Probably the best source of inspiration would come from the movie The Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson. It’s said that Mel Gibson showed up to the interview for the role of Mad Max with a black eye after getting into a fight at a bar the previous night, so the director thought that he was a prefect fit. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it’s funny either way. I haven’t seen this movie over 10 years and I don’t recall specific details about it, other than it being about a place predominately filled with villains and heroes like Mad Max. According to the Wikipedia, the plot goes something like this: oil supplies in Australia are being exhausted causing all law and order to break down. Consequently, the country starts fighting for whatever little supplies remain creating a very dystopian atmosphere.
For an 80′s action thriller, it was okay. However, credit must be given to this movie for being the beginning of a unique genre of entertainment, which I can only describe as being the dystopian wasteland genre. This is generally how I imagine the Road Pirates universe, but with minor differences. For one thing, it will very likely not be taking place in a wasteland. For another thing, the government will have a little more order than portrayed this film, so there won’t be any need for freelance heroes like Mad Max, unfortunately. So while the game does draw a lot of its inspiration from sources like this movie, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this movie is the definitive depiction of The Road Pirates universe. However, it does present a few fundamental concepts such as people jumping from car to car while the car is being driven to achieve some end. In real life, jumping from car to car seems downright idiotic which makes me wonder who was the first director which came up with such a screenplay. Nevertheless, I think such concepts have the potential to create some very interesting gameplay and I’m really hyped to see how it will end up working in Road Pirates. Stay tuned for more sources of inspiration.