Brick'ed - The Survival Puzzle Game

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play as the blocks in Tetris? Now you don't have to as Scott and Matt explore turning one of the most popular games of all time into a Puzzle Survival game. 

There's also a well deserved chat about the 20th anniversary of God of War and the upcoming TV series too for good measure.

Thanks for listening and please leave us a review and subscribe if you enjoyed it. It really helps us out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gaming-blender/id1597738101

Also please get in touch with us at @gamingblendpod or thegamingblenderpod@gmail.com with your ideas for new games and challenges.

We have begun to update our YouTube channel with video playthroughs and we hope to put more up there soon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTPuScm5BTf8DdwvaCj0jQ

Keep blending!

Transcript

0:04

It's running if you'd like to get for it. don't know why. That was weird. I'm not getting the countdown, weirdly. is it running? Oh I didn't get a countdown there, usually I get a countdown. Yeah, very strange. Hello hello and welcome back to the Gaming Blender, the podcast of Hypothetical Games. I'm your host today Scott and I'm here with my partner in crime Matthew. Matthew how are you? Yeah, we have. Yes, no, we haven't tried to this episode once before, anywhere we have. Yes, so this episode, as you will have noticed if you're a returning listener, this episode is slightly late. That's because a few days ago we tried to record it and my internet went n00b. Not today, Satan. So we decided to postpone until my internet decided to be internet again. Go on. based on it. You're going to to beep there. reliant on a satellite that's why you're reliant on it you're reliant on satellite so maybe the moon gets in the way up until the point where it just goes, nope, and switches itself off. It's not my fault, I live in a very remote place. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Anyway, for new listeners, welcome, on the Gaming Blender every week, we take hypothetical concepts of a video game and make a hypothetical video game. We take... a genre, a couple of mechanics and a narrative all at random and we squish them all together into some glory, this delight of a sort of a video game theory. A video game in theory, maybe not in practice but in theory. Yes, that. But for returning listeners, you may be aware that we tried to institute something called Matthew's Wheel of News, and this was Matthew's idea. and he said he was going to do it every week and as you know, returning listeners, he has never managed to actually do it. This week though, do we think Matthew is ready for Matthew's Wheel of News? Matthew? wheel was so beautiful and lovely. It was too good for this world, that wheel. So obviously your internet can try to destroy said wheel. And because that wheel was so perfect and beautiful, I want to revisit what we started discussing about because there's still some relevance. Do you remember what we were discussing about? This is now just a memory test. Is it it? no, you're just showing off. It was the God of War TV series. Now, as so this episode is hopefully coming out on the Monday as we are going to be moving our, this is seamless tangent into saying we are moving our episode releases forward in the week, seamless transition. We will be moving them forward. You will be seeing our episodes pop up slightly earlier in the week, I mean from Monday, Tuesday. But as this is released, I believe on the Saturday, it was God of War's 20th anniversary and there's a very fun video that got released by Sony. So excellent clap, clap, there, although please give me a remaster or give me something to feed on, give me something to feast upon. However, there is a God of War TV series coming out on Amazon Prime. Now last week, and this is where we got to before your internet went die, the TV, the show runner, sorry, I stuck on talking over my own lips there. The show runner has come out and said that he is not a gamer and doesn't understand modern controls. And where we got to last week was discussing whether this is a good or bad thing. So the name of this person is, so it's Ronald D. Moore and he's got a background in things like Star Trek, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine. So he's clearly done a lot and they're still writing the first season of God of War. And he said that's what he's working on. Now, where we got to last week was saying, is this good or bad thing? we, is this something that we feel affects it? Now the second bit, there was a bit extra little tidbit of news that's come out since then because a couple of new steroids literally came out the day after we were meant to record and said that Amazon has already commissioned the second series before the first has even gone to air. we have two seasons. yeah, they're confident if it's not written. So I don't understand any confidence. It sounds more like it's an educated gamble. But that's which you wish you want to address first, you want to address the lack of gamer showrunner. His exact quote was He took a stab at playing it and he did say the controller was passed to him and he said press R1. Which one's R1? I'm dead was his summary. I don't know if we are, I don't think we're going to agree, but carry on. Yeah, so, We are always going to be biased on this because we, and most listeners as well, will be gamers. I can only take the example of the Fallout TV series, which I don't know if you saw, but it was very, good. It was very... It used the source material, it took the source material and it ran with it. It changed a couple of bits and pieces there, but overall it was very very loving towards the source material and the reason I think that's important is because first of all you want you want to have an audience that will stick with it that audience that will stick with it will be gamers because they'll want to watch the TV series of a game that they love because it's extra lore, it's extra story around the stories they already know the executive producer had played the game. know that. And I was just looking at the executive producer in the background, Geneva Robinson-Dorrit. Now I can't find out if she's a gamer here, but she's definitely, she wrote Tomb Raider as well. So she has a background in this, the gaming world. I think it'd be fair to say. