Video game brainstorm

I’m throwing this out there with no claim to copyright. Anyone who wants to take this and run with it is free to do so.

Time for a remake of Hunt the Wumpus (more precisely, Be the Wumpus)

Screenshot of Be the Wumpus gameplay.

My imaginary version is:

WiiWare download.

Full stereo support. With doppler and echo physics.

Don’t forget the Wiimote has its own speaker. (Sonar? Ping and echo?)

Rumble.

The Wiimote is getting a gyroscope for full-motion detection.

Environmental sound effects to create and navigate a map.

No graphics. Maybe not a blank screen, but the visuals don’t impact gameplay. This is a tactile- and audio-only game.

Wumpus, in my mind, is just an experiment of the mechanics. Ideally what I’d like is to make a multiplayer First Person Shooter that could be played blind. Anyone who’s ever played Counterstrike or Unreal Tournament (or even Mario Kart in versus mode) knows how much fun it is to blow up friends. Unfortunately, this is a pleasure mostly unavailable to people who are blind. (There are audio-only games available. I just don’t believe any of them are multi-player frag-fests.)

I mention Counterstrike in particular above because the audio in that game is particularly important to gameplay.

If you could get the sonar mechanic right and the audio physics designed correctly, it would be possible to make a maze-running, multi-player deathmatch without any visuals.