Major Pain is my original idea for an arcade system that incorporates an actual (minor) pain inflicting mechanism into the core gameplay of the rail shooter genre. This is somewhat inspired by the machines that electric shock you to see how much you can take before letting go. In this case, however, the purpose is to add a level of immersion and realism to the gameplay. Did you ever give your friends a dead arm/leg, a "charlie horse" or "corky" in high school? Were you ever on the receiving end? Well, this game can bring back those
painfulloving memories.
How it works
To start the game, you would step onto a platform with four positions for your feet. Each position has a pressure sensor so that, if your feet leave the area, the game considers you to have conceded and is over (no, you don't get your fucking quid/quarter back). Around the position you stand at is an arch. Above you, on the arch, is a kinect-like camera system that can detect where your arms are. On the sides of the arch, and in front of you, are various pain inflicting mechanisms. These aren't designed to
really hurt, just a minor poke or jab to punish your mistakes.
So, you begin the game.
Major Pain is your commanding officer amid a gun fight, as you storm through enemy territory. The kinect-like system and feet positions allow you to take cover behind objects whilst in the gun fight. For instance, let's say you're next to a large rock. For argument's sake, let's say it's on your left. Having your feet on a left pad and a right pad means you're exposed and vulnerable. Having both feet on the left pads would mean you're taking cover behind a rock. If you stay there too long, the enemy could reposition and shoot at you from the right or run up and stab you with a knife. So let's go back to being exposed. If an enemy gets a shot off on you, a tiny rod fires very quickly out of the arch or cabinet in a bid to hit you. If it hits you in a non-critical place, you lose health. If it hits you in the chest or stomach, you die. If you manage to move out of the way without completely stepping off the panels, you can keep going (did I mention the rods have sensors in them). Close up attacks, like being stabbed or hit with a 2-by-something, would be unavoidable (hello again, Kinect-like system), larger and slightly more painful than the rods that represent bullets.
If you flee, Major Pain yells at you very loud so that everyone in the vicinity knows you chickened out.
"You pussy, get back here or I'll shoot you myself!".
The attack mechanisms would be designed to hit you in safe places, like your shoulders and thighs. Naturally, there'd have to be a lot of warning signs up so that, by playing the game, you agree not to sue if you do something stupid like stick your eye in front of one of the rods that pokes you. Like I said, the point isn't to hurt you a lot, just to make you look stupid in front of your friends. No under 18s and people below a certain height could be detected by the kinect-like cameras.
Other than that, it's like most generic rail shooters. I'd like to think it's an original twist on the genre, though.
If it was popular, I could imagine it spawning more intense versions. Imagine being surrounded by Zombies and the arcade machine is beating the shit out of you (but not really) because you're getting bites and scratches all over.
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