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important and I think because making TV show adaptations of video games is so hard, I think it's important that you understand the source material. I am sure that it is possible for a non-gamer to do that but I think it makes it much harder for them to do that. So it's not to say they can't succeed, it's just that it will be harder for The Halo TV series, don't know if the show ever played Halo, but that wasn't very well received because it didn't adhere to the source material. It changed a load of stuff that people didn't like. So yeah, I don't know, what do you think? You said you thought we'd disagree. One thing I'm just trying to look up actually is whether Craig Mazin is a video gamer because he's created the Last of Us TV series, which I think is phenomenal. But I'm just trying to find out if he's a gamer because I'm not sure he is, but obviously he co-produced, he co- created with Neil Druckmann, who is the creator of the show, who is the creator of the series. Now, I don't mind people coming in and saying, well, I'm not a gamer, because they come to it with a different angle. But you might miss the things that are the core elements. Or you might go too far the other way and become a bit patronizing. So I think it's perfectly possible. I think actually the interesting, most interesting thing here, is the fact that they've commissioned it for two series already. Despite the feelings of what, it's a big punt because I can't imagine God of War is gonna be a cheap show either. I would hope, to be honest with you, it's more expensive than Fallout. I think the look it's gotta achieve is tougher because there's less practical sets, reckon. you can you can apologies view if you can hear clicking it's just me and Scott clarifying our responses to check we're fact checking as we're going so just yeah be interesting... No, there's no confirmation. I think the more interesting story is the story of reflection. And part of the reason, because it's the story of I've been angry, can I reflect on it? And looking back and revealing that character's past, I think is much more interesting. It's difficult though, because do you need the first half to tell that second half? Can you tell that second half story and just give the viewer little chunks? But by missing out on that emotional sort of, my, those are the blades, that's Athena. Do you then feel it's not? earned its right to do that. That's the bit that I'm interested in. But then you could argue the first half of the series is more ripe for adaptation, ripe for adaptation, because it's got more of a bare bones narrative, because they haven't really built 3D characters. So maybe you could tell that story, really, really, you could indulge in it, you could really build it. And then that second half becomes much more, can blend with it and become much more interesting. So think the problem they've got if they don't tell the stories of him in Greece is that there are, I've just looked it up, are 10 God of War games, two of which, obviously the newer ones in the Norse mythology, eight of which are in the Greek part of the world, and six of those eight were on major consoles. One was a mobile game, one was a text adventure game. There were six major consoles. no, I think they released the they did a remaster for but it was meant to be which was the same. It was a PSP game that they then released as a yeah, got it. they did yeah and and Ghost of Sparta yeah yeah so technically you've got sort of six games worth if you six games worth if you don't include the mobile game in the text adventure game of lore of sort of continuous story that does link together so can you fit all of that into flashbacks I don't know obviously not all of it is important but a lot of it is relevant so I don't know game tale, which is one, two, three, God of War reboot and Ragnarok, I think if you want to tell that story, then you only need those five. And I think it's much easier to focus on those five. It's just what you do with that first, actually, to be honest with you, you probably only need one and three because two is much more video gamey because two, doesn't really. I mean spoiler alert for God of War, the main point of two is for him to find out that he's a demigod. For him to lose his power and find out he's a demigod. That's all that game exists for. Brilliant game, not having to knock it, but plot wise, you've got one where he loses his wife and child and you've got three where he takes revenge on the gods, which is what causes the guilt. That's all you have plot wise and I would say run with that. Tell that story of the falling into guilt. and then tell maybe in season two, well, maybe this is the plan. Maybe season one, the reason they've commissioned it for two seasons is because they have one season of the terrible acts and revenge and then one season of him raising Ashrayus. Yeah. Because then also you could finish it and not do, well, you can finish it and not do Ragnarok essentially. That would be game. That would be game God of War 1, God of War 3, and God of War Reboot. And then you don't have to touch Ragnarok. And if it goes well, you've got Ragnarok ready to do. Yeah. We are 12 minutes in. We have... This is remarkable. Yeah, well, wait and see. Listen, if