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What’s the most innovative game hook that never took off or got copied? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by massred@alien.top to c/gaming@level-up.zone

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Basically what’s a game that you’ve played that seemed so mind blowingly unique at the time but for one reason or another the game never took off and other developers didn’t pick up and run with it either.

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[–] massred@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago (7 children)

The game I’d kick this off with is an EA game called Majestic from 2001. I remember playing this when I first started college and the internet was young and it blew my mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_(video_game)

This game was like being wrapped up in a real life conspiracy. You would browse obscure web pages, get faxes (which believe it or not was still a thing back then, haha), get phone calls, early blackberry texts, emails, and even a very rudimentary ai chat system over AIM. All while trying to uncover an online conspiracy.

I remember being super excited for each new episode and was really bummed when it got discontinued a year later. I seem to remember the writing wasn’t all that great and the acting was old school FMV bad, but IMO that added to the charm.

I feel like this game concept was way ahead of its time. Can you imagine a similar thing using AI tech from 2023? That feels like it would have so much potential.

[–] YeOldeKnob@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You just unlocked a seriously backlogged memory. I remember reading about this game/service in a GamePro magazine and it sounded fucking NUTS. I always wanted to play it but I was too young and we didn’t have the necessary stuff like a fax machine to get the most out of it.

[–] massred@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

It was pretty nuts. I didn’t have a blackberry so I couldn’t use the blackberry feature. And our printer worked as a fax machine but we didn’t have a dedicated phone line for it cause it was also the dial up modem line haha. So I got kind of a watered down version of the game because I couldn’t use all of the features.

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