PhantomFox
2021-07-02, 11:20 PM
I didn't get to watch Legends as much as I liked when I was little, but I loved what I saw, and watching old episodes now is still enjoyable. For a while I have been considering what I would do if I got a blank check to make a show like it. Yes, I know supposedly it's being revived for TV, but I haven't seen any details to tell if it's going to be any good or not and I'm not going to hold my breath. Regardless, I'm attempting to come up with my own design document for a potential pitch for the Suits to... probably ignore in all honesty, but I didn't want to ignore what made the original so beloved. I'm assuming that this won't be picked up by the official license, so I'm calling it Renard's Ruins. Ruins are pretty close to mystical temples, and Renard... well, I'm being a bit self-indulgent with that one, but it works into the theme I'm going for. With the number of changes I'm thinking of, the vibe would be there, but it would probably be too different to bear the name of the series properly (and again, licensing problems). But I do want to include the essence of what made it great in the first place, with my own spin on top.
The general approach I'm taking with it is keeping the same pulp adventure vibe, but adding more interesting decisions to make all along the way. With all that said, I would like to know what y'all think are the essential elements or themes that would need to be included and how well my basic outline captures that while I'm still in early planning. I'm always open to suggestions, so none of this is finalized and feedback is very much appreciated.
So I started with the big centerpiece: the temple run, or the Ruins Raid for reasons I'll get to later. The fantasy behind that event is very solid, so I'm sticking with that but expanding on it. It's still going to be a room by room mini-task solving experience to progress from room to room to get to a treasure and get back out within a time limit. The treasure room will have its own minor puzzle as well, which ties into a later element. Guards will still be present but possibly with different 'modes' they can be set to aside from just the classic one. With the progress in recording technology, the side cut-away view of the ruins is no longer required and opens up a lot of possibilities. I'm thinking a 6x6 floorplan for the first floor with a 2x6 second floor over top of the 3rd and 4th rows. That's 48 different rooms, which is a lot, but it will add a lot of variety to possible paths through the ruins.
The biggest change I'm making is that changing it from being stand alone episodes to being a season long competition with running tallies from episode to episode, taking some inspiration from Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman. This is so that getting eliminated early and having to watch the entirety of the episode from the sidelines isn't a thing, because that just feels bad. It's also to give teams a bit more of an identity than just the logo. There will still be an episode winner each time though, but instead of eliminating the last 2 teams in each round, it will be determined by points (themed as treasure, or gold, or prestige, or what have you) earned in that specific episode awarded by placement at the end of each of the challenges leading up to the Raid. Coming in first in a challenge also earns you small piece of information to help you in the Raid. Even if you're mathematically eliminated from winning that episode, points earned will count towards the season total for the final winner, so no giving up! The number of rounds before the final Ruin Raid has expanded to four, and the point leader will go to the Raid round, but will be given a choice as to how the round is conducted: they will have to either challenge another team to run against them in the Ruin Raid, or to challenge Renard himself (the 'villain' of the framing story around the show) for a greater reward at the cost of a higher risk of failure, as Renard always has unexpected tricks up his sleeve to contend with. Challenging another team will earn the winner a small percentage of the loser's total season points earned thus far (10%?). This brings some interesting choices as do you challenge a weaker team for a theoretical higher chance of winning while risking putting them back in the race if they pull the upset, or a stronger team for a bigger reward if you win? Or do you go full greed mode and challenge Renard? (Non-participating teams could possibly bet on the outcome too? TBD)
In addition to winning the challenge between the final two teams, merely completing the run under the time limit is important in and of itself. The treasures you are raiding the ruins to get are fueling Renard's plans, and a certain amount of them (75%? TBD) need to successfully retrieved from runs by the end of the season, or else RENARD wins instead of any of the teams. This will affect choices made in the next big addition: special abilities. Each team is still animal themed, and they will each be given three special abilities based around said theme to be used during the Ruin Raid or saved for later- even if your team isn't participating. These abilities are unique to your team, and are fueled by collecting mana crystals during the lead up challenges hidden in out of the way spots. Mana can also be spent giving a time bonus (or perhaps a head start?) to your team during a challenge. Unspent mana can carry over into future episodes, up to a cap. (1/3 to 1/2? of max?) UnCOLLECTED mana crystals are given to Renard who has his own abilities to essentially troll the other teams. So then the question is do take the time to grab crystals, or focus on the task at hand? Do you burn mana to win the early rounds and then be tapped when for the Raid? Or do you save it and risk not making it that far? And during the Raid do you try and screw over your competition, or do you prioritize getting the treasures to avoid the global loss?