you have any thoughts on this, please do write to us. Yes, I know, I know. I was trying to move us along, but you kept talking. But I also wanted to hear your wonderful views. As always. I'm dubious. as I mentioned, new listeners, returning listeners, welcome to the podcast of Hypothetical Video Games. We are now going to create this hypothetical video game. I've already done the dice rolls for today to find out the genre, mechanics and narrative. I'm going to give them to Matthew. Matthew is going to attempt, with my help occasionally, to create a game. So Matthew, are you ready? Okay. don't. No, I'm vetoing it now. So what you have first of all, your genre, is a puzzle game. So Portal is probably the best example of a puzzle game. We do like Portal, it's very difficult to not like Portal. Your two mechanics, before we, we'll do the narrative a bit later listeners, but your two, it's going to be actually a little bit portly, your two mechanics are survival, and physics. Obviously physics very portly. was essentially a puzzler with a lot of physics going on. It wasn't really a survival game though. So I'm interested to see how you shoehorn that one in. of battery. If you didn't solve the puzzle quickly enough, there'd be a ticking clock element. But I hate ticking clock elements. So is there a way I can do survival without ticking clock all you haven't eaten yet? Just a little shout out. One survival game feature I really like. is Valheim. Because what Valheim does is you just have a basic amount of health and all that and you don't, doesn't like to bleep beyond that. But you can increase it if you want to go and fight. So you have some food and it goes up, but you don't have to worry about dying halfway. You might worry about running out of energy, but you don't have to worry about dying. So big shout, I might angle towards something more along that. But puzzle game that's reliant on physics. Okay. And survival. No, no, I've got something brewing in my mind. And it involves the God of War voice. No, okay. So, imagine if you played Tetris and you were the Blox. Okay. And the idea was, because it's physics, physics game, you're quite literally after physics, you picked a block. And the idea was you didn't want to win at Tetris. You wanted to cause chaos. Because if you, obviously, if you go in and you go into the right place, you disappear from reality. So they got sort of the physics elements, you're trying to dodge and not land in the correct spots. And in terms of survival, I mean, does that count as survival? Or would you say that's not quite survival mechanic in terms of literally trying to survive? Okay. So They are ticking clocks here. So maybe what you do is instead of a survival mechanic of maybe there's some way of integrating so that your life bar as such survival bar is the Tetris wall decreasing, if that makes sense, because fundamentally that's your life bar. Cause if you get all the way down, you lose and you disappear from reality. So that is your survival mechanic and you have to find a way of keeping that as high as possible, which also leads into the physics game. So you just have to somehow, I don't know how that works, but maybe each time each time the blocks are dropped, each block is personified. How do you do it? Maybe what you do is you just have to glide, try and glide into the right spot you're put into the spot by the user. And then you have to try and glide your block away accordingly to try and cause as much chaos as humanly possible. actually, I know, I know, I'm kind of developing the plot at the same time. Each one of the Tetris blocks, we don't know this, we've never known this. But when Tetris was first made, the guy programmed it accidentally caused a civilization to be created inside the world of Tetris. And each block is a little house, and they live in it. The Tetris people, the Tetris, the Tetris, we're we're gonna, we're gonna call them the blockers after the borrowers, the blockers, the blockers live there. And what you do is they want not just the blockers, but okay, we could call them the blockers. The blockers works a lot better. Oh dear. The blockers, yeah, that did work better. That's the first name you've ever come up with that's done me, the blockers, whoops. So they're in the block, cause they're in the blocks. They want to stop their town being destroyed and being decreased. So each time they go down, you can run around your house because what they've done is they've built fans into each block. So you can essentially fly the blocks around trying to cause as much chaos as humanly possible. So you literally power up and each time you cause your player to fail, you unlock new ways of propelling the blocks across the screen. So at the start, maybe you start with basic gliding mechanics. And then by the end you unlock fans you can attach that mean you could fly the blocks around. And then also perhaps you can unlock trebuchets and fire the blocks into the correct places. Yeah, trebuchets. Why not trebuchets? I hear you cry. TREPUGES! So basically you're playing a buggy game of Tetris that basically doesn't do what the person tells them to do. So that's the ticking clock element. So you're keeping that as high as humanly possible throughout and perhaps even going above. Well, you know in Tetris you fail. You fail when you go above a certain point. So your aim is to get your player above that certain point. it a bit like... Okay, how about this? Is it a bit like... Yeah, we could we could really make it. Yeah. Wreck it Ralph. So are you, is this civilization physically locked inside one of those old Tetris arcade machines? it's a bit like, it's a bit like not inside out, it's a bit like Wreck-It Ralph where you can actually see out of the screen. us. Outlast the quarter. Outlast the quarter they put in. could you say that the goal each time