No Sleep

As I lay in bed trying to sleep the irritating buzz of mosquitoes is driving me insane. So, rather than losing my mind I thought it might inspire me for a game idea.

I have this idea where the player plays as a mosquito that needs to suck a set amount of blood to succeed in its life. This would mean that the player must avoid death from sprays and getting splatted by their victims. The player would fly around and land on its victim with the intention of extracting as much blood as possible. As the speed of blood extraction is fixed the only variable will be the time they can stay in one spot to build up their supply. There could be an irritation meter that builds up the longer the player stays in one spot. Once the meter gets to a random point a giant hand comes down and splats the player. If the player takes off fast enough he will avoid death and can try again.

The entire game would be played in semi darkness. At random times the lights will come on and the player must duck for cover. If the player doesn’t make it to cover fast enough the big hand comes out and tries to swat him.

A game like this would definitely want to be in 3D to fully appreciate the feeling of flight. I think cartoon type of characters would be nice to give them a bit more attractiveness rather than the, all hated, mosquito. It could be made rather comedic with the right artist. To make this I would lean towards Godot because it is 3D capable but not as complex to use as the other big engines.

This is an idea for a small game that involves driving a forklift truck.

basically you are a forklift driver that needs to load crates of beer onto a conveyor belt that then takes them away. You get scored for the amount that you manage to get loaded.

The beer crates spawn at set locations around the warehouse but will never spawn on a location already occupied by a crate already. As the game goes on the crates spawn progressively faster until reaching a point where there is no more free space for the crates to spawn and the game ends.

If the player manages to get a set amount of crates on the conveyor belt (finish loading the truck) they could progress to the next level which would be harder for them to maneuver around. It could go to different scenarios such as loading a ship on the docks or larger oversize crates to fit between other vehicles but will have the amount of loads required displayed so that the player knows the target.

The unique part about this game is that the controls for a forklift are different to a car or truck. A forklift steers with its rear wheels, that’s what gives it the ability to access areas other vehicles could not. If the game used the same type of controls this would make high speed driving very difficult. To greater benefit from the controls, a boost could be implemented so that a skilled driver could move loads faster but an unskilled driver could quickly get in trouble.

The forklift could have a raise/lower function so that it would need to pick up the load before driving off. This would also mean that they would have to lower the load onto the conveyor belt to receive the score.

I think this would be nice as a top down game because it would benefit from the simple way the warehouse could be laid out. The style I would choose would be a chunky pixel art like 16×16 or 32×32 sprites. A limited colour palette would also enhance the retro style a bit more. What might be a nice difference would be if it was made with the old Nintendo Gameboy type colours and graphics. As for what game engine I would use, I think it wouldn’t need a top end type like UE5 or Unity. Maybe a simpler 2D engine like Godot would be enough or even banging it out with PyGame would be fine.

Well that’s my simple game idea that, at the time of writing this, seems like a viable game concept. Who knows maybe even one day I might make it or someone else might use the idea for themselves. Whatever the outcome is, I am happy to share this with you.

Goodnight.

Mosquitoes in the Night

The Manic Forklift Driver