@Riot: Other Games and the League Lore

I remember reading sometime back that there is a small experimental group at Riot is trying to make Riot Games more, well, Riot Games instead of Riot GAME. (Not how I worded it, I think Meddler said it that way back then, not sure). Personally I'm pretty excited to what these guys are going to come up with, but I'm also curious if the Foundations&Lore team will jump on this occasion.

As we all know videogames are a quite diverse and complex medium, and depending on mechanics, perspective, and basic nature of a game it changes the way how a story is told within said game, resulting in different games being better or worse in delivering certain aspects of the narrative you are creating.

However, if you want to tell a story "perfectly" (let's skip the question what is even perfect in our subjective perception and simply describe it as "brought out almost all possible aspects), it would make sense to rely on many different types of media outlets - or game types in this matter. And since this "story" is pretty much the entire freaking League universe that might actually be a potential multiverse, we've got A LOT to draw from here, which also means that there is a lot of potential.

You also don't have to invent the wheel new with this. If the driving force behind your game is the story, I don't really care if it doesn't bring up super innovative mechanics or cutting edge graphics. Heck, I have seen pixle rpgs with more soul, humor and depth than some high-end stuff thrown out on the market nowadays.

And on top of that: a good game doesn't have to be long. My favourite game I had when I was a young brat with my GBA was Metroid Fusion. A game that could be speedrun with 100% completion in less than two hours. And if you weren't in a rush you still got it in 6-8 hours I guess (Ofc the more the less familiar you are with that type of game.) Yet, despite how short it actually was, I might consider it one of the best games I have ever played. The designers took what they had and worked with it, resulting in a really good game. So it doesn't matter if you can't craft some epic masterpiece that will draw in players for dozends of hours, if it's good it's also ok if it's a small project.

But, and now let's come to the tricky question, what kind of game do we, the players, actually want? And I'm talking about something serious, not some weird April Fool's hiccup like "Cho'Gath eats the World" or that weird Tower Defense minigame for phones they had back in the day. The Poro-Minigame was a fun thing, but not really story heavy either.

I think the best way to go with this is to go a bit more simple. Take a step back and look at gaming history. What story do you want to tell? And what in the past has proven to be effective with that specific kind of story? These can be stories from a champion's past (For example Poppy's search for a hero would fit into a neat sidescroller I think. Ya know, "Your hero is in another castle" and all? Just be careful Nintendo doesn't drown you in lawsuits.) or maybe just to show something about the many different factions and cultures the League Universe has to offer. Right now I'm thinking of an Retro RPG set in Ancient Shurima, with Nasus, Renekton, Azir and Xerath being side characters while you go on an epic quest to >Insert Plot here<, and in the end it lets you witnessing the destruction of Shurima.

There is one thing to read about an culture getting eradicted in a history book, but another to have moved through it, maybe even got to know some lovable characters to know from this and THEN see it all being reduced to nothingness. Also, the more I think about this, the more I like this idea, especially since we would be able to learn what Renekton was like before he fell into insanity.

Of course you might take a different route with this topic and make a Prince of Shurima series or something, I don't really care, just make it good!

Another possibility would be a traditional dungeon crawler, featuring Lucians order (or the demacian inqiusition if such thing exists) going up against hordes of undead. Maybe with Vayne making a guest appearance, who knows?

But even if we move away from the more traditional genres and say we'd like to have a good mystery game, probably even one that is heavily text based - how about a game about solving crime mysteries in Zaun? Having to dive deep into the swamp of crazy science and corruption to solve a murder? If there was ever a chance to make your audience learn about how the weird science over there works and how it is percieved, here it is.

The League Universe is so rich of potential, that you can craft literally any kind of game from it (apart from a modern first person shooter I guess, but the market for that is oversaturated anyways.) And I have not even started to consider the possibilities of visual novels and other extremly story focussed niches.

So, I'm just curious what Riot thinks about it, and if you, dear boards dweller have an idea for what kind of game Riot could make, or what you wish they would make, just post it in here, I'm curious what you people are going to come up with.