Slashdot has stumbled on a curious The patent suggests a meter for the character's mental health much like the age-old vitality meter. Game occurrences and decisions that you make can affect the sanity level, and as it drops, features of "insanity" occur, such as auditory and visual hallucinations.
The lengthy document includes a rough illustration of the sanity meter in what looks to be a Zelda game.
Examples given for effects as the sanity level decreases are bleeding walls, water dropping from above turning into blood on second glance, and faint maniacal laughter that steadily gets louder the more insane you become:
As explained above, the sanity of the player's character will be affected by decisions made, enemies faced, as well as any other suitable occurrence that may relate to sanity. As the character loses sanity, the environment will change in a way that hinders the character's and player's progress through the game. The instant invention provides an added challenge and enables multiple possible scenarios, so that playing of the game may be different each time the game is played. It is noted that the invention is particularly suited for implementation in action/adventure/RPG games, but that it may be used in any suitable video game or the like.
Sanity system for video game - Images (.tiff viewer required)
On closer inspection, it turns out the patent was granted yesterday, but was originally filed way back in the year 2000, and was intended to cover a feature of the GameCube game Eternal Darkness, which was released in 2002. Thanks, DlphnMod
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