Challenge 1 : First Glance

Ok, wow. Starting things off hard, are we?

So, exercise and space RPG. First thing that comes to mind is a cartoony RPG for the Wii, whereby you take your character and explore a galaxy on your "Spaceboard" which is like a surf board, but in space. The controls for the "Spaceboard" use the Wii Fit balance board for steering. RPG elements like a large involved story and inventory system are necessary, and so the game would use the Wiimote as well.

Hmm. That's my first glance, more to come through the week, though maybe with a slight delay since I will be out of town this weekend, so that I can graduate (officially, I graduated last quarter, but I still want to walk).

Challenge 1: Exercise Producing Space Exploration RPG

It's after midnight, so it's technically Monday.
Time for the first challenge!

The random game challenge generator's first offering was:

'Design an RPG game about space exploration, and provides exercise.'


Sounds good enough for a first challenge. Have at it!

Greetings and the Challenge Format

Hello, I'm the aforementioned Brian with the generator I made that will help me post random design challenges. Besides simply introducing myself, I wanted to chime in by explaining the format of the challenges. My generator produces random game challenges in the following form:

Design a [game genre] game, about [topic/subject matter] that [some kind of wacky/challenging constraint].


For example, one I randomly generated earlier was:
"Design a first person shooter game about dinosaurs that has no combat."

Feel free to answer that one if you want, although that's not the first challenge, which will be posted on Monday.
[if interested, my answer for the above was simply: "Easy. That would be Pokémon Snap, only with dinosaurs instead of pokémon." ;) ]

Welcome

So, since this is the first post on the Random Game Design Challenge, I thought I go ahead and post a little bit about what we will be doing here, and how this came to be.

It all started with a class. My professor at the time came to enjoy giving me random design challenges. Usually in front of the entire class. With no warning, I was expected to create a viable game from three or four random ideas, objects, actions, topics, etc.

And wouldn't you know, I could do it.

I don't know how, but it was actually a lot of fun. Which is good, since I was going to school for game design. This continued through the classes and eventually my friend Brian, who is the other contributor to this site, mentioned that he had written a random game generator in excel, and that I should give some of those random games a try.

So that is what we are doing here. As it is now, the rules (which are subject to change arbitrarily, since this is an experiment anyways) are as follows:

1. Each week, on mondays, Brian will post a challenge. This will consist of a genre and a number of things that must be included in the final game. The can be anything. At all. (What am I getting myself into?)
2. By the end of Monday I will post an idea. This will be the first thing that comes to mind, raw and broken as it may be. From there, I will take the idea and attempt to refine it, until...
3. On Friday, I will post a more complete version of the game, with rules and maybe (if you're lucky and I'm feeling artistic) some concept art or diagrams for explanation. This will be the final version of the game, though I may continue to refine it. If so, I'll post the results when they are done, but there will be a post on Friday.

Ok, so, those are iteration 1 of the rules. Brian may change any of them he sees fit.