I''m currently designing a game that takes place in a city. The city will be like Chicago in Midtown Madness, in that it is just the city and the roads loop around it and its enclosed. But the city will have individually rendered people, meaning they will each have their own properties (hair color, height, daily routines, etc.) and live out their daily lives like normal people. This is relevant to the gameplay, of course. Any other games that do this? I think Omikron tried to but the demo i played wasn''t that great and i heard the game itself kinda sucked. If not any ideas or constructive critiscm? ============================== "You don''t know the power of the Dark Side..." - Darth Vader, Episode VI ==============================

Well Now,

I think most games do this. Most of your people will just be random sprites wondering across the screen. However some will need to be NPC style. This means interactivity when the player draws near. But without just stopping them all together, cos they need to rememeber what the player wants and needs next time they meet and waht to do in the mean time, but apart from this their daily lives will grind to a halt with the player toatlly oblivious to all this. Hope I''ve helped a bit there. E-mail me if you want.

STVOY

Mega Moh Mine!!

OK, lemme exaggerate here The reason the city is "living" is cause the player has to steal things to finance him throughout the game. besides thwarting the anti-theft devices (motion sensors, lasers, audio, locks, etc) he will have to learn the daily routines of the target. Say he wants to hit a house since the wife has jewelry stored in a safe. He''d have to watch and learn what happens when, when they go to sleep, if anyone gets up after dark regulary, any animals?? (i''m not quite sure i want to go that far yet). But you get the idea now. Each person will, at the start of each new game, be assinged a list of things to do and places to go based on their chosen occupation. How they go about getting there or doing things will be based on a set of random decisions (take a cab or walk;spend the whole day at work or only a few hours) that will repeat itself every "day" with very little changes thrown in for variety. Is this better? I think I have a good idea and some feedback would be nice Let me know if there are things still keeping you in the dark.

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"You don''t know the power of the Dark Side..."

- Darth Vader, Episode VI
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Oh, and by the way, by "living" I don''t also mean that they do everything. Like when they go to work they''ll most likely just sit at their desks, the same thing when they go home - just walk around till bedtime when they lay in bed. And upon approaching them they''ll only say a few irrevelant sentences. Just wanted to say that before anyone else tried pointing it out. i know you people

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"You don''t know the power of the Dark Side..."

- Darth Vader, Episode VI
==============================

Ahhhhh. Theivery in the modern age. I want all that cool gear Sean Connery and what''s her name had! And can I parachute from a building?! Please, can I? Please?!?!

What a fun design challenge!

I don''t know of other games beyond the Sims that try to simulate people''s lives. I think this is an excellent system you''re designing. If I understand it right, you have to case your mark before you try to make a move on them. This could be very cool for those players who are patient and observant (Quake fans need not apply ).

Technically speaking, grapical and simulation LOD will probably be tough, but I see this as doable. You''ll probably want various AI levels of detail as well, so that you can back off on processor load for those NPC folks that aren''t in the player''s field of concern.

One thing occurs to me off the bat, though. Have you considered any compression or time acceleration features? From reading the works of a real life private eye, I hear that the sit and wait phase of surveillance can be really boring. If there''s some way of automating this, so that the player really just has to choose to be in the right place at the right time, I think it could work really well. (BTW, detective trick for finding out when a person leaves in the morning: Place a cheap watch-- not digital!-- under the wheel of their tire and voila, instant "timestamp!")



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Wavinator:

Thanks for the input guys. And yes, Wavinator, I have thought about the proc load. But with the latest Intel processors debuting at 1.4 Gigs.... But that''s dumb thinking cause not everyone will be that up to date. But here''s the savior, since each person will have a daily routine, the game doesn''t have to activley track the person. When the player nears the person''s vincinity, the computer checks the time, and guesses where the person would normally be or what he would normally be doing at that time. Then when the user walks away, the person is dropped from memory until later. How''s that?

And yes, I definetly wanna include all the cool equipment Connery and Zeta-Jones used in the movie, and then some. And about the time thing, you are correct, the "day" in the city will only be a few hours in real-time, like maybe two or three.

nicba:

I read every gaming mag there is so yeah, I''ve heard of hitman but that''s not quite near what I''m doing. Go back and look at it again. It''s gem is that all object in the world can be used, and have physics properties. Like you can shoot a flag to tatters or bottles to shards. Imagine a gunfight in the street? Glass and stone splinters flying everywhere? Now that''s cool!! But not what I''m doing.

Keep the feedback coming guys!!

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"You don''t know the power of the Dark Side..."

- Darth Vader, Episode VI
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hey come on, I thought I was on a roll..... isn''t there anything you think is wrong, or my design just perfect?

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\\// live long and prosper; \||/ die short and rot.
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The game I''m designing, Enigma, is basically an enhanced, better version of what Omikron tried to pull off. People don''t really go through the motions in the same way that you''re talking about, but they have "brains" of sorts. Basically we plant a brain at random into all of the many, many NPC''s that are walking around the city at any given time. For instance:

TOURIST - This is a really simple one where the NPC visits lots of big, shiny buildings and stays there for a while, just staring at them.

BUSINESS MAN - Constantly travelling in and out of buildings and cabs, never goes into the "bad" neighborhoods.

MOTHER - Goes to her apartment, hits the supermarket, goes back home, etc, etc.

So you can see, it''s kind of what you''re talking about.

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