The spin-off is something we’re all too used to in this age of media evolution. New TV series or movies are released which may themselves have enough to create a compelling franchise, all the while having a particularly impressive element or character which warrants an entry all by itself. These often follow the same structure as their parent property while focusing on a different character. Recent well known examples of this come in the form of anything from Better Call Saul being created as a prequel to Breaking Bad, all the way through to the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show. Sid Meier’s Starships hopes to do the same for video games with one major difference.
Mechanically, Sid Meier’s Starships will not follow the same pathway as its spiritual birthplace Sid Meier’s Civilization Beyond Earth. Where that was a turn-based colonization title that tasks players to lead their civilization to success through a variety of means, Sid Meier’s Starships takes the franchise to a new level where gameplay moves into the stars. Commanding a fleet of space-faring craft, the player must find success in the harsh reaches of space via a similar variety of means to those found in the ground-focused Beyond Earth.
This is actually a quite linear progression from the Age of Seeding as it’s known in the franchise to each civilization’s journey into space travel. So why don’t other games do this. Why don’t they create stand-alone experiences that use the background of a successful title to give fans something a little different while opening the property up to those who may not have been interested in the initial entry.
It’s not as if this hasn’t happened before though. Spin-offs throughout gaming history include everything from the first-person shooter Command and Conquer: Renegade to light-gun takes on the Dead Space franchise in Extraction. These are the kinds of spin-offs that we’re going to focus on here. Not those that could be seen as a sequel or prequel of sorts that take the same mechanics into a different story, instead we’ll be looking possible spin-offs from established franchises which use totally different gameplay systems in the same universe.
In the words of portly plumber Mario, “letsa-go”.
Shovel Knight – Digging the Rhythm
Anyone out there who has ever spent any amount of time in Shovel Knight will know exactly where this is coming from. Early on in Yacht Club Games’ love letter to a gaming era gone by, the titular knight meets a Bard. He stands around in the village and offers our earth-moving hero the opportunity of a life time; bring the Bard music sheets and you shall be rewarded. Shovel Knight’s music was also frankly an awesome addition to the game. Perhaps even enough of one to warrant a title all to itself.
Lift up the formula used in Theatrhythm or even in the oft-forgotten Harmoknight and slot it into the Shovel Knight mythos. Come to think of it, that does sound pretty simple and could even be done with assets already found in the game. With 46 different sheets of music and 8 members in the Order of No Quarter, you could even make a standalone experience that still gives players that Shovel Knight injection without it playing like its parent title. Create levels where you have to jump, dig, or cast in time with the music across four pieces of music, then slam a boss fight into a fifth.
This leaves a couple of tracks out in the wild, granted, but extend some of the later bosses like King Knight into two long song fights and there could actually be something here.
Of course we aren’t talking about the possibility of something like Rock Band here because that’d just be too far. The key to a good spin off is to keep around much of what players love while changing up the gameplay enough to make it something special all by itself.
Hell maybe you could go absolutely crazy in spin-off mode and have the rhythm version of Shovel Knight chart the Bard’s very own quest to collect all of the music sheets. Right at the very end, the sheets are lost in some utterly mundane fashion before, moments later, Shovel Knight himself shows up and the game slots into the universe perfectly.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Snap
All the way back in 1998, a Pokemon fan was out on a safari and hit upon a brainwave so powerful they wrote it into stone tablet . Sadly this story goes a little sour as the fan was summarily skewered by an angry Rhino after trying to catch it with a tennis ball painted red and white. Luckily in 1999, a staff member at Hal Laboratory came upon this same hallowed stone and stole the idea for themselves. That idea? Go on a safari and take pictures of Pokemon. After many weeks of hard work, this all resulted in Pokemon Snap which itself is a spin-off.
We did hear this story from a guy in a pub so please, don’t quote it for truth.
The most recent success story in the world of capturing (well okay mainly killing but whatever) monsters is that of Monster Hunter, with the most recent being Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. Trying to craft a spin-off in the Monster Hunter world that uses mostly different mechanics to the main game wouldn’t actually be easy since most of the game’s universe revolves almost solely around hunting. Unless of course you wanted a Cooking Mama-style cross-over where you make food for prospective hunters. Yawn much?
During Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, there are multiple mentions of flying ships and spotters being used to find incoming dangerous monsters. That got us thinking, would it be possible to actually make a game based around not hunting the beasts of Monster Hunter but actually spotting them.
This would actually be incredibly easy to do. You go into an airship until you come across a place where a large monster is known to be. It’s then up to you, in a first person perspective, to work out exactly where the beast is. This would create something of a survival game where the player is tasked with staying alive long enough to find the creatures without having any weapons of their own. Take a minute to think about it, then let the excitement build and start begging Capcom to create this. A wild petition may even appear.
