The Theme is Bad and so are You.
I joke, I kid. Your not bad (well you might be but I don't know you well enough to judge so I'm just gonna say your not.) Much has been said about how terrible the themes are and I agree with that sentament but ladys and gentlemen I come barring what I consider a solution. Did you know that in 2014 Ralph Koster gave a GDC talk all about practical creativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30
I'm not saying this is the miracle drug you all will need to make a bad theme win first place, but I mean it can't hurt when there is a chance we will get the theme "Non-traditional Boss Battles". Now because I am a big believer that claims need evidence I am gonna use some practical creativity and list off Sixteen diffrent game idea's all in the genre of Twin-Stick Shooter (which I don't plan on making one at any point as they don't interest me at all) using the themes from Round 3 of voting to show that even with bad themes all you need is a little creativity to make it work.
- Ridiculosly Overpowered: Enemys are impervious to direct fire (talk about being overpowered) you instead must bounce your bullets off walls and even other enemy's inorder to deal any damage.
- You're the Final Boss: This would just be a tradiditional twinstick shooter but you spawn with a bunch of ally's trying to kill the hero and each time you kill the hero you advance or alternativly each time you die you become the next more powerfull enemy with diffrent powers and shot patterns.
- Everything is a Weapon: A twinstick shooter where instead of starting is a gun or something like that you enstead grab enemys and use them as auto-firing weapons against there own kind
- You are a Side Character: Rather than play the hero in this twinstick you play as the orbital cannon following around the hero shielding him from fire and casting out small blast at enemys
- Shelter: A twin stick shooter crossed with a tower defense game. Every enemy you kill drops resources that can be used to build towers or upgrade your shelter. Your goal is to defend your shelter until you can build a becon to call for help.
- The more You Die, The more the World Dies: You are the guardian angle of a small island as foes siege the island you are on each time you die you wake up a year later (aka the next level) with the world falling apart slowly in your absence
- You Can't Save them All: You are a rescue ranger tasked with saving people from a burning forest fire use your water spay to put out flames and carry people to the rescue zone unfortunatley the clock is ticking and you won't have time to save every one.
- You are the Quest Giver: Start deep in a dungeon planting the holy grail inside on your way up activate all the monster spawners with your fire and try to escape without dieing. Once outside you stand and wait for the hero to apper so you can send them to retreave the holy grail.
- Contagious: You are a CDC decontamanation expert run around shooting people with your vaccine gun to stop the spread of a deadly contagion.
- You Control the Enemy: You are the enemy guiding the mindless minions into the spray of fire from the hopelessly incompident hero.
- Alchemy: Litterally just a twin stick shooter but instead of shooting bullets you lob potions at enemys (maybe the potions could all have a diffrent effects)
- Break the Cycle: A twin-stick shooter where your goal is to destroy the towers that create enemy waves rather than just defend in an endless cycle.
- Underground: A Twin-stick shooter but the arena's you fight in are underground fight clubs where you battle for the entertainment of the rich elite.
- Non-traditional Boss Battles: Rather than have a big boss where you have to fill him with even more bullets than a normal enemy you enstead have
- Two Characters, One Player: Take the controls of Brothers a Tale of Two Sons and use that as your twinstick movement each character moves in the same direction they are shooting.
- Tiny Town: You are a giant kaiju terrorizing the city use your twin stick action to destroy tanks and even some buildings
So yeah as you can see with some creativty even bad themes can turn into something not terrible. I really do recommend that you watch the video as Mr. Koster does a far better job talking about mixing genres and making entirely new genres that what I could ever hope to convey in my short sixteen theme ideas. Like I said I won't be doing anything with twin-stick shooters probably ever so feel free to rumage through my garage sale of ideas and take what you want, and always remember "The theme is eternally bad. Even when its good its bad, and if you think it can't be any worse just wait."
Also here are my votes for all the diffrent voting rounds so far.
