The Corporation That Kills

Author's Note: This is a redesigned version of the blog's first ever post, Zomb-like. It is also heavily inspired by the Sega Genesis and how many unique game designers tried to push the boundaries of the system.

Story:
A corporation makes a zombie virus in order to terrorize a town and extort labor from its citizens. When Jake, an average teen, at least in this town, decides to break the rules, his father gets put into their testing facilities. Jake, angry as ever, decides to go on a mission to save his father, and while he's at it, destroy the company. Can he save him before he's turned into an ultra powerful killing machine?

Gameplay:
Much like Zomb-like, The Corporation That Kills is a subgenre of Role-Playing Game known as a Roguelike or Dungeon Crawl, in which every aspect of gameplay takes place on the map and everything moves to your movement. Unlike most roguelikes, however, tCTK uses a "fake 3D" display to show the onscreen actions and enemies, though a map is displayed to the side if the player wishes to use it. The Legend of the Mystical Ninja has a maze minigame similar to this approach, which is displayed in the video below.

Turns consist of either movement forward or attacking using either your gun, which uses special points but deals more damage, or your fists. Turning around will not use up a turn. After each turn, your enemies take a turn in a similar fashion.

The game is split into different dungeons, each more complex than the last. Each dungeon you complete gets you closer to your target: the testing facilities.

You have party members which travel along with you. One of the first party members you receive is Jonas, Jake's younger, depressed brother. You can take only one party member with you at a time, however. Completing side quests found within dungeons can give you more party members or rare items.

Items can be acquired and either equipped or used in a separate screen. Some items such as food or potions can be used to heal yourself or characters in your party or replenish energy, while others can be used as different weapons that can affect different stats, such as crossbows or baseball bats.

Energy is a core mechanic of the game, and in many roguelikes, and is seen on the items screen. Without Energy Points, your character can die within a dungeon. Energy can be replenished through food items or potions.

There are status ailments, such as paralysis, which prevents the player or enemy from moving, poison, which takes away life, and dizziness, which both makes your character move in weird directions and causes the screen to become "rainbowified".

Screenshot:

 

Opposites Attack!

Story:
A world full of color faces a threat to the very thing it's known for: its bright, vibrant palette of wondrous colors.

A group of scientists were eager to create an object that could switch its colors at will, an ability nothing in their universe could do until now. They create Huebot Alpha, a robot that can switch to any color known to man. Unfortunately, this would be its downfall. One day, thanks to a nasty glitch, Alpha switches to Gray and is unable to switch out. Angrily, he starts to use his color changing abilities to turn everything around him gray; if he can't be colorful, no one can.

The scientist behind Alpha make Huebot 2, who can only switch to two separate colors. "Chroma", as the scientists call him, is now on a quest to return the 7 different towns around him back to their original colors, as well as defeat Alpha in the Mono-zone. Will he succeed, or is he bound to be another victim of this senseless color-bleaching?

Gameplay:
Gameplay is similar to Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. On the overworld, you use the different abilities of your two different colors, Red and Green, to solve puzzles in the different towns. Red has the ability to punch through hard objects such as boulders, and Green has the ability to shoot less powerful lasers at distant objects using his gun. You can jump using either ability.

Chroma shown in his two separate colors, Red and Green.

During battle, you can use your laser or your punch regardless of which form you're in. Punches are preformed three at a time, Left, Right, then an Uppercut, by pressing the A button three times in a rhythmic succession. For the laser gun, you hold the A button and then release it when it gets towards the top of a bar. (Later upgrades to your laser will allow you to fill up multiple bars before attacking.)

Enemies will come towards you after your turn. You have two different ways to defend: The block or the jump. Sometimes you will want to block and not jump, other times you must jump and not block. Most times, you will have to mix and match both. You will not take damage if you do it right!

Your different forms actually play like two separate characters, with both having different stats. Red is focused more towards Health and Attack, while Green is focused towards Defense and Speed. You can switch to either during battle before you attack.

Some enemies will be certain colors. Most of the time they are gray, but other times they will be colors such as Green or Red. If you want to deal more damage to an enemy, you should be the color opposite them. (Ex. Green would do more damage to Red enemies.) Later on, you'll get partners of different colors with different attacks, and different special moves you can perform with them.

Time's Tower: Unsinkable Starship

Story:
Deep space, 2222.
You're a mechanic on board a ship known as Time's Tower... A ship you know absolutely nothing about. For example, why are they so deep in space? What are they carrying on board that's so important? Why is it called Time's Tower? As you walk around the ship wondering these questions, a mysterious object hits the ship and causes it to crash-land on a nearby planet.

