How would a Disney Survival game work?

[SWard]

Right. I want your pitches. Lets say Disney gives you an unlimited budget to make a survival video game, but it 100% needs to be based on a pre-existing Disney IP.

The memo from production includes:

• No Star Wars.
• Needs to be based off an animated movie from the back catalogue.
• RRP: £45.

What do you pitch and why?

 

[PCG Chris]

Peter Pan would be a great setting for a survival game. You've got pirates, and a lot can be folded into that -- scavenging, swordplay, hunger and thirst, raids, gold. You've got hungry crocodiles. Maybe you could summon Tinkerbell if you need to fly. There's a kid wearing a top hat for some reason.

I realize now I remember very little about Peter Pan because that's all I've got.

 

[Krud]

Tarzan seems suitable for a jungle-based Survival game. Whether you play as Tarzan himself growing up (or adult), or Jane and her dad, or all three. Or Clayton. Any human, really. Though obviously not Tarzan's parents, as they were doomed. Unless it's a prequel where they built the treehouse that was eventually trashed.

Along similar lines, The Jungle Book* might also work, though that could be problematic from a "potential death" standpoint since Mowgli was a kid and a lot of countries have strict game policies about that sort of thing.

(* - Does that count as their IP? Do most of their stories, come to think of it?)

 

[Krud]

Peter Pan would be a great setting for a survival game. You've got pirates, and a lot can be folded into that -- scavenging, swordplay, hunger and thirst, raids, gold. You've got hungry crocodiles. Maybe you could summon Tinkerbell if you need to fly. There's a kid wearing a top hat for some reason.

I realize now I remember very little about Peter Pan because that's all I've got.

In order to fly you'd also have to have your needs sufficiently met to have "happy thoughts." If you're starving or injured, no happy thoughts will be immediately forthcoming. Not to get all Simmish about it.

 

[Zoid]

Beauty and the Beast.

You are Beast. The village folk revile you and will hunt you if you try to go into town. Gaston may even show up on your doorstep if things get too bad. You have to survive in your crumbling castle all while keeping your rose alive.

 

[PCG Joanna]

The Lion King

This survival game takes place after Scar has taken control of Pride Rock. The land has already started to decay. Watering holes have turned to dust bowls, grass fields to dried husks. Springbok and other carnivore food sources are now endangered. Everything is dead or dying.

You can play either as a lion or a hyena. With a lack of food and water, tensions between your clan and the other are at an all time high. Will you start turning to murder or cannibalism to survive, disrupting the natural food chain, or will you convince everyone to migrate to a new location?

 

[Apollo]

Right. I want your pitches. Lets say Disney gives you an unlimited budget to make a survival video game, but it 100% needs to be based on a pre-existing Disney IP.

The memo from production includes:

• No Star Wars.
• Needs to be based off an animated movie from the back catalogue.
• RRP: £45.

What do you pitch and why?

View attachment 293

The Black Cauldron. You could even make it an open world survival game, but with the monsters. since it's more fairy tale like it can be an RPG, and since most people haven't seen it, it could get a wider appeal beyond Disney fans.

 

[jpishgar]

Mary Poppins!

You play as a Nanny. Your job is to survive against rambunctious and unruly children of the upper crust. Your tools are song, flight, and random acts of productive magic.

Health is replaced with Patience. The more uncivil children you defeat, the higher level you obtain. Antagonists include cartoon penguins, bankers, chimney sweeps, and other undesirables.

 

[Biggly]

Being an underwater mermaid princess is no easy life. Maybe, if you can get to the surface and charm a landward prince, you can slough that ugly fish tail and live somewhere sunny and humid, like Florida. With the help of an annoying pet crab, collect seabed resources to build a subaquatic vehicle that will transport you to the bipedal man of your dreams. Be wary of the potion-bearing half-octopus woman with heavy eye shadow and watch your pressure gauge when diving deep.

...because everything is Subnautica.

 

[I Will Haunt You]

Disney: Intern. Start as a lowly unpaid intern and survive the corporate jungle until you are CEO. Hunt for bagels and cappuccinos to survive while crafting documents and projects to move up the corporate ladder eventually becoming CEO and gaining access to ultimate wisdom from Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head.

 

[spvtnik1]

Oh, that's easy. You're Donald Duck, it's World War II, and... just kidding.

Some of the old DOS-based Disney games felt like survival games in their own right. Anyone remember the 1990s Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers game? Overly difficult! Same with the 1989 All Dogs Go To Heaven game. It's rather perplexing that death or fail states were even implemented in any of the early Disney games.

Bambi would probably be a FINE choice. Other off-beat titles that come to mind are Saludos Amigos / The Three Amigos (think PG or G rated Red Dead Redemption), The Rescuers, and maybe even the Robin Hood movie. Or they could go full Cuphead and take inspiration from the 30's and 40's animations.

 

[SWard]

Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head.

This sounds like Futurama

 

[CParsons]

Robin Hood, you could constantly be on the run from the Sherriff and taking on all his henchmen after robbing Prince John. You'd also have to find some time to take on Sir Hiss and shove him in a basket with a locked lid, and don't forget to avoid all those moats, arrows, and traps while saving Maid Marian.

 

[Frindis]

Bambi. You play as a hearing-impaired mule deer and the world is a layer of water and ice. You have to survive by avoiding hunters and cracking thin ice. Your only friend is a hippo. You are the eyes and the hippo is the ears in this harsh world.

 

[I Will Haunt You]

This sounds like Futurama

That "theory" has been around a long time. I don't think Futurama ever featured old Walt Disney as one of their heads in a jar, which is a shame.

 

[I Will Haunt You]

I would torment Hillary Duff or something haha.

If I was gonna torment a Disney star it would be Miley Cyrus.

 

[Slasken]

Donald Duck.
Duckburg and zombies

 

[Mazer]

A parkour-based open world game based on The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. You explore the rooftops of Paris, avoiding lynch mobs and perving on gypsy girls until you're sick of it all and lie down in your cell to sleep and suffocate to death. I've never actually seen the movie or read the book so I'm going to assume it ends like The Elephant Man.

 

[SWard]

What about a witty reverse survival game staring the Vultures from the Jungle Book?
The only survival game where not surviving helps the protagonists, and it can have The Beatles soundtrack.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrXMvy9CWnk

 

[Mazer]

These are getting dark now, but that tends to happen with Disney.

How about a reskin of 'This Land Is My Land' to make it about Pocahontas brutally scalping John Smith and the settlers rather than singing fruity songs about the wind?