As far as the stages leading up to the raid, there would be 3 'Preparation' stages for the Raid: Approach, Recon, Infiltration. Each focuses on a different theme: Physical, Teamwork, and Puzzles. As mentioned earlier, points are awarded based on placement and 1st place gets an important piece of information. I'm still working on the details on these, so the descriptions are kinda vague compared to everything else at the moment, so my apologies.
Approach would be mainly physical based, depicting challenges getting to the ruins after Renard kicks everyone out after the success or failure of the previous episode. I'm imagining it as a gauntlet of an obstacle course, possibly with elements of it being able to be traded out between episodes to keep things fresh. There would also be a key item hidden along the gauntlet needed to officially finish, hidden in a different place each time for even more variety between episodes. 1st Place would win... well, I'm still working on it. I'm not sure what would be valuable and also thematically appropriate
Recon would represent researching what is the treasure you are looking for and where exactly it would be located within the ruins. These would be teamwork challenges, possibly taking some inspiration from Keep Talking and No One Explodes? In that it would focus heavily on effective communication to try and navigate a more open ended course searching for clues to the nature and exact location of the treasure of the episode. Reward for 1st would be a solution or large hint to where the key to the treasure chest is in the treasure room.
Infiltration would be a series of puzzles and represents deactivating what defenses shield the ruins itself. Not much else to say about this? The 1st place reward would be knowing the initial locations of 1-2 of the Ruin Guards. Between these three there should be a good variety of skill sets. I had planned for an Espionage round as well, but I was having trouble thinking of what challenges could go with it. Observation based ones? Unsure.
The last thing I would like to do is adding a framing story to tie episodes together and create more immersion. The TL;DR is that in the realm of Sylvan, the clans gather together every few years to choose a new leader through a competition. Renard had tricked his way into control of the Wolf clan (who will serve as the Ruin Guards), hijacked that competition, and usurped and claimed the crown and it's magic for himself. The other clans have banded together to kick him out by retrieving the stolen treasures that fuel the magic he uses to stay in power. Each clan has a Clan leader that represents the teams and provide them the special abilities that they use. There will also be story bumpers at the start and end of each episode that will tie into how the season is going. Hopefully this will further inject character into the teams and even a small story, if done well, can be engaging enough to create emotional investment.
So that's pretty long-winded, but I've been percolating these ideas for a while now. Again, I'm working on a more formal design document with further details, but it's still very incomplete right now. But feedback on whether this concept is worth pursuing and actually pitching to TV executives, and opinions on what's good and what would need changing would be appreciated. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing, but I hope I've picked up enough design sense over the years to make something entertaining!
The general approach I'm taking with it is keeping the same pulp adventure vibe, but adding more interesting decisions to make all along the way. With all that said, I would like to know what y'all think are the essential elements or themes that would need to be included and how well my basic outline captures that while I'm still in early planning. I'm always open to suggestions, so none of this is finalized and feedback is very much appreciated.
So I started with the big centerpiece: the temple run, or the Ruins Raid for reasons I'll get to later. The fantasy behind that event is very solid, so I'm sticking with that but expanding on it. It's still going to be a room by room mini-task solving experience to progress from room to room to get to a treasure and get back out within a time limit. The treasure room will have its own minor puzzle as well, which ties into a later element. Guards will still be present but possibly with different 'modes' they can be set to aside from just the classic one. With the progress in recording technology, the side cut-away view of the ruins is no longer required and opens up a lot of possibilities. I'm thinking a 6x6 floorplan for the first floor with a 2x6 second floor over top of the 3rd and 4th rows. That's 48 different rooms, which is a lot, but it will add a lot of variety to possible paths through the ruins.
