Intern Proposed Game Design for "Intern Wars"

As part of my continued effort to utilize our interns as slave labor to create content for the Jabroni Report, I present the second article in the "Intern Series", in which I give the interns a homework assignment to generate content for the blog.

This week's assignment was to write up a brief proposal for a video game called "intern wars." This was the only direction they had, and I'm pretty thrilled with the response I got.

Quick Aside Before You Begin: I only received responses from 2/4 interns. You'd think, as an intern, that your "end goal" in life would to be considered for a full-time position, no? I'm not saying these exercises are mandatory, or anything, but they are mandatory.

T-Bone's Concept For Intern Wars:

My ideal “Intern Wars” game is mashup of Joust and Robotron, where every player controls a little intern character. The player can run, jump, and most importantly, latch on to other interns. This game is best with four or more players.

When an intern jumps on top of another one and presses a button, the intern on top becomes a rider of the intern on bottom. In this form (attack form), the player that was controlling the bottom intern can now control the movement of the two characters, whereas the top character can aim and shoot water at other interns. At any time, either player can press a button to ‘unlatch’. It is important to note that ‘attack form’ is the only way to attack other characters.

The shootable water is replenished by picking up water pails that will spawn around the screen. Water can only be acquired when not in ‘attack form’ with another character.

The aim of the game is to soak your fellow interns by forming and breaking alliances. Once an intern is hit with enough water, he is ‘fired’. If interns are hit with water in ‘attack form’, they are split apart.

At random points in the game, an UNDEFEATABLE? ‘supervisor’ character runs on screen, chasing after the closest intern with a pink slip. If the supervisor manages to come in contact with an intern, that intern is fired.

Once only two interns remain, the game goes into sudden death mode, where ‘attack form’ is no longer allowed. At this point, interns who were fired can ‘go postal’ by throwing water balloons from outside of the arena at either of the two interns left. Once an intern is hit, the game is over, and the other intern has won.

Tony's Concept For Intern Wars:

My vision of "Intern Wars" would be a party game with a bunch of mini games. 3 players would be interns and the forth would be the boss. This would be primarily a 4 player multiplayer game that should be played with all players in the same room, but the game could be played over the internet.

To start the game, a boss will be randomly selected of the four individuals playing. Each player will create a unique avatar to represent themselves. The boss will then give each of the interns a creative and funny nickname that represents the avatar.

Some of the mini games I have thought of so far are:

Race to see how fast you can fill the water for the coffee machine

Each intern would have their own viewport and copy of the course for this game. The game would consist of an obstacle course where each intern has a container. The interns must go to the water cooler, fill their container and travel back to the bosses office with the water. Water will spill out for making fast turns and tripping over obstacles. While the interns are gathering water, the boss can add obstacles to an individual's obstacle course. The intern that fills the water machine the fastest wins this game.

Who can break the build the fewest number of times

This would be a button sequence and memory game. The boss will click a series buttons, the interns must repeat the buttons clicked. The intern with the longest complete memory series wins this game.

The scooter races around our building

Interns have to race against each other around the building on a scooter. The players can hit one another and the boss can throw obstacles and power ups on the course. The player to complete the race first wins this game.

Prank the bosses office

I believe this mini game would be similar to pac-man vs. The Interns would have to coordinate to sneak into the boss's office while the boss is off checking up on the other interns. The interns collectively will gain points if they successfully prank the boss's office, but will take a penalty for each time they are caught.

The intern with the highest score at the end of the game will be hired as fulltime employee. If the players choose to play again, the winner of the previous game will become the boss of the next.