Shadow of the Colossus (???)

By emsquared, in Your Settings

Hey all, so I've been brain storming how one might be able to implement Shadow of the Colossus -style encounters into a Genesys game...

Really, I feel like this would/could be setting-neutral, so long as your setting might have Colossi (Kaiju, for the sci-fi?). So there's no special Character Creation elements to figure out (aside from maybe some unique Talents if the campaign is highly focused on this singular premise). I've seen it done in other systems, even unique systems dedicated to recreating it, and I realize it's hard to replicate the twitch reflex, timing-based gameplay of a videogame in pen and paper. But I feel like Genesys has several elements that support the concept well...

Namely the Strain Threshold/health-track, which could easily be used analogous to the SotC "grip" health bar, in addition to it's traditional life bar (Wounds). But also I would identify the flexible nature of Range Bands and Story Points as playing important roles in keeping Colossus encounters less rigid and flowing dynamically.

The problem of falling damage (i.e. it's spectacular lethality) could be best addressed probably with a (magic/sci-fi?) item, but I could also see a custom Talent doing the trick.

I'd see competitive checks playing a large role, in the scaling/navigating of the beasts body, maybe? And I would personally want to use narrative gameplay (as opposed to Structured) as much as possible, and would probably develop a set of standard Difficulties (Climbing, inclined "fur"-surface: PP, vertical fur-surface: RP, inclined rough surface: PPK, vertical rough surface: RPK, so on, with modifiers like +K if Colossus is in motion, +KK if the Colossus is actively trying to shake you off, yada yada), to support rapid play in that regard. But you'd probably end up having to create some Colossus-only Talents, to codify special attacks... I dunno, the pieces seem to all be there...

Does this seem... well, I'm sure it's doable but I'm not sure it'd be... fun?

Anyone want to bounce some ideas back and forth over this?

Problems with the idea would be probably first and foremost that it's hard to incorporate a wide Skill set into the gameplay. Stealth, Athletics, probably Resilience and Coordination at times, Vigilance/Perception maybe to spot weaknesses ... and, uh... Melee and Ranged. OK... You could expand the world to incorporate other types of challenges (social, mechanical, knowledge, etc.) certainly, but that would likely still leave the Colossus encounters themselves very physical Characteristic-oriented. Maybe that just means it is only good for a one or two player thing? Even then, the separate Colossus encounters might end up playing very samey... Maybe it's a fatal flaw? You could probably get creative and come up with lots of puzzle-driven solutions (thinking of like, the Dog Colossus you had to scare off a ledge with fire to break it's armor open), but that would take SO MUCH planning and maps and, ugh... I want this to work but I'm not sure it does.

Thoughts?