Doppelganger

The idea for this game was developed in a discussion with an old collage buddy of mine named Ralph. He's passed away now, but if I ever get this game developed, it will be dedicated to his memory. Few people I have met have matched his gaming skills. He taught me how to PLAY games instead of always being competitively aggressive. Through him, I learned how to win and lose gracefully. But this page is not about Ralph, but the game we wanted to make.

Doppleganger's simple concept started with us making fun of the opening levels of some RPG titles on the console. Usually, the player character travels a few paces out of his starting town and slays dozens of low-level monsters to improve his combat skills. We kidded around that this senseless genocide of rats, slimes, and goblins would eventually lead to a hero of the oppressed low-level races naturally developing a hero to defend themselves against the next generation of wannabe hero of the human race. Rats are unintelligent and goblins were basically uninteresting to us. Slimes, though, were more versatile. A slime, we agreed, could gain sentience and adopt the form of an enemy it defeated including its stats, attacks, defenses, resistances, and weaknesses. It was this description of the player-slime's abilities that we agreed to call the game Doppleganger.

For over a decade now, I have dreamed of making Doppleganger into a commercially viable game. I have filled several letter-sized notepads filled with concepts, maps, calculations and the like in an unorganized attempt to make what I now realize to be a Game Design Document. Being a game designer as a hobby and not by profession, these documents are filled with half-baked game mechanic ideas and unfinished storylines. The only other basic concept Ralph and I had for the game was that we wanted the combat to be real-time side-view like Street Fighter. Health would carry over between fights. Items could be used outside of fights to heal or cure conditions. After winning a fight, there would be an option to "absorb" the enemy, thus acquiring its shape, abilities, and inventory. In this way, the slime could grow, gain more powerful forms and abilities, and eventually beat the strongest opponents in the world.

That is all I am going to share for now. I want to elaborate further on Doppleganger, but I need to organize the sheaves of paper I have written on the subject before continuing. I will update this post as I feel comfortable doing so. This is not to say that I am mistrustful of having this idea "stolen". Indeed, this is one of those games that I would be happy as hell to just see get made. Although, a shout-out to Ralph and me in the credits would be mighty nice.

-7/9/13-