The biggest change I'm making is that changing it from being stand alone episodes to being a season long competition with running tallies from episode to episode, taking some inspiration from Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman. This is so that getting eliminated early and having to watch the entirety of the episode from the sidelines isn't a thing, because that just feels bad. It's also to give teams a bit more of an identity than just the logo. There will still be an episode winner each time though, but instead of eliminating the last 2 teams in each round, it will be determined by points (themed as treasure, or gold, or prestige, or what have you) earned in that specific episode awarded by placement at the end of each of the challenges leading up to the Raid. Coming in first in a challenge also earns you small piece of information to help you in the Raid. Even if you're mathematically eliminated from winning that episode, points earned will count towards the season total for the final winner, so no giving up! The number of rounds before the final Ruin Raid has expanded to four, and the point leader will go to the Raid round, but will be given a choice as to how the round is conducted: they will have to either challenge another team to run against them in the Ruin Raid, or to challenge Renard himself (the 'villain' of the framing story around the show) for a greater reward at the cost of a higher risk of failure, as Renard always has unexpected tricks up his sleeve to contend with. Challenging another team will earn the winner a small percentage of the loser's total season points earned thus far (10%?). This brings some interesting choices as do you challenge a weaker team for a theoretical higher chance of winning while risking putting them back in the race if they pull the upset, or a stronger team for a bigger reward if you win? Or do you go full greed mode and challenge Renard? (Non-participating teams could possibly bet on the outcome too? TBD)
In addition to winning the challenge between the final two teams, merely completing the run under the time limit is important in and of itself. The treasures you are raiding the ruins to get are fueling Renard's plans, and a certain amount of them (75%? TBD) need to successfully retrieved from runs by the end of the season, or else RENARD wins instead of any of the teams. This will affect choices made in the next big addition: special abilities. Each team is still animal themed, and they will each be given three special abilities based around said theme to be used during the Ruin Raid or saved for later- even if your team isn't participating. These abilities are unique to your team, and are fueled by collecting mana crystals during the lead up challenges hidden in out of the way spots. Mana can also be spent giving a time bonus (or perhaps a head start?) to your team during a challenge. Unspent mana can carry over into future episodes, up to a cap. (1/3 to 1/2? of max?) UnCOLLECTED mana crystals are given to Renard who has his own abilities to essentially troll the other teams. So then the question is do take the time to grab crystals, or focus on the task at hand? Do you burn mana to win the early rounds and then be tapped when for the Raid? Or do you save it and risk not making it that far? And during the Raid do you try and screw over your competition, or do you prioritize getting the treasures to avoid the global loss?
As far as the stages leading up to the raid, there would be 3 'Preparation' stages for the Raid: Approach, Recon, Infiltration. Each focuses on a different theme: Physical, Teamwork, and Puzzles. As mentioned earlier, points are awarded based on placement and 1st place gets an important piece of information. I'm still working on the details on these, so the descriptions are kinda vague compared to everything else at the moment, so my apologies.
Approach would be mainly physical based, depicting challenges getting to the ruins after Renard kicks everyone out after the success or failure of the previous episode. I'm imagining it as a gauntlet of an obstacle course, possibly with elements of it being able to be traded out between episodes to keep things fresh. There would also be a key item hidden along the gauntlet needed to officially finish, hidden in a different place each time for even more variety between episodes. 1st Place would win... well, I'm still working on it. I'm not sure what would be valuable and also thematically appropriate
Recon would represent researching what is the treasure you are looking for and where exactly it would be located within the ruins. These would be teamwork challenges, possibly taking some inspiration from Keep Talking and No One Explodes? In that it would focus heavily on effective communication to try and navigate a more open ended course searching for clues to the nature and exact location of the treasure of the episode. Reward for 1st would be a solution or large hint to where the key to the treasure chest is in the treasure room.
Infiltration would be a series of puzzles and represents deactivating what defenses shield the ruins itself. Not much else to say about this? The 1st place reward would be knowing the initial locations of 1-2 of the Ruin Guards. Between these three there should be a good variety of skill sets. I had planned for an Espionage round as well, but I was having trouble thinking of what challenges could go with it. Observation based ones? Unsure.
The last thing I would like to do is adding a framing story to tie episodes together and create more immersion. The TL;DR is that in the realm of Sylvan, the clans gather together every few years to choose a new leader through a competition. Renard had tricked his way into control of the Wolf clan (who will serve as the Ruin Guards), hijacked that competition, and usurped and claimed the crown and it's magic for himself. The other clans have banded together to kick him out by retrieving the stolen treasures that fuel the magic he uses to stay in power. Each clan has a Clan leader that represents the teams and provide them the special abilities that they use. There will also be story bumpers at the start and end of each episode that will tie into how the season is going. Hopefully this will further inject character into the teams and even a small story, if done well, can be engaging enough to create emotional investment.
So that's pretty long-winded, but I've been percolating these ideas for a while now. Again, I'm working on a more formal design document with further details, but it's still very incomplete right now. But feedback on whether this concept is worth pursuing and actually pitching to TV executives, and opinions on what's good and what would need changing would be appreciated. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing, but I hope I've picked up enough design sense over the years to make something entertaining!