5. The Wilde Collection
1446 Yale
Genre: Stealth

My favorite game of 2014 was Thief, and one of the best aspects of Thief was the hidden unique loot that you found throughout the world to bring back to your hideout in the clock tower. Wilde Collection, Houston’s best and most morbid curiosity shop, could serve a purpose similar to that of the Garrett’s clock tower, with a stealthy rogue venturing out into Houston at night to rob people of their most grisly treasures before escaping back home. Conversely, a mobile game where you sneak into Wilde Collection and try to lift loot while avoiding haunted and booby-trapped items would work, too.

4. Northwest Mall
9500 Hempstead Highway
Genre: Business Simulator

To the complete bafflement of everyone I meet, Northwest Mall is still open for business. It sits nestled in the densest freeway construction in the city, there are better malls almost within walking distance, getting to it is kind of a pain, and yet it remains. It’s a perfect shell for a business simulator in which players try to revitalize their aging, unpopular mall to become an economic powerhouse. Partner with events like the H-Town Sneaker Summit to draw new crowds, and build a better indoor playground than Memorial City Mall has to make family shopping popular. 

3. Bernie’s Burger Bus
Various 
Genre: Business Simulator

Houston is becoming a nationally known food destination, and the best burgers to be had in the city come from Bernie’s Burger Bus. What started out as a food truck business has turned into a restaurant franchise. In a game, owner Justin Turner could hire you to join the company. Start out on a food truck and navigate to the best spots in Houston to sell burgers in games similar to Cake Mania and Diner Dash. Eventually the customers come to you as you open and manage your own brick-and-mortar franchise location. 

2. Astrodome
8400 Kirby
Genre: Multiplayer Shooter

I predict the country will fall into a Mad Max-esque dystopia before anything concrete gets done about the Astrodome, so I’m just going to proceed from that assumption. Let’s have our own Thunderdome where crazed killers and odd mutants battle their way to supremacy in a shantytown built inside the rusting hulk of what was once the Eighth Wonder of the World. A zombie Brewster McCloud, complete with flight powers, could be an unlockable, optional boss for everyone to take down. 

1. David Adickes’s Studio
2401 Nance
Genre: Shadow of the Colossus clone

If you’ve merged onto I-10 West from 59-North, then you’ve probably seen the massive statue of Charlie Chaplin sitting in David Adickes’s studio down below. Adickes is famous for these giant creations, and wouldn’t it be awesome to see them actually come to life? I picture a lone hero trying to take down these titans as they roam an evacuated Houston like Wander does in Shadow of the Colossus. Adickes’s Beatles would become a four-headed behemoth, and his president heads could form a rolling ball of great statesmen. The final boss would be that Bill Hicks statue we’re supposed to be getting, and its audio could be recordings of Hicks’s famous “It’s Just a Ride” bit, slowed down to sound like whale song. It would be beautiful, if admittedly kind of silly. Perfect for the strange and wonderful place that is Houston.