A comment on one of those "What's a good game concept you wish existed?" posts got me thinking. It described a game where you start out as OP and slowly lose your stats and gear as the game progresses. They suggested a Fallen champion type theme.
This got me thinking about roguelikes, speed runners, and hardcore mode together. If a roguelike added a hardcore mode where you create a character and the character is deleted on death, that wouldn't last very long. However, if the hardcore mode was flipped and a new character had every stat and item maxed out then the player would almost certainly beat the game.
Now the goal is to see how many times you can beat the game without dying. The catch would be each time you beat the game you are allowed to reduce your stats or delete your gear. This will mean a Run tracker would be impressive for 2 reasons: how fast it was and how little gear was used.
The hardcore aspect would take into account the number of runs risked with the same character. If the amount of power reduction was capped for each run then it would take a few times to get low enough to be impressive and each consecutive run gets more and more risky.
Anyway, this seems anxiety-inducing enough to be fun to play and watch. Then the "God Gamers" (ft. Sp4zie) would compete with each other to see how weak you can be to beat the game.
Xposted on the other site
As an undecided, never trumper, Trump looked like an asshat. The oldest trick in the rhetoric books is to attack the person instead of the subject. A sure sign of weakness.