[FRIAM] OK. That's funny.

[Steve Smith]

Nick/Jon -

There IS a market for semi-hand-crafted custom "bobble head dolls" which
might suggest a precedent...  

https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/listing/245733478/custom-bobblehead-dolls-personalized
<https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/listing/245733478/custom-bobblehead-dolls-personalized?ref=user_profile&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search_US_DSA_GGL_Categories_Toys-Games_Ext&utm_ag=Dolls&utm_custom1=6e8219c0-e577-4364-8eb2-2c78f9e84aee&utm_content=go_9740954383_102679110394_448697770008_aud-424578309501:dsa-41066162904_c_&utm_custom2=9740954383&gclid=CjwKCAjwjqT5BRAPEiwAJlBuBQ_zwsPIR_qk8zRXbawxQV1u-mXwZSaYBkYHqyxhmWy9RGuhTSNE3xoC-pEQAvD_BwE>

Most likely, the "niche game" would really have to be no more than a
custom "skin" for a standard game.   Reminds me of an anecdote from
early agent-simulation at LANL when we did a small exploratory project
with the Australian Government to demonstrate how agent models could be
used for their environmental studies.   They "reskinned" a military
simulation visualization, removing vehicles and replacing the infantry
with kangaroos and wombats or something... but everyone was shocked when
at some point the kangaroos started shooting at an observation aircraft.   

I also remember with some fascination how the old pinball games were
significantly the same with a variety of different graphics applied to
the arena area, the scoreboard and the body.   Even when the mechanisms
varied, they were somewhat modular mix-n-match components of bumpers,
flippers, gates...  

I haven't looked but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few
open-source (on top of Unity?) game platforms that could be reskinned
on-demand as suggested here.   The 2D Mario-Kong franchise seems like it
would lend itself to simple re-skinning with different graphics.   

As I remember it, Dave Pape (UIUC) designed the VR "game" Crayoland for
the CAVE with this in mind... allowing/encouraging kids and other
enthusiasts to draw up their own graphical elements on paper, scan them
in and have the immersive environment present with *your* version of
landscape, trees, cabin, pond, bees, etc.
http://resumbrae.com/d/Crayoland .  I think, however, his reference
implementation of crayon art was so compelling, nobody was inclined to
replace it with their own!

  We should be careful lest our friend Doctor Strangelove reskins our
Friday Zoom calls with his own representations of us.

- Smithereens

> That's funny, too. 
>
> Is there a market for "niche-games" that pop up under particular social
> circumstances are are gone in a few months but make a bunch of money?
> Obviously, they would have to be slight modifications on some platform, you
> know "Angry McConnells" or something.   Could you sell such a thing to Act
> Blue?
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of jon zingale
> Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 11:19 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] OK. That's funny.
>
> During the 2016 election, I tried to convince some programmer friends to
> help me make an android game in Unity. The premise was to be a 1 level rip
> off of the Jurassic Park video game from the 90s. The main character would
> throw bottles of suntan lotion at a T-rex with Trump's head. Trump's face
> would progressively get more and more orange. Eventually, his blonde toupee
> would fall to the ground and try to attack the main character, like a
> scurrying rat. Winning the game would mean defeating the toupee and the
> Trump-rex, and doing so would take the player to a game over screen with a
> laughing Hillary Clinton with Devil horns, and text above claiming that "You
> Still Lose".
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>
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