aspects of the series doesn't play a big part in any of them: the mythological armors worn by the characters.

I'd like to create a small fighting game focused on a smaller arc of the story, to keep the number of characters down, and give more importance to the armors.
User avatar
Punch
Posts: 365
Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:52 am

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by Punch »

Meh, maybe I'd like to get a great franchise that was abandoned by their owners (there are many) to do a remake and sequel, but it's really not high on my list to be quite honest, I'd rather put my own ideas into reality instead of others'.
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit.
93143
Posts: 1717
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:31 pm

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by 93143 »

Punch wrote:I'd rather put my own ideas into reality instead of others'.
Most of my ideas are programming techniques that would be useful in ports and remakes.

My most realizable game idea, other than ports and trivial practice games, is probably an F-Zero sequel for the SNES, using a huge whack of ROM with an SA-1 and MSU1. F-Zero, after all, came right at the beginning of the system's lifetime; it was a 512 kB SlowROM game with no special chips, based on a concept dreamed up more or less from scratch, written in a relatively short period of time by a handful of programmers who were new to the console, using tools that were available in 1989. With the resources and hindsight available now, and no time limit, it should be possible to create a more impressive game. (Plus I have issues with the direction the physics went in for X and GX...)

But I'd still want a bunch of help, especially with designing the courses and fine-tuning the balance, not to mention composing the music. I have no confidence that I'd be able to do the series justice all by myself even with an arbitrary amount of time; that "handful of programmers" were EAD core personnel supervised by Miyamoto himself...

Very unlikely this would ever happen, and it's a tad off topic (I'm not big on attempting an F-Zero game on the NES), but I find it fun to think about.
Last edited by 93143 on Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 919
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 6:29 am
Location: Denmark (PAL)

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by Sumez »

The Last Airbender totally lends itself to video games, but apparently all the ones that exist pretty much suck.
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8734
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by rainwarrior »

Punch wrote:I'd rather put my own ideas into reality instead of others'.
Commercially, doing a licensed game has a huge marketing advantage because it borrows its rep from the licensed property.

Conversely, the disadvantage of it is that the license doesn't make it yours. Publishing your game necessarily involves deals between license holders that have to be actively maintained, and in general this gives it a shorter lifespan than other games. You can't give it a "remaster" for new systems, or otherwise repackage it without a new deal. Sequels are out of the question. A lot of stuff that you could "own" about a game you made is off the table when it's a licensed property.

Example: the Scott Pilgrim game was delisted from all the places it was previously sold, and will probably remain buried forever, or at least a very long time.

Similar thoughts about cover songs, though licensing is different for this, but basically you borrow interest from fans of the original, and on the other side you lose a lot of control over various things, like you have to assume some legal risks to put it up publicly, etc.
User avatar
FrankenGraphics
Formerly WheelInventor
Posts: 2064
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2016 2:55 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Reminds me that Silicon & Synapse (later Blizzard) and Condor (later Blizzard North) both worked on a Justice League game respectively for Megadrive/Genesis and SNES without each other knowing about it and that's how they came to talk once it got mutually known at a convent.
calima
Posts: 1745
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 10:16 am

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by calima »

Not for NES, but I've wanted to do a Moomin shooter, in 3d. Pappa finally gets enough, loads up his trusty musket and goes around slaughtering the valley.
M_Tee
Posts: 430
Joined: Sat Mar 30, 2013 12:24 am
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by M_Tee »

Interesting reads.

I think if I were to design a licensed NES title, I'd want to do a version of the board game, Hive. Player pieces made with background tiles, movement animated as sprites (each bug crawling or flying as they tend to do) before locking into their new places.
User avatar
FrankenGraphics
Formerly WheelInventor
Posts: 2064
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2016 2:55 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Not for NES, but I've wanted to do a Moomin shooter, in 3d. Pappa finally gets enough, loads up his trusty musket and goes around slaughtering the valley.
A comedy radio show did something conceptually similar in the 90s where they rode on the nervousness about video violence. The premise was that they reviewed a the newest, hottest game based on That boy Emil by Astrid Lingren where they mixed speech samples from the movie from 1971 with violent samples from.. i think it was Duke Nukem, not sure.


The reason i think Moomin might be a good game IP is because the moomin valley is so dynamic and transformative on an all-encompassing scale. The locale is confined and familiar in scope, yet because of cosmic events, it changes drastically all the time. At one point the comet causes the rivers to dry up and sunken caves along the coast are revealed. Strange seeds transform the whole valley into a labyrinthine jungle at another point. Moomin waking from hibernation in the middle of winter means a wildly transformed landscape inhabited by seasonal creatures he's never encountered before in the summer. Then there's the flood when everything turns into a floaty island world. All within the same, recognizable area.
Last edited by FrankenGraphics on Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by tepples »

But what would Snufkin's game look like? Solomon's Key?

(Oh wait, it already is.)
User avatar
FrankenGraphics
Formerly WheelInventor
Posts: 2064
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2016 2:55 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Breath of the wild is not too far off, if you remove weapons and add a tent + harmonica.

Btw the moomin boardgame (muuminpeli) is all about finding the lost key to the jam cellar. Note how snufkin is eyeing the key on the cover

https://d1vxw9s9d8pjrr.cloudfront.net/w ... i_1950.jpg
Celius
Posts: 2158
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:04 pm
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Contact:

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by Celius »

I always wanted to make another Final Fantasy game for the NES. I had a thought that it would be fun to create a new NES Final Fantasy called Final Fantasy π, as a way to escape the numbering system, but also as a way of saying "somewhere between 3 and 4", at least in terms of quality of graphics/gameplay. I really enjoy coming up with elaborations on existing stories/concepts, almost like writing fan fiction, so I think this would be a lot of fun. The chances of me actually doing this, however, are virtually zero.
qalle
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:15 am

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by qalle »

Fisher wrote:Power Rangers meets the Teenange Mutant Ninja Turtles
There's been such a crossover.
User avatar
Alp
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 12:37 am

Re: Hypothetical: Your Dream IP to license

Post by Alp »

M_Tee wrote:For the sake of conversation, let's say you (had the opportunity / were obligated) to create a title for the NES using a previously existing intellectual property. You have free reign in terms of creative control and cost to acquire said license is not a factor.

What property would you want to use and why?
What type of game would you make?
How would you incorporate the license into the game?
A few years ago, I would have said "Bomberman", because it had been years since Hudson Soft was bought out by Konami, and promptly executed. But, since there's actually a new Super Bomberman game now, that's no longer an option! :P

So, I'll go with dB-Soft's "Layla", one of my favorite Famicom games.
In fact, the Metroid-like platformer I was working on a few years ago, was heavily inspired by Layla!

If I had the Layla license, I'd just continue with what I was doing with "Project Eden". Create a large solar system, with a dynamic level select, with the secondary function of also acting as the game's difficulty select. (Think Starfox)

The game would be developed to be almost more Metroid-like, instead of the weird Mario-ness of Layla. (Specifically, one-way scrolling)
Post Reply