Borderlands Corporate Ship Warfare
In a feature where we spent some time talking about Sid Meier’s Starships, we couldn’t possibly find a way to not include something with space flight in it. A great many franchises take place in the final frontier and yet such a vast amount of them don’t actually embrace what could be the best thing about space. Space flight is a dream many on this humble rock wish they could fulfill. So why not bring the loot-gathering shooter Borderlands into space, with each of the game’s corporations battling it out using gigantic capital ships.
Borderlands 2 and its younger cousin The Pre-Sequel introduced us to the world above Pandora with Helios station and the attack upon it by Zarpedon’s Dahl forces. While often hinted at during the narrative of Gearbox’s shoot and loot ’em up, this spacefaring environment was never really shown until the latest title. What a glorious opportunity it is then for a whole new game to be born from this tidbit of information.
You could take on the role of a mercenary, hired by Hyperion/Dahl/Maliwan/Vladof to wage war on their behalf against their rivals. Of course being a mercenary you’d be able to take on missions from any of the manufacturers. This would mean that there’s still plenty of scope for warfare, while allowing enemies to keep the weapon qualities we’re used to seeing but on a much greater scale. Sure, in Borderlands 2 you can get an SMG that spits flaming bullets. What about having a broadside of 50 cannons all doing the same thing with rounds the size of your house.
Hell the idea of collecting loot could even be maintained as the wreckage left behind in battle could easily be used. No denial that Tales from the Borderlands is a great spin-off into unfamiliar territory for the series. This would just be another way for Gearbox to drain every possible cent from their premier franchise and this time not upset fans.
Cash in on this idea Gearbox and you could buy diamond ponies. We only require a nominal fee to pay for food and turbo mansions.
Civilization: Evolve
Strategy spin-offs aren’t anything new. Look at Halo Wars for example. Actually don’t, because that might put a downer on this next suggestion. Turtle Rock Studio’s recently brought the 4 vs 1 multiplayer game Evolve blinking into the world and, besides a little criticism over day one DLC, people generally seemed to enjoy the game.
Evolve, much like the aforementioned Borderlands, frequently alludes to the existence of a colonization effort without ever explicitly having the player get involved in the process. Hunters in Evolve were not brought in to help take areas, instead taking on the duty of cleanup crew.
The conversations between hunters both in the preparations to drop and during gameplay frequently drop hints of other worlds that Evolve‘s Shear being settled by humans. Maybe it’s time for the folks over at Turtle Rock to turn to their 2K brethren Firaxis and ask them to create a Civilization-esque title centered around humans gaining a foothold on these hostile planets.
While it would lack the diplomatic or economic struggles of Civilization games, the scope for building up a base while ensuring the people under your employ are protected from hazardous flora and fauna is wider than it may first appear. It’d require a pincer attack of sorts in gameplay. One hand would be dealing with the carrot of establishing a foothold, while the other is commanding small groups of hunters on the lookout for hungry indigenous lifeforms. Admit it, if you’ve played Evolve this could be a freaking awesome way to go.
Lets just hope they avoid making different building designs into overpriced optional DLC. Oh yeah, we went there.
Elite Papers, Please
Before the arrival of Papers, Please on the world stage, no-one would ever have even imagined that a game where you check the travel documents of citizens could actually be fun. Until developer Lucas Pope brought this indie darling into the world, saying you found the notion of stamping someones entry papers fun would have gotten you taken away by the men in white coats. Times do change however. So what about bringing together this newly popular avenue of gameplay into the galaxy-sized world of Elite: Dangerous.
As far as spin-offs go, this might actually come across as the strangest one you’ve read here so far but give us time to explain. Elite: Dangerous‘ docking and space stations play a much greater part in the overall game than many of those looking from the outside in might think.
One does not simply fly into Mordor Station. Those trying to do so will die quicker than Sean Bean in [insert any film he’s ever appeared in here]. You’ve got to go through a process of approaching the station, requesting docking permissions, and going through a scanner before you’re even able to land upon your designated docking platform. That’s a whole load of paperwork to get through. Why leave it in the hands of a more than capable computer system when a ham-fisted human halfwit could do the job for three times the price?
There’s plenty of scope for factors involved in allowing a ship to dock. First of all you’ve got to open the docking request before checking if they’re wanted or hold a bounty. Then you’re left with requesting a scan by passing station-controlled vessels or waiting for the ship to pass your own scanners. This’ll allow you to check their cargo hold for any illegal items. Parameters for this could change on a daily basis as to keep the game fresh.
Here’s another element that would actually pull the game past that of simply being a carbon copy of Papers, Please before turning it into a spin-off with a future all of its own. Allocating the right size docking platform for the right ship size, while also taking into account expected arrivals could stand to bring a whole new element to the spin-off not before seen. You’ve also got to ensure that weapon systems are ready to roll should pirates try to enter your station through bypassing your scanners with a cold ship or high speed maneuvers.
Of all the spin-offs laid out here, we are personally coming down on the side of this last entry. What’s your favorite of those we’ve listed so far? Do you think that there’s a great spin-off rolling around in your head? Well then get into that comments box below and let us know.
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