We're all agreed that #CantKillProgress - Square Enix's 'Twitch Plays Torture' livestream - is in service of the announcement of a new Deus Ex game, right? It just seems too obvious by this point. Frankly, it doesn't even matter if it isn't Deus Ex in the end - we're not watching for clues anymore.
So what keeps us watching? I'd suggest that it's the sheer titillation of seeing something new and weird - only seasoned criminals or cops in tacitly anti-Internet crime series have watched a man being physically and psychologically abused in a room live before.
Which begs the question - what else would we watch in a blue-ish room? And, less importantly, what games would they be cryptically advertising? JOIN ME FOR ANSWERS (please).
Charles Sheen
Carlos "Charlie "Charles" Sheen" Estvez needs a bit of a boost. In recent years he seems to have lost both his sitcom and his mind, but with various celebrities now proving that even a digital version of your face will help advance a career, this would be the perfect chance to get everything back on track. Imagine: a week of Charles rattling about muttering to himself, covering topics as diverse as self-motivation to the best way to get wine out of your carpet and eyes.
The game - Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, of course. This is a great move for Charlie, after Kevin Spacey's success in Advanced Warfare. Also, it's a win for Treyarch - after being sued by Manuel Noriega in the last game, this time they can just ask to use the likeness of a man driven to madness by the pernicious influence of drugs.
An entire American Football team
Dozens of men, stuck in what seems to be a 72-hour team talk. A coach who never loses the boundless enthusiasm of a character in the final act of a heartwarming sports drama. One increasingly terrified water boy who was locked in here by accident. This would be both uplifting and unsettling.
The game - the cool thing about this one is the misdirect. Everyone would immediately assume that some avant-garde new Madden was about to be announced. Then you hit them with a logo: "Gears of War Xbox One". It's perfect - stick tonnes of dudes onscreen who look twice as wide as a human should, and make the coach refer to the opposition team as "insects" a few too many times, to keep the ARG codebreakers happy.
Ourselves
With a bit of webcam fun and a bit of stolen NSA surveillance tech applied to your Facebook profile, this is easy enough. It's a first-person view of the locked room, the only feature of note being the viewer's reflection in a darkened window. Over the course of six days, your face is systematically warped into a crazed grin, reflecting a perceived excitement for whatever game could be on its way.
The game - And what better game than Kinect Sports Rivals 2? After the first instalment wowed all nine journalists that played the thing by scanning their face and placing it on a virtual body they could never hope to achieve, the sequel could go one better. Use the same tech as the Twitch stream to include the real, flabby deal. Hooray!
A maimed spider
What better way to hold attention than by making what you're meant to be paying attention to practically imperceptible? Viewers will squint with glee at a tiny, scuttling arachnid! Gasp as they realise it has only seven legs! Marvel at the fact that it is a trained circus spider and that it's juggling aphids! Scream and close the window as they remember that they have arachnophobia.
The game - Pretty simple, this one. Seven legs? Scary thing? Also it picks up a big pistol at one point? It's Resident Evil 7. Duh. Move on.
A hitherto-unreleased compilation of Garfield comic strips being blown about by wind
What a story this would be. Everyone loves drawing's most suicidally misanthropic cat - tantalise them all with a book of stories no one has even heard of before. Get an offscreen source of moving air (or "wind") to blow it over and open once in a while, revealing blurry orange shapes and pale ovals that suggest hilarious Odie hijinks. People would go wild.
The game - Which is precisely when you hit them with the truth - all of this is in service of a new FIFA game. Garfield is, in fact, code for "Garden Field", a new mode that has you taking on the role of a club groundskeeper, carefully tending for the regularly traumatised grass of Europe's top clubs.
Mushroom growth
There is nothing more spectacular than life, a point proven by the tens of thousands of people who would tune in to watch the two-month life cycle of some fungus. People would pick their favourites, and give them names like "Big Fat Graham", "The Dominator" or "Beth". News stations would report on the first death, and leading politicians would pledge to save the quickly-starving mushroom population if whoever was in charge of the stream would just reveal where the locked room actually is. Eventually, a single, final mushroom, forced to feed on the weak nutrients left behind by its former siblings, would wilt and blacken. Nations would fall into mourning, university courses would be created to teach the stream's lessons to our best and brightest, history books would be rewritten.
The game - Pinball FX HD.
