Blood Dragon director pitched a game about a Jewish kleptomaniac
And another about a farting, puking, hallucinating astronaut.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon creative director Dean Evans has revealed some of his earlier game ideas that make Blood Dragon's intentional 80s camp seem downright sobering in comparison.
Speaking to Polygon, Evans outlined a couple of ideas he pitched at Ubisoft's Design Academy, which he described as a brainstorming retreat where developers "get locked in a shack and go back to school."
The most shocking of which was his knowingly offensive stealth comedy So Jew Wanna Be a Thief? The game was to be developed by a fake company called "Jewbisoft" and was to star a Hasidic Jew suffering from kleptomania.
"People think he's a thief and they say, 'Oh he's just stealing s***, Jews, all about his money,' but that's not it at all," Evans explained. "He's got a serious problem, he's got kleptomania." The actual mechanics would have been based around stealth, but in an inspired choice, the way you'd lay out your inventory would effect how much sound you make. Thus stuffing two bottles next to each other would clank together, making it harder to remain undetected.
"I tried really hard to get that game made and of course ... that's never going to happen," Evans acknowledged, after noting the game was "incredibly offensive."
His other idea was notably less offensive, even if it relied almost entirely on toilet humour. Entitled Captain Uranus, this game concept featured a sick, drugged up astronaut who would stagger about and you'd need to propel him around by making him vomit and fart.
"He's a little drunk and a little f***** up on multiple space narcotics," Evans explained, noting that players would have to fart on foes to stun them, then "fill them with puke" to finish them off. It's unclear exactly what orifice would have been used to fill them, but that's probably best left to the imagination. Additionally, you'd be able to increase your speed by vomiting in front of yourself, then using the sick to slide forward.
The game was to end with Captain Uranus sobering up and realising the whole game had been a hallucination and in reality he's just been sick and puking in his cat's litter box the whole time. Then his wife would throw him out. That's kind of harsh, don't you think? Get that man to a doctor!
Naturally this idea was also shot down, though it seems a lot more gross than actually offensive. In other words, it's not that hard to envision this getting made - just maybe not by a triple A publisher.
Looking ahead, Evans is continuing his work with Ubisoft in a new Montreal-based studio where he's heading a top secret mystery project. "This is the dream project," Evans told Polygon. "It's the one all of us have always wanted to make and it seems like they're gonna let us do it."
Unfortunately, Evans is really mum on the details. All we know is that he's collaborating with artist Darren Bartley, who worked on Ryse, Runescape, and has a bunch of cool sci-fi cyborg-type things on his DeviantArt page. He's also collaborating with another artist he can't announce yet, but someone who's apparently rather well known and has worked on triple A stealth games and third-person shooters.
"These are two guys I've wanted to work with for a very long time," Evans said. "And because of how Blood Dragon went down, I've got the trust from the guys upstairs [at Ubisoft] to go and build a compelling and unique universe."
That's all he's saying about the project at the moment, but given his previous game ideas, it will likely be completely bonkers. But are Evans whacked-out concepts the good kind of bonkers, or the tired, juvenile kind of bonkers? You tell me.