Taking Rob's advice and adding my own topic to the forums. So when listening to the Starr Mazer interview, I was intrigued by the merging of the point-and-click and shmup genres and wanted to know what other genre mash-ups the listeners could come up with?

I'll start. When I interviewed with Konami to be a game tester years ago, one of the questions they asked me was, "What is your favorite type of video game?"
I answered, "I like RPGs and sports games the most."
The interviewer commented that he never heard that combination before, and that got me thinking not about the individual genres, but combining them.

While I don't play them as much anymore, one of the the things I liked most about playing sports games was the career mode, if there even was one. Now take that concept and really expand it to incorporate elements of RPGs where you upgrade your characters' skills not just through combat (or playing the games in this case) but through all sorts of other methods such as interaction with other characters, side quests, and so on.

If during your career mode, your athlete makes a blunder on social media, for example, they actually lose stats. There are tons of possibilities beyond just playing a sporting event and getting better or worse throughout a season/career.

So that's my idea for a genre mashup, what about the other listeners? Any combination is fine, but the more unconventional, the better.

_________________

The NCAA Football games did that for a while, where you would have to schedule your off time and that affected your stats in the next game. Spend free time studying? Raises your awareness. Spend time in the gym? Raises your toughness. Spend time with your girlfriend? Destresses you. (In your dorm room, you would even have a picture of your current girlfriend, and as you got better, you got hotter girlfriends.)

You could then take that character and import him into Madden, which would take his stats, and then Madden also has stuff like press interviews and coach interactions. It's very basic but the groundwork is there. They even simulate Twitter now where you can see ESPN pundits and fans tweeting about your action on the field.

_________________
Bobby Blackwolf
Co-Founder, Editor in Chief: Technical
Host - The Bobby Blackwolf Show
LIVE Sundays 8PM ET/5PM PT

I love the idea of a sports RPG-- especially if it was something somewhat non-conventional like Dodge Ball (wasn't that game awesome on NES). Mix Super Dodge Ball with River City Ransom!! hahaha it's the same universe anyway, sorta!! For some reason, Baseball Stars came to mind from the NES era but it's not realllly an RPG just had some elements like you used your winnings to upgrade players and stuff.

I love music games obviously and I like RPGs as well. We're starting to see some of that now with Crypt of the Necrodancer and Sequence is another really neat one. I sure wouldn't mind seeing more of that

_________________

I know some games have touched on the idea, but has there been a combined fighting/music game yet? Like, if you hit enemies off beat they barely flinch, but if you punch them perfectly on beat they explode into bloody chunks.

_________________
Bobby Blackwolf
Co-Founder, Editor in Chief: Technical
Host - The Bobby Blackwolf Show
LIVE Sundays 8PM ET/5PM PT