The answer to this question is simple for me. I want a remade, polished, glorious version of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura. I've got a few reasons for this that I'll detail, and then there will be a test, worth 42% of your final grade.
1) A game with a name like that can't just be left to rot as a tiny fetus of what COULD BE. Arcanum rippled with liquid promise, like a turkish delight stuck in a radiator. The world was fantastic! The industrial revolution has begun in a fantasy world, and now the old forces of magic compete with the new might of technology for supremacy, and everyone is getting lost in the crossfire - the elves are having their homelands torn down for fuel, orcs are a suppressed underclass that provides cheap labour - Victorian era sexism oppresses the women, and the dwarves are almost nowhere to be found. Instead... all of this was more or less hinted at, but never explored. Tragic loss.
2) The grand city of Tarant deserves to be MORE than a few blocks of single storey squares and a sad piece of violin music. Tarant is the greatest city on Earth! It should be populous, full of vibrancy, grand buildings springing up out of nowhere as the foppish nobility ride around in carts, scorning the nobles.
3) Making your own weapons! The blueprint system could have been amazing amounts of fun, and even the mental image of my half-elf fighting off orcs with a matchlock pistol and molotov cocktails is one I wish I could explore further. From the chapeau of magnetic inversion (a bullet deflecting top hat) to the wonderful SWORD LAUNCHER, the range of silly, yet amazing weapons a steampunk universe can generate just needs another game to give my dream flesh.
4) The satisfaction of variety - characters were truly different. Instead of just 'sword guy' or 'mage' or 'thief' there was much more. A gunslinging gnome, out for profit. The embittered half orc with a knack for magic - the surprisingly intelligent half ogre who thinks, rather than simply has at it with a hammer. The elven woman, thought meek and inferior, yet alluring, but cross her at your peril, and taste GLOVES OF LIGHTNING.
Ok, that's my spiel over, and here's the test. It's multiple choice, so if you can't figure out the answer, just guess anyway, there's a 33.3 recurring % chance that you'll be right!
Question 1 (of 1)
Would Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura, have the potential to be one of the defining games of our time if remade with the care and passion the project deserves?
A: Yes.
B: HELL YES.
C: I am a fool and a communist, and I vote no. I prefer that great ideas be left to rot in the pits of mediocrity as mans punishment for daring to dream. Please put me out of my misery, I live in constant fear that my brain will generate an original thought.
