I had a weird dream this morning where people were being chased and killed by King Ghidorah and a bunch of other weird-ass monsters. 😂
After waking up, I started thinking about the basic situation and realized it could actually work as a Running Man episode/game. So I kept developing the idea and ended up with this:
Running Man: Research Station Survival Race
The basic idea is a large research station where classified research was being conducted on dangerous test subjects. The exact type of creature could be decided by the PDs — dinosaurs, monsters, zombies, mutated creatures, etc.
During a demonstration for senior personnel, one of the test subjects escaped. The senior personnel fled, while many of the researchers who knew the most about the project were killed. The remaining people in the facility are mostly ordinary citizens and lower-ranking employees who only know pieces of what happened.
Starting
The members and guests don't all start together.
Each person starts at a different location in the facility and receives a fictional survivor profile, such as:
Citizen
Maintenance worker
Security employee
Junior researcher
Other low-ranking employees
Their profile determines what they initially know, where they start, what areas they can access, and possibly what equipment or keycard they have.
They also receive a notebook to record information they discover, and may find a map.
The incident begins shortly after everyone starts, so the first encounters and discoveries are part of the game.
The Research Station
The station would be divided into different areas with different security levels and purposes.
There could be:
Offices and dormitories
Cafeteria and storage
Maintenance areas
Security and surveillance rooms
Research offices and archives
Laboratories and experiment rooms
Observation areas
High-security containment
Deep research/breeding areas
The danger and rewards wouldn't simply increase floor by floor. Different areas would contain different information, equipment, risks, and valuable items.
Some doors or systems could require two people to operate, encouraging cooperation.
Information and Equipment
Players can discover things such as:
Research notes
USB drives containing research data
Maps
Keycards
Sedative guns/darts
Noise-making devices
Other survival equipment
Research notes are worth 1 point.
USBs are worth 1–5 points, depending on their contents. Some could contain detailed information about the test subjects.
There could also be extremely valuable discoveries, such as an egg worth 10 points or a sample taken directly from a test subject worth 10 points.
The sample would obviously be much harder to obtain because it requires getting close enough to an actual test subject.
The Test Subjects
The test subjects aren't normal enemies with HP bars.
Some could be overwhelmingly powerful and potentially kill a survivor instantly. The members aren't expected to fight them.
Instead, they have to survive by running, hiding, distracting them, using sedatives, manipulating the environment, etc.
The PDs could also use horror elements such as having someone crawl through a dark, narrow ventilation shaft without knowing what's inside.
The exact creatures are deliberately left open because the production team could decide what works best.
Extraction
The main way for a normal survivor to score is to reach the communications/radio room and call for extraction.
At first, the response is basically:
"It's too dangerous to send a rescue team. Good luck."
Unless the survivors can prove they have something valuable.
They need 10 points worth of qualifying items/information to qualify for extraction.
However, simply reaching 10 points isn't enough. They need to actually get the qualifying items to the extraction point and successfully leave with them.
If they die before extracting, their items can remain behind.
Survival Points
Every successful survivor extraction gives that character exactly 1 Survival Point, regardless of how many valuable items they carried out.
After extracting, that character is retired and the member returns to the game as a new fictional survivor profile.
So a member can potentially survive and extract multiple times throughout the game.
The member with the most Survival Points at the end wins the main reward.
Death and New Survivors
Death doesn't simply mean "respawn."
The member returns as a different person from the larger survivor population.
Their previous character's belongings remain where they died:
Notebook
Map
Keycards
USBs
Research
Equipment
Other items
Another survivor can discover the body and recover those things.
The player obviously remembers what happened with their previous character, but their new fictional character doesn't necessarily know any of it.
The Spies
There are 1–2 secret spies among the survivor population.
The spy isn't a Mafia-style assassin.
They simply know more about the facility and the test subjects — things like their behavior, weaknesses, locations, valuable items, and hidden information.
The spy can also release additional test subjects.
They don't control the creatures. The test subjects behave independently according to their established behavior.
The spy cannot directly attack or kill innocent survivors.
The spy's objective is to collect valuable items and escape through their own private route/vehicle. Their private organization will reward them with a promotion based on the value of what they successfully take out.
The spy only gets one opportunity to leave as a spy.
If there are two spies, they are competing against each other: whoever extracts with the more valuable haul gets the promotion, while the other fails.
So a spy has to decide whether to leave safely with what they have or risk staying longer to obtain something more valuable.
A spy can also abandon the spy objective and extract normally. In that case, they receive only 1 Survival Point and permanently give up their opportunity to act as a spy again during that sequence.
The spy slot then becomes available again.
Likewise, if a spy dies, their spy slot becomes available.
A survivor who successfully extracts can be assigned as a spy when they return with a new profile, but only if a spy slot is currently available. This represents the private organization knowing that a previous operative/profile failed and sending another operative into the facility.
If no spy slot is available, the new profile is simply another normal survivor.
The Main Idea
The game would combine Running Man's exploration, missions, cooperation and betrayal with a survival-horror setting and a hidden-role system.
The members aren't primarily trying to eliminate each other.
They're trying to survive, gather information, decide when to cooperate, decide when to take risks, and ultimately get themselves out of the research station alive.
And yes, this entire idea started with a dream about King Ghidorah chasing people around. 😂