Sleepyjack

A video game and game system incorporating a game character's sanity level that is affected by occurrences in the game such as encountering a game creature or gruesome situation. A character's sanity level is modified by an amount determined based on a character reaction to the occurrence such as taking a rest or slowing game progress and/or an amount of character preparation. That is, if a character is prepared for the particular occurrence, the occurrence may have little or no affect on the character's sanity level. As the character's sanity level decreases, game play is effected such as by controlling game effects, audio effects, creating hallucinations and the like. In this context. the same game can be played differently each time it is played.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,935,954



I didn't know you could patent these types of things in games!?
Eternal Darkness (the only game i know with a sanity meter) was an awesome game; are there any other games which have a similar sanity meter or halucination type system? i thought it was incredibly innovative when i played it a few years back and was suprised that i hadn't come across other games "borrowing" this sanity system. Although now they have a patent for it

hulk

You can patent damn near anything, whether you've made it or not. I imagine this means that there's quite a few more ED's on the way (always a good thing), and that we'll see fewer knock-offs.

Still, having a patent on a game mechanic is something I don't really agree with. Do US patents expire, anyone?

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"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

YKK

I don't agree with the patent because it is a simple game mechanic that could be utilized (and have been, before this patent) by a number of good games in the future. This means that some games may suffer in quality or be banned from the market for utilizing this particular game mechanic, which is retarded.

There were a number of pen & paper games which included sanity systems in various forms. Most White Wolf games included some sort of bloodlust/rage/sanity restraint system without which would have broken the gameplay.

Can anyone think of any others?

__________________
We're all black sheep and we know it..
So don't fsck it up for the rest.
-- Sick of It All; Yours Truly

MooseMan3000

Yep. It's something like 10 years, though... maybe 7? I can't recall exactly.

I don't think this patent will have very much affect on the development of games. If someone wants to use the meter, they will. Worst case scenario? An appeals court grants Nintendo some small royalties from the game. That's assuming, of course, Nintendo were to pursue it. Still not very likely in my opinion.

I'm hoping all it means is that they're planning on developing more games using the sanity meter.

BigBen

I remember being genuinely surprised by Eternal Darkness.

The walls started bleeding after a while... the character started crying out to god to help him through it.

Then my controller unplugged itself. I'm sitting there, like "WTF?" The game told me to plug my controller back in. I looked at the controller, and it was plugged in fine.

I stood up, went to the console and physically checked to see if it was unplugged a little bit. Then the game resumed.

I was like "That is the coolest thing ever. This game actually got me out of my seat. It is actually fucking with MY EXISTENCE NOW."

Later on, the screen went black, as if the machine shut itself off. I was jaded by that time, however.

Sanity meter, when employed in a unique and inventive way is tres cool. Using it over and over again as a gimmick, not so much.

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hulk

Would have been much cooler if it wasn't shown on the screen, I think. Although, the audio track of hte laughter and crying fucked with my head more than any effect.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Anxst

The original sanity meter in a Pen and Paper game was in Call of Cthulu, by Chaosium Games. The entire point of the game was to get into the story as far as you could before your character went insane from interacting too much with the Great Old Ones and their minions.

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Don't mind me. I'm just releasing the insanity pressure from my headvalves.

Coppertop

The several-times-delayed Call of Cthulhu PC game is (hopefully) coming out this year. Check out callofcthulhu.com for more info. Looks to be a great game.

Reese

Didn't Clocktower 3 use a Sanity meter? or was that a panic meter? I cant remember but it was a fun game. I really want to play Eternal darkness, I played for about 10 minutes when it came out and didn't like it. Maybe It'll be good this time.

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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

Nikilidstrom

I may be wrong, but I thought Eternal Darkness was based in the Cthulhu world. I'm suprised that the creators of the pen n paper game didn't have an intellectual property patent on the game mechanic already, because it is unique to table games as well.

hulk

This pretty much excludes tabletop games

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

YKK

I'm not sure it does. Your p&p characters can have hallucinations and hear strange sounds just as much your video game characters do.

__________________
We're all black sheep and we know it..
So don't fsck it up for the rest.
-- Sick of It All; Yours Truly

777

In the tabletop game, don't you go insane after all your sanity is lost?

Best "OMG" Eternal Darkness moment: Near the end of the game, I tryed saving. And like most people, I'm quit with the buttons, having saved the game at every major event. Then it displays a message, "Deleting all game saves" NOOOOOOO :O That's not funny man

The sanity feature of Eternal Darkness is fun for a few laughs, but it really doesn't do anything in the game, since most of the cooler sanity effects reset the room after they take effect.

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"I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something - or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip."

Roger Zelazny