I admit it.
When a 7th grade English teacher would ask for an essay on "How I spent my summer vacation" I'd turn in one about falling through a crack in the earth and being fed to trolls.
So where are the edges of the engine? Staying within the traditonal top-down map, perhaps you play a Netrunner within the data stream (an excuse to roll out magic and stamp events, and it disguises the level, skill and magic system nicely within a high-tech gloss). This would allow you to show off what animated stamps in transparent layers can do (particularly, look at the power of spline animation; there's some used in PoG).
Or perhaps you play a killer T-cell -- I would love to animate that amoeboid motion! Scout out disguised enemies and save your host, but be careful not to attack a healthy cell or you might get swarmed by antibodies. With appropriately sticky sound effects, of course. Ah, and the fun of a semi-realistic human interior (I've worked on an inside-an-artery pic, a la Fantastic Voyage, in Bryce).
It is simple enough to make NPCs appear to be chopping wood or building a Borg Cube. Is also simple to replace the player sprite with an animated cursor (or hide it altogether). Any ideas spring from this combination? Perhaps you, a Sancho Panza type, can only advise and guide the tough but dimwitted knight you escort...
I see some very nice anime-style graphics being posted, and I've heard rumors of a modern war game. I look forward with great anticipation to progress reports from the people here.
Thank you, Ambrosia and Beenox.
///edited by nomuse five minutes later/// Sorry, I completely forgot the 01-17-2002 thread on this same subject. My apologies for not posting there.
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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"
(This message has been edited by Commander Arashi (edited 01-25-2002).)