Damned Elements!

I think I'm going to have to scrap the plan to make a simple action or puzzle game for the 4E5 competition. I just can't seem to find a good way to get all four elements integrated to a sufficient degree to make the idea work.

For example, the idea I was planning on doing involved a Risk-like board of Europe, where you can win sectors by making successful trades with each country. That's two elements incorporated very well. But how do you put in Emotion? Just making people like you isn't enough. And the Emblem doesn't gel very well with this game either.

Emblem is my biggest problem. For some reason the idea of plastering a symbol all over a game doesn't really appeal to me. I've a suspicion there's going to be a lot of games based around some sort of fascist totalitation groups (countries, companies or other organisations) in order to get that theme. I've got no real problem with those sorts of themes for games, but it just isn't what I want to do right now.

I'm strongly suspecting that I'm going to have to do a game in the either strategy or RPG genres to get all four elements and be a game I wish to make. Given most people seem to be doing classic TBS or RTS games, I'd prefer not to do that. But strategy management type games are open. And of course, there's always the RPG, a very good genre for combining weird elements together. I had banned myself from considering RPGs for the rest of the year, given the debacle that was Project Jack, but if I keep the game simple it should be doable in a few months. The lure of the RPG genre is always very strong on me...

I've got a few ideas that might loosely fit with the contest theme this year, so I'll see which seems best. The challenge with strategy and RPG isn't so much meeting the requirements for the elements, but figuring out a way to do that and complete the game by November. I'll give the ideas a quick brainstorm tonight and see which seems best.