Throwing Stuff

      2 Comments on Throwing Stuff

So, this probably wouldn’t work, but it seems amusing to me: an on-line catapult game (as with those outraged avians) but the users upload their own pictures to use as missiles, with the quality of each one resulting from a grade given by other users. I imagine a set of five, with a grade given to each one and some sort of multiplier for the set.

To get an idea: I upload a set of German Engineering, which contains a VW Beetle, a Krups coffeemaker, a Bosch refrigerator, a Zeppelin and the bust of Beethoven from Schroeder’s piano. When log in to the game site, I am given a set to grade, this one consisting of the Oldenberg Clothespin, the Koons Puppy, the Christo-wrapped Reichstag, the Angel of the North, and an Easter Island head. I must give each one a grade (A to F? 1 to 5? Or just like/dislike?) and then a grade for the set as a whole before it lets me go on to the game. Each set has to have—what—five grades before a person can play with it (temporary guest sets should be available for those who are waiting or who don’t want to log in; perhaps it can be an option for the user to make her uploaded set available for others to use) which also give the site host a chance to make the image usable in the game and to block anything undesireable. Then I get to knock down milk cans or whatever by catapulting a Beetle.

The thing that I find amusing, though, would be that I would see the grades my set was getting, and have the opportunity to try new sets that would get better grades and do more damage. You could presumably do something clever with special powers (exploding Beethoven’s bust! Splitting the coffeemaker into three parts! Extra spinning damage for the New York Public Library Lions!) or allow head-to-head matchups (with actual heads!) (well, pictures of heads, anyway), but since I don’t actually play the catapult games, I don’t know what would be clever.

Well, and as I say it probably wouldn’t work—you would need to put so many restrictions on undesirable/offensive missiles that users would get cranky and moderators would get bored. And it would only work if the bulk of the users got into the spirit of it, being willing to give good grades to other people’s entertaining sets rather than giving out all Ds to keep the high scores to themselves. And while I would find that incensed fowl game much more entertaining if I were tossing around Civil War generals or Newbery Medal books or a set of steak knives, I am probably in the minority.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

2 thoughts on “Throwing Stuff

  1. Fran

    I found this idea hilarious in the sense that I love the idea of throwing my own 5s. I’m sure there would be people with the “Ex-Girlfriends”, “Co-workers”, and “Yucky Foods”.

    I like the idea of rating but I think it ought to be optional; I also think it should be allowable to play sets marked “Public”.

    The one question I did have is how you would attach different affects or sounds etc to the object lobbed, a la each different angry bird having a different power. Could you do it via the rating system? Or make it totally random attached individually to a set when uploaded? Could you choose to make your “Saint Sebastian” go “ping” and your “Joan of Arc” go “boing” as part of fashioning your set (i.e. name this image, set image sound, set image characteristic–split, explode, etc.)

    HMMM.

    Reply

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