#And as such they mostly acted like a gang of red names rather than Boogeymen

[cryptidorchid]

Life Series Gimmick Idea: Boogeyman Hot Potato

You pass off the Boogeyman curse to the person you kill. 

Concept:

When someone gets killed by the Boogeyman, they don't lose a life but they do get the Boogeyman curse and they have to kill someone to pass it on. If you have the Boogeyman curse when time runs out, you go down to red.

For this game, you cannot see the color of people's names so you don't know what life they're on and death messages don't show up in chat. If you want to know these things, you have to ask people and hope they're telling the truth. There is a short period where life colors and death messages are turned back on and that’s after time runs out for the Boogeyman curse. I imagine that Boogeyman takes up 80% of the session and life colors are visible for the other 20%. I also imagine the end of the Boogey curse being similar to the times when everyone would gather to watch people fail in Secret Life. You gather and find out who has the Boogeyman curse and will be going red and you also get to find out how many lives everyone has

Red names can also be given the Boogey curse, whether through being killed or through being assigned it at the start, and if they succeed at passing it on, they get to steal a life from the person they killed. Unlike other Boogey kills that don’t take the victim’s life, a red life Boogey kill does (even if the victim succeeds at the Boogey curse) and the red life goes up to yellow. So that person instantly loses a life regardless of whether they pass on the Boogey curse. It's not all benefits for red life players though because if they have the Boogey curse when time runs out, they'll be eliminated from the series.

That's my original idea.

Main Issue #1: It would be a shame if permadeaths are hidden and people are eliminated from the series without any fanfare

Solution: No red lives are eliminated until the Boogeyman curse ends. If a red life dies before then, they respawn, still a red life. When the Boogeyman curse ends and everyone gathers to find out who has it, the red lives who died in that time will also be eliminated. The only way to save them is for them to get the Boogeyman curse and kill someone so they can go up to yellow and lose their yellow life instead of their red. If they die multiple times, they have to get Boogeyman multiple times/kill multiple people with the curse. 

Benefits: Instead of having no fanfare, red lives will get to give their last words before being eliminated in front of everyone. This also partially offsets the risk of being Boogeyman as a red life because even if they die once, they still have the opportunity to try again and not be eliminated (although they'll still be a red life if they succeed). There’s also some drama in a red life knowing their time is limited and trying their best to save themself or them knowing they're going to be eliminated before it happens and getting to decide what they want to do with their limited time. Chaotic and dramatic.

Main issue #2: Not knowing who the red lives are makes the red lives just seem like extra Boogeymen rather than the in-your-face threat they’ve always been.

Solution: You always know who the red lives are. Red lives are the only color that is visible at all times

Benefits: Giving people some information can help them try to deduce who the Boogeyman is at any given moment. Making it more of a mystery that people can solve by seeing when people become or stop being red names. It’ll also add more of that mystery to draw viewers to watch multiple POVs that was lost when death messages were hidden. In the same way, viewers might be interested in an interesting death message, they may also be interested in a red life gaining a life.

Main Issue #3: The Boogeyman needs to know when people die and if they killed them and there may be some confusion if they can't see death messages. Even if someone thinks they've been Boogey killed, if they ask to confirm in chat, they'll out themself as the next Boogeyman if they were and out the current Boogeyman if they were not.

Solution: The Boogeyman can see death messages and life counts of everyone else AND the Boogeyman can anonymously chat with people.

Benefits: The Boogeyman can see death messages so if they see someone get blown up by TNT, they can anonymously message the person to see if it was their trap. If they kill multiple people with the same trap, they know who died first so they know who to inform that they're the new Boogeyman. If someone thinks they may have been Boogey killed, they can directly message the Boogeyman and the Boogeyman can anonymously respond to confirm whether the kill was theirs.

Extra Benefits: A red life Boogey killing a yellow runs the risk of putting their victim in a position where they may fail the Boogey curse and be eliminated, especially if they get killed close to the time limit. However, if the Boogeyman can see the life counts of their victims, red life Boogeymen may prioritize killing green names over yellows. Also, it adds even more interest to the information game because the Boogeyman has more information than anyone but can't reveal any of it without outing themself.

Also, it could be really interesting if the chat function is used outside of just confirming kills. People can directly message the Boogeyman. This could be used for hilarious bits, especially if the Boogeyman responds. Imagine someone prank-texting the Boogeyman and the Boogeyman is like "you’re aware that you're not anonymous, right? I'm coming to kill you for bothering me." The Boogeyman could use it to try to extort people or lie about their identity. People can hire the Boogeyman to kill people for them. Or red lives who desperately need to get a Boogey kill to save themselves can ask the Boogeyman to kill them so they can get the curse.

Some other thoughts + clarifications:

Either the Boogey curse would be nonexistent or the time limit for the Boogey curse would likely have to be shorter in the finale because people need to be eliminated during the finale.

If a red life Boogeyman kills another red life, the killer gets up to yellow but the victim has just lost a life, so even if they pass on the Boogey curse, they'll still be on red.

When everyone gathers to see who had the Boogey curse that would be a truce zone where no one should be attacking each other until it's over and everyone separates.

There'd only be one curse per session. Only one person can be assigned Boogeyman at the start of each session. Any more than that and people would be going red way too fast.

Given that someone will be going red every session and the only way to bring them back up is to kill someone, there's probably going to need to be an increased number of lives. Maybe everyone starts off with 5 instead of 3.

If a red life is down two lives and they get Boogeyman and their Boogeyman trap kills two people at roughly the same time, they can get the lives from both kills even though they only got Boogeyman once. The first person to die gets given the Boogeyman curse. You know what? Even if the red life hasn't died at all while red, if they kill multiple people in the same Boogey trap, they can have the multiple lives and go up to green.

Concerns

I’m not sure whether red lives should be separated from their teams. On one hand, there’s going to be someone going red every session. If red names are kicked out, that’s going to wreck nearly every single team. The teams are going to be breaking apart constantly, which could be a little unsatisfying to watch. Also, the red lives are likely to create their own team and they might get too powerful and kill the others too quickly (although the increased lives should help with that). Also, red lives having green life teammates could be a barrier against people being eliminated too early. If a red life knows they’re going to fail the Boogey curse, especially if it’s close to the time limit, they could ask their teammate to take the fall and go red so they can live. 

On the other hand, wouldn’t such a sacrifice be even more poignant if the person they’re sacrificing for isn’t even their teammate anymore, if the person making the sacrifice is going to be kicked from their team for it, if the person they’re sacrificing for goes up to yellow for it and gets to have the team that they just lost? It’d be less likely to happen, sure, but it’d be way more dramatic if it did. Also, based on Limited Life, I think keeping red lives with their teams lessens the impact of the Boogeyman because keeping red lives around normalizes the idea that your friends might attack you which kind of lessens the shock of the Boogeyman. I just don’t think the Boogeyman would be that big a deal which would ruin this whole concept. But maybe it’d be different because red lives can also be Boogeymen/Boogey killed as well? 

My only other concern is how early people will be going red and whether that will mean people may be eliminated too early but Joel managed to survive till the finale after going red in episode 2 of last life so I think it might be fine.