is to basically outlast? Outlast the player so it's easy because it's such a Because it's such yeah I lost the quarter outlast the player as well in terms of say the player could come up and put Loads of quarters in to give themselves those time But you but if you if you continuously fight and don't do what they command you to do They'll eventually they'll get fed up and leave the machine in which case you've won because they haven't destroyed your civilization so So, but then there'll be slightly more belligerent players who will come up, they'll put in like a $10 worth of quarters and they will not stop and you just have to keep going. And maybe there's a thing where you say you can't pause the game, so the game will just keep going. So you have to be committed to staying there until you outlast this person and you're locked in. It's literally like a battle of wills. player. So you can't get, I lasted five rides. You always have to proceed with the 10 quarters worth or $10 worth or whatever it is. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it'd be quite interesting because let's say you could, as the game progresses, this is like an arcade set somewhere in America, you can get to know the people that come in. So you look and you see, and you see, oh no, it's so and so and she's really good or haha, it's looking whoever and he's rubbish. So, you know, this is going to be easy. you see them sidling up, getting in front of the machine, you're like, ha ha ha, I'm going to really annoy this... Exactly. And you can have a... You can have almost like a... Almost like a progression system where the more... The more you annoy players, they'll move on to a different... They'll go and play Dig Dug or... Or they'll go and play Donkey Kong or something, they'll go and something else. And then other players, they won't use your machine anymore, but other... options you could go for. One is an easy win for you in order to make sure that you increase the height, but it's much closer. One is further away and riskier, but if you get to that, you drive the irritation of your player up more. So adds a risk and reward factor because you go such a go, the player's going, oh, this is a glitchy mess. I'm not going to play this anymore. So that's... That's your incentive to try and do even more bizarre moves. Right. Okay, so do we say that say every time someone loads up the game a load of loads like basically a large suburb from the Civilization of Tetris is basically loaded into the machine and your goal is to just save as many people in the Civilization of Tetris as possible. and it Have you seen Susan? No, we haven't seen Susan actually. Susan got loaded into the game. no. you're losing friends, colleagues. It's obviously from the players side of things, it just disappears. But from your side of things, it's like... Yeah! You could go really, really dark with it. team and just taking themselves really seriously to the extent of almost melodrama. Yeah. I see them as little mini blocks because they've they've come from a create they've been created by the algorithm which can only make angular things so I see them as perhaps miniature versions of the blocks they're in or something like that. Yes. I see, right, okay, yeah, so they all look kind of a little bit different, I guess. Okay, okay, do know what? It sounds really fun. I feel like it sounds, it's absurd. There is. There is. So I'm going to give you... Well, listen, I'm going to give Matthew his narrative now. This is the narrative that he... We always do this at the end to intentionally scupper what is probably a well-crafted good idea because then you have to shoehorn it at the end. Okay. Your narrative is temptation. So think Adam and Eve in the garden. No! in the world of blockers, blockers, not blockers, we have a cult. Now the cult say that they want to ascend to higher beings and they want to be taken, taken by the the great man beyond the glass. We're going to call them the great man, not man, the great people beyond the glass. Yeah. and they want to be accepted, whereas you know more and you think, this is quite similar to the idea of that film with Seth Rogen with the hot dog, Wade plays a hot dog, I can't remember the name of the film. But that's the kind of vibe going forward and what you are doing is that perhaps your player is, well perhaps your character is speaking up saying, no, if we go and we lose, we will be no more, we won't exist. Perhaps your character's seen somehow. that there is nothing beyond once you get disintegrated, that is it. And you're trying to prove to this cult at the same time while fighting off attacks from the people beyond the glass, that there isn't anything and they need to find some way to lock their machine out. I like the idea of the temptation for the, for the civilization. So it's like the idea, the idea is the fight against temptation, the fight against this cult. do you know what mean? the cult of glass. Praise be the men beyond. People beyond. Okay, so basically within the... I'm calling it the cult of the glass. within this... Within this, there is a cult within blocker society that is, like you said, corrupting the people you are trying to lead against the horrible people beyond the glass who keep deleting entire suburbs. To basically, almost like what is essentially mass... mass suicide to then get to some sort of promised land is that basically what saying? Okay so they're trying to convince everyone to do themingness in order to go to this promised land that of course doesn't exist. Perhaps then you could build in a mechanic whereby the cult in the background will start to gain influence and power depending on what happens. let's say, and it could be, say, let's say you are successful and you're very, good at stopping suburbs being dissolved by the Tetris machine, then perhaps then they