You wake up in the harsh, dry desert, with nothing in sight but a huge sandstone building. You walk in to find a ghost before your eyes. Are you seeing things? Apparently not, because this phantom isn't going away. In fact, he wants to join your team. He claims he is a "learner spirit", that is, he can learn abilities from other ghosts. You and your new friend now look for the sunken ship and the rest of the crew on the planet.

The mechanic alongside the Learner Spirit.

 

Meanwhile, strange humanoid like creatures are trying to get a hold of the crew and whatever was inside Time's Tower. It turns out in the end that Time's Tower is a holding facility for a time traveler spirit, kept in space to prevent anybody from reaching it, including enemy governments. The mysterious object that hit the ship was a missile from an enemy ship. When the crew tries to get away with the spirit, their captain is shot and killed. The learner spirit finally learns his last ability... Time Travel. You and the crew go back in time and manage to stop the missile that crashed the ship from ever being launched. Time reverts itself to an alternate timeline, in which your crew never learns the secrets of Time's Tower.

A final shot of the planet's surface is shown. A kid is seen sleeping within the sandstone structure you entered at the beginning of the game. That kid was your learner spirit.

Gameplay:
The game is a platformer with backtracking (a metroidvania). As you fight bosses in the game (spirits), your learner spirit gains new abilities to help you get into places you couldn't get into before. Your goal is to collect pieces of the ship and find all of the crew members so you can pilot a make-shift ship back into space.

Detective Jones: The Misplaced

Story:
Have you ever had a day where you feel you're misplaced? A day where you feel like you're in the entirely wrong universe? That's how Detective Jones feels everyday of his new life. A cold, hard-boiled detective, set in a fantasy world of heroes and demons, Detective Jones hasn't worked on any case since he arrived... Until one day, he learns about a string of murders that aren't committed by the demons. Nobody besides Detective Jones has investigation skills in this world, so it's up to him to solve it. Can Detective Jones really fit into this world, or is he just bound to flounder in the land of magic for the rest of his life?

Gameplay:
The gameplay is a mix between an RPG and a point-and-click adventure. Inside of investigation rooms, you can look around and find items, either for battles or puzzles. These segments progress you into the story, and can also unlock new areas and give you partners to fight enemies with.

An investigation room. This one is outside of Jone's office.

There are certain pathways to get to other investigation rooms known as fighting rooms. These rooms contain enemies to fight, so you can level up and fight better enemies later on. During fighting segments, you can investigate items and enemies to learn about their traits or possibly how to beat them, at the cost of a turn. You can use your entire inventory during battle to fight enemies, sometimes yielding interesting results.

Nimbus 9

Story:
This game tells the tale of two shipping companies: The Oak City Shipping Co. and the Global Shipping Industries. Naturally, they're enemies. You play as Roderick, a newbie who pilots the airplane known as the Nimbus 9. You're up against Bobby, a hotshot pilot who works for the GSI, which also happens to currently be the world's biggest shipping company. You have two jobs: Deliver your packages and eliminate the competition.

Roderick with the Nimbus 9.

Gameplay:
A shoot'emup where you pilot the already mentioned Nimbus 9. You shoot enemies flying though the sky and pick up packages that can drop from them. Packages are considered the health of your plane: The more you collect, the more hits you can take before your plane goes down. Packages also count towards your score at the end of each level.

A mock screenshot showing Gameplay.

Zomb-like

Story:
A corporation has created a zombie virus to terrorize citizens of a small town and extort money from them. Jake, an average teen in this small town, gets his father killed after not obeying the rules. He's fed up with all of this. He plans to stop this once and for all.

Jake, the protagonist, depicted with signature weapon, the Shotgun.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is similar to something called a Roguelike. In this genre of game, you walk on a map and explore dungeons in a turn-like fashion. When you take a turn, your enemy also takes a turn. Combat occurs completely on the map, also, and not in a separate combat system like in a typical RPG. Wikipedia has the complete definition here.

In this game, you play as Jake, walking around in either buildings, forests or cities. You have a gun with limited ammo that can shoot powerful blasts. If you run out of ammo, you resort to a less powerful punch attack. You can pick up more ammo of course, but you can only carry so much.

You would have teammates as well that could have different powers and weapons. Jake's younger, depressed brother would be your first teammate, and you could pick up other optional teammates later in the story.

Jake's brother, Jonas. He joins you at the very beginning of the game.

You can level up to increase your stats, but you could also equip different weapons to change stats as well. If you'd rather have a more powerful punch than your gun, you can equip brass knuckles, for example.

Updated 9/2/2012 -  Jake and Jonas concept art added.