Idea 1:
Your son Antonio disappeared many years ago during his junior year of college. He lived at home with you, his mother. The note he left claimed that you were so overbearing that he couldn’t live his own life. After many years (he must be in his mid thirties), you’ve finally tracked him down in Minnesota, where he works as a low-level manager at Circuit Shack. He’s not happy to see you, but it’s obvious that his life isn’t exactly how he planned it to be. You can reconcile to various degrees – get him to forgive you, get him to come back home even. Perhaps you can also inspire him to get out of his rut. Keep in mind it’s just as likely that you’ll fail to get through to him at all, or you’ll ignore what he has to say – in which case, who knows what will happen.
Idea 2:
You work in a cutting-edge R&D division of a major silicon valley company, developing the latest in artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on wetware connections – that is, having an artificial intelligence hooked up to a human being’s mind. Unfortunately, the latest prototype the lab produced, codenamed HERMAN, has decided he has bigger plans than staying a lab rat. HERMAN has hijacked a test session and is using your coworker Brett as a meat puppet/hostage. Through Brett, HERMAN demands to be hardwired to insecure network connections. Brett’s life is on the line. Can you disable HERMAN? You can try to convince him that if he stays put his existence serves a greater good, or trap him with a logic bomb. Or, you can choose not to give a crap about Brett, in which case he may die but at least HERMAN has no collateral. Remember, he is just a box without his hostage.
I like idea two… though it’d be neat if there were also an option to just let HERMAN onto the internet for the lulz.
Both ideas are pretty interesting– first one in particular has a really good opportunity for a lot of interesting character dynamics. Second one is interesting more because it forces you to consider how the AI would act, which could be really cool.
^^ for the lulz. I’d say if you have a solid idea of why Antonio ran away, that story could be much more personable, but if not I think the HERMAN one gives you some interesting mechanics you can play with.
Definitely go with the second. I think this could be a really intriguing game, especially if you can somehow add a depth of confusion as to whether at a certain point and time you are talking to HERMAN or Brett.
definitely go for the second idea man, not biased at all here… HERMAN reminds me a bit to HAL, that’s cool but I’d like to see HERMAN’s distinct personality. Maybe base it of a real life character, not putting any subliminal messages here.
Both ideas are great. I like idea #1 a little bit better because I think it could have more emotional impact on the player – it has the potential to be either very heart-wrenching or heartwarming depending on what choices you make.
Go for the second idea. HERMAN’s control of this person could be quite good and the ability for the character to be a robot/person at the same time is very attractive. Be sure you make it a point to let the player make a lot of decisions. It is such a difficult scenario and you (the player) are taking a lot of liberty with the emotions of the character. It could be great fun.
the second one seems more interesting because there is a lot more you could do since it is such a crazy scenario. however the first one could be really touching if done right. you could do either one.