How they should make a superhero game

I'm currently playing Infamous, and really quite enjoying it. However there's something sticking out about it to me, best summarised in a Yahtzee quote about the good/evil moral choice system. "It's not letting you roleplay because you're either Cole McNice or Cole McDick."

This stuck in my mind, and linked with something I saw in the past. Reading about people's opinions of Fallout 3, I came across a rather bizarre argument. It was an argument over if the 'evil' main character was that evil, focusing on a particular event where there are a bunch of Ghouls trying to get into an apartment building that's still standing and willing to pay for it, but can't because the evil guy in charge is racist and doesn't like them. Long story short, it's not exactly an ideal result if the Ghouls do get in, but the game judges it to be the 'morally good' choice.

So, all this has festered in my mind like the bacteria currently festering in my throat, the main difference between the two being my throat festerings haven't eventually fermented into a thought-beverage I'm quite content with.

Let's take the following hypothetical scenario. A good developer has created a sandbox Action-RPG superhero game in which your character is a blank slate you fill in, choosing powers, appearance, voice, and most importantly moral choice systems determining his/her heroism/villainy. In my personal view, this game would be so awesome it would leave me forever walking around with an erection, but enough about my blood filled penis, onto the thought-beverage I mentioned.

Some people might say "moral choice system? You just agreed with Yahtzee that those things were pointless!" Yes, I did, but they can be made far, far superior by the introduction of additional axis on the graph, eventually making it into a seven sided pandimensional graph only visible to aliens.

Instead of a simple objective-morality-decided-by-developers-good-evil axis, let's consider what would happen if it were instead to rely upon a number of different axis grouped into three groups: Hero/Villain, Super-powered Perception and Public Perception.


The Hero/Villain side of it is a two axis graph, the up-down axis dealing with Crime-stopping vs Crime-committing, and the left-right axis dealing with life preservation. The more the character stops criminal acts, the further north they drift, while if they commit overt criminal acts (such as robbing a bank) they drift south. The life-preserving axis deals with how willing they are to kill. If they get into fights without killing the other side, they drift to the right, if they show willingness to kill they drift to the left.

Put those two axis together and you get one of four (maybe eight if the game wants to be complex) possible titles for the character. Sociopath (bottom left, someone like Doctor Doom), Burgler (bottom right, someone like Cat Woman), Vigilante (top left, someone like the Punisher), or Hero (top right, someone like Spiderman).


Superpowered Perception, once again divided into two axis. First, the up down axis is the character's scale, ranging from local (Daredevil kind of stuff, helps mostly a small area), through national (deals with stuff that affects a whole country, primarily), all the way up to Interplanetary (deals with stuff affecting one or more planets) with a few more levels in the middle. The Left-right axis is the characters "loner" rating, how willing they are to deal and work with others.

Put those together, and this axis influences gameplay. It alters how often submissions might come to you, how often you might be able to call on help (but have to split any pay off, if you're a villain), and what sort of level your help will be called on. The up-down axis will probably move as the character increases in power.


Finally, Public Perception, again into two axis. The up-down axis is media reporting, while the left-right is public view. The brighter the indicator on the up-down axis, the more media reporting you're getting, while the more north it is the more positive it is. This axis would influence the right-left axis, which is public perception. Public perception is how the normal person on the street sees you. This axis would be easiest for the player to manipulate. Doing alot of good acts in public view increases public view of you, while doing them in front of cameras increases the media reporting of you. Alternatively a rich character could pay for positive media coverage to try and increase their perception. In this way a character like Lex Luthor could be a villain in the first group of axis, by through appropriate manipulation to both the public and the media could be seen as neutral, possibly even good.


All in all, this would be awesome. The first of the groups of axis would influence how good/evil they actually are, from a relatively objective standpoint, the second influences gameplay, while the third influences how accepted they are.


Yeah, I'm excited about this. Hopefully some game designed will read my blog and steal the idea.