start to sort of lose influence, perhaps they start to do things in the background. Okay, so, this is gonna get better. So wait for my thoughts on this. So. they start doing some of the background so they start, as you're commanding people, perhaps they start bribing people, influencing people, blackmailing people. So then when you're trying to do something, when you try and give it a command to subvert the user's will, they won't listen to you, they'll listen to the user. Do you see what I mean? So the cult will try and get people to sabotage you. If it goes the other way... You'll like this. Yes. Yes. You're gonna like this. if it's quite... The game is gonna be quite hard. If you start losing suburbs, more and more of blocker society is gonna start listening to the cult, which means that when you go out to fight against the user, the player, if it gets to a certain point, certain parts of what is essentially your Tetris army are going to be on the side of the cult. So you'll basically have a user... against two separate factions inside the game. So while you're doing stuff with the people loyal to you, there are people loyal to the cult who are also doing stuff... Do you know what I mean? So you can end up almost like blocking each other out. So it can get really complicated. with it because of time and say I like it and that and yes yes I like it Yes. Yes. This sounds excellent. Yes. Right, I'm going to sum up and you're going to think of names. Okay, listeners. What we have there is a very strange game which uses a puzzler genre, survival and physics mechanics and a temptation narrative. Based around the game of Tetris, as it turns out way back when, Tetris was invented, it turns out that when the programmer finished the great game... He had accidentally created a sentient civilization within the arcade machine. Your arcade machine will be set obviously inside an arcade, potentially somewhere in suburbia, America. And your job is to ensure that the players, the human users on the other side of the glass are not able to win. Essentially you become a buggy Tetris machine. And your job is to subvert the will of the user and basically stop them from achieving success in the game. The reason behind this is because every time a row of blocks in Tetris is dissolved, that is actually a suburb of the great civilization of... Blockerton, thank you. And it is actually killing people within the Tetris machine, I know. I can tell listeners you're sat there going what on earth are talking about? But please stick with us. I know, I know, know, what on earth are they talking about? Within the game, within blocker society however, there is a cult, they call it the cult of the glass and the cult of the glass want tetra society to all essentially commit mass suicide, to allow the players to completely dissolve their society so they can become one with the great people on the other side. The great people beyond the glass. This cult... will work against you from inside the Tetris machine. know, I know listeners, can hear you from here. I can hear you from here saying what on earth are they talking about? And you will have to fight not just the players but also the cult inside the glass in order to save Tetris society. And this game Matthew is going to be called... Yes. E-D, bit of style. The next one's a pun. It's arc aid, but the aid is spelled as in help. So arc-aid. Yeah, and the final one is just a nice simple, it's not a game. which is awful for Google search engine optimization. So if you see me call this episode something else, then that's why. It's yeah, it's the most solid one. No, I think for legal reasons, you call it Teteritis. I like blocked. I quite like blocked. Also because we can't call it Tetris. Well there we are ladies and gentlemen that is blocked. Probably one of the strangest games we've ever created. Probably the most meta most definitely. I see this very much as a PC game. Well actually no. Can see console? Okay. Coming to everything in the... It's going to every single platform. But listen, we hope you enjoyed that episode of madness that we usually bring you. This one particularly mad. Please do write to us, please do leave us a review if you feel so inclined. Please do write to us and also set us challenges. We like to receive... everything. messages from listeners please do give us a challenge i.e give us a genre, us some mechanics and we will run with it. Gears please, please give us everything and please do like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts but in the meantime, I have been Scott Right. Don't go offline. What we're to do quickly is we're just going to do the intro together. So the way we're just going to do this is we're just going to say very, very like roughly, Hey, this is what I do is I'll lead this bit. So you've got a rough idea, but it will be really like, and then we just said it and we made a game and it's really matter. Isn't it Scott? And you'd like, yep, you're in for a treat. So this is, it's going to be a little sort of preview kind of thing without giving away shock of anything like what the genre mechanics are. So we can say we chat about God of war. got to do my God of war, that kind of thing. Okay. Cool. Right. So, three, two, one. Hello and welcome to the Gaming Blender Podcast, the podcast of hypothetical video games. We made a great game today, didn't we, Scott? one of the strangest but it was fun. was fun and it was funny and it was a big emotional journey and we spoke a lot about God of War as well. I went on bit of a dark turn. one of the strangest we've ever made, I think. We did. It's strange, it's wonderful, and you get to hear my God of War voice. But in the meantime, enjoy the episode. Have a listen. no, please do come and listen to it. is very strange, I think is probably the way of putting it. Right, stop that. Yes.