Idea #1: Cloud
You are a cloud. You have many decisions to make! Both out of necessity and just for fun. Being a cloud, you are moisture in the sky, and if you dry out, POOF! Gone. So, you must make decisions on where to travel to continue existence, for example…
Over the past week or so, you’ve noticed a slight dry spell. You’ve kept on surviving by absorbing smaller clouds in the area, but they’re all gone. There is an arid wasteland beyond, but past that is a storm running parallel to it. You can either wait and try your luck or brave the arid wasteland in hopes of all the moisture you’ll need!
But there are also cloud shenanigans! For example, you see a weatherman having a barbecue. Bet he predicted sunny skies, we’ll see…
Idea #2: Street Garbage
You’re just a lone recyclable bottle on a city street, with the dream that you might be made into another bottle to be used again! You do have the ability to roll, and roll you shall! You encounter many perilous situations, such as convicts with trash bags and dreaded street sweeps… some situations you might get into include:
You see a thirsty homeless person by a recycling bin, this is your chance! You can roll yourself into a puddle and try to look quenching, or roll on your way to a safer place… you can hear them street sweeps a comin’!
You see a girl with a ice cream cone on a bench. Suddenly, a young man in a soccer jersey comes down the road kicking cans. You could position yourself so you could be kicked into the girls ice cream, or roll into the bushes to avoid damage.
CYOA reading:
The one part of the thing that made me think about the reading was that in any reading, the reader wants a resolve and closure, and that not all CYOA endings provide a successful closure. Like if you die without resolving something thanks to a bad decision. That would at least leave me disappointed after taking the time to take the whole adventure, as opposed to a regular book where it has a SAFE conclusion. Hadn’t really considered that before 😛
I’m more interested in the cloud one because it seems like it might be fun to frame real weather systems as emotional patterns. The absorbtion of other droplets, for example, is pretty violent/canibalistic. Using a few different converging branches, you could come to the conclusion that you must, for your own survival as a droplet, absorb your compatriots. The water bottle one seems a bit too puzzle-game for me.
Seconding the cloud one. Especially like the potential for messing with meteorologists.
I like the cloud idea. Your ideas for creating mischief with the weather, exploring different environments, etc all sound great to me. Also, I just really enjoy the phrase “Cloud shenanigans”. 😛
The street garbage idea could also be good, and you could have the potential to make it educational about the ins and outs of recycling and garbage disposal (if you wish). Would the goal be to ‘survive’ as long as possible in both of these games?
The cloud idea has a lot of potential, but can also become too mundane/boring if you only allow obvious options. I would suggest focusing on either humor or science: if you choose humor, interact with people as much as possible; if you choose science, describe the nuances of atmospheric phenomena and educate the player.
I like both ideas and cloud shenanigans made me smile so I think you could do a lot with that and keep things interesting.
Your other idea could be good but at least how you have it you seem like you have an ending after every encounter and it makes the weight of the choices you give them equal which is good but at the same time I am not sure how things will progress.
This game could be helpful as inspiration if you pursue the cloud game.
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/video.htm
I like the cloud one better because it’s more interesting and has more potential for weird interactions like interacting with the sun or creating other weather patterns like a hurricane, etc.
I think both ideas could work equally well and seem like fun and immersive. One thing I would be wary of is having two choices where one one choice obviously sounds like a more interesting path. (Usually the “do something interesting but risky” compared to the “play it safe” choice.)
I find both project ideas awesome, but the cloud one sticks out to me as being more creative. It also has to potential to be both fun and educational.