"Knife to see you, to see you knife"
Does anyone know if a game like this exists? These are my rough ramblings...
First person arena combat game in a gladiatorial-medieval style, you are spawned as a random man or woman in rags and start with a knife, you can throw this knife but if you miss the knife has a high chance of dulling or breaking, you're then left with bare hands which are rubbish, but you could find another knife if someone has died or someones dead limbs to use as weapons.
If you kill another player, you can take his or her knife and wield 2 knives, it takes a second or so to pick up the knife so you're vulnerable.
"Big weapon" pickups include a sword, mace, flail, pole-arm, etc. The arena is small enough with enough players to warrant these an advantage, but it's still fairly easy to get stabbed in the back.
Knife attacks would include simple slashes and two handed lunges that leave you vulnerable.
Benefits of this ballistic-less style of play include eliminating the problem of campers, you could try and hide round a corner but the crowd will boo and throw fruit to indicate where you are
No healing, no armour, permanent injury system of bleeding out, limb loss and imminent death encourages fast pace frantic gameplay.
Graphics musts; 60FPS lock, arena to be constantly turned a stain of red, dead bodies do not disappear (maybe they can decompose slowly-ish, with flys etc) they pile up and get in the way, limbs pile up and can be used as weapons or to throw, HUD is minimal or nothing.
When you're killed you can still see from the eyes in your head for 5/10 seconds until you respawn, if you're looking at a wall, tough (you can review stuff after the game)
Audio musts; roars of appreciation from the crowd to be heard, screams of death to resonate everywhere, horns blast with SENSATIONAL for anyone on a five kill streak, TRRRREMENDOUS for ten, etc.
After time is up the match just ends with everyone being killed by a volley of arrows or something, the announcer walks over to the dead corpse of the person who killed the most/has the best KDR lifts up his or her hand and says to the crowd ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!
Of the very few things the game would have on start-up is a disclaimer about knife crime and the sentences associated with possession in the territory the game is being played.
If nothing like this exists maybe I'll try and kickstarter a pool of money together to get a studio to take it on or something.