A new type of TBS

QuickSilverCarpet · 2014-03-03T16:30:32

Hi Community! I'm working on an independent game project right now as the sole member of my team. The project, which I am woefully under qualified to tackle, is a new type of economic/guerrilla warfare simulator. It is a city simulator with armed and unarmed conflict from varying factions that arise organically within the city and fight for control of resources and influence on the cities government and businesses. As opposed to playing as a leader of a city of faction with in a city, each player plays as a Vampire attempting to manipulate mortals into pursuing their agenda by changing the incentives and circumstances they live by. You essential try to gain control of the cities economy from the bottom up by manipulating individuals and organizations. The moral alignment system revolves around which principles an individual holds, as opposed to good/evil dichotomies, and serves to regulate ai behavior and poses an obstacle to player characters. Whenever a player or npc makes a decisions that betrays their principles they suffer from cognitive dissonance which, once accumulated to a certain point, results in moral decay (the antisocial inversion of previously held principles) or mental decay (loss of skills). In this sense it is only rational for an ai or player to not be a hypocrite, but this poses many dilemmas when competing for resources with other individuals who do not have the same principles.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by QuickSilverCarpet February 27, 2014 12:19 PM

13 comments, last by Orymus3 10 years, 1 month ago

ShiftyCake

733

March 01, 2014 10:08 AM

you're looking at a long and difficult road with a game like that. I'd suggest, if you are willing to commit, recruiting a concept artist straight away. He'll be able to bring visual to the ideas and concepts you're creating in your rough draft. This not only stimulates your own imagination, but it provides a glimpse into the game for people who are interested.

Once you've gotten the core concepts down, and are starting to flesh out your ideas, I'd suggest either start looking for a second designer to have them help you out (they'll pick up things you've missed and offer new ideas that didn't occur to you) or make another post about it on this forum (I'd suggest the former).

Then you'd want to look at getting programmers and a level designer on your team, the programmers will start creating the mechanics of the concepts you've already finished, and the level designer will start making the basic layouts of the maps.

After that, I'd look at getting your graphics designers and music creators, they're unnecessary until late in the development stage, as both require a full concept to work well.

Other advice I'd say is to create a blog instead of a tumblr account, and give updates and information on what you're doing. We don't need your entire drafts and concepts, in fact I'd recommend you stop right now. Many people would be self-inclined to take your work and create their own crappy version of the game and claim copyright. As long as you don't give out specific details, posting about things you're going to implement among other stuff would help you create a small community around the game, which helps a LOT (more then people realise).

If, at any point, what I post is hard to understand, tell me. I am bad at projecting my thoughts into real words, so I appreciate the knowledge that I need to edit my post.

I am not a professional writer, nor a professional game designer. Please, understand that everything you read is simply an opinion of mind and should not, at any point in time, be taken as a credible answer unless validated by others.

QuickSilverCarpet

131

Author

March 01, 2014 04:10 PM

With regards to concept art, that's an excellent idea. I have already started to go out and get some photographs for the eventual graphic designer to photochop up, but they are still few and far between, and I haven't really put in the requisite effort. Recurring Visual Motifs: Clenched Fists Daggers Cards and Poker Chips Illicit Drugs, esp. pills and syringes Wolves Isolation Chess The world as a game Blood Parasites, esp Worms Skulls Blood and Money together Handguns = swords and daggers Longguns = spears and lances Visual Styles Hyper realistic photojournalism Glam goth juxtaposed with unsettling social realism Art for disturbed children Mugshots, line ups, and crimescene photos Still-lives from the homes of the mad, monsters, vigalantes, radicals, wannabe demonhunters, the depraved elite, addicts, and criminals Sterile charts and spreadsheets Foreboding cityscapes Most of this imagery will occur in interface backgrounds as the entirety of the game is in either isometric game grid or in text/chart based interface. As far as level design goes, I envision the game eventually being almost entirely a sand box procedure affair where the city is built around the actions of the populace and the legislative priorities of the city council. Bus routes, sewage precincints, zoning, and road planning will all be handled by seperate ai's that create a city optomized for what ever activity the legislature deems most important. So, level designers may only be necisarry initially, unless there are single player mission. My plan is to first develop the combat prototype and a text adventure that tests the morallity system simulataneously, build and economic sim with morallity system, incorporate group consciousness, legislation, and procedural generation into said economic sim, THEN implement combat. Setting up the conditions for when civilized society breaks into violence organically is going to be one of the toughest challenges. After all this is done, I imagine, supernatural elements will be added to differentiate the PCs from the NPCs, but prior to this point the prototypes should be simple enough that the ai's should have all of the same options as player characters.

ShiftyCake

733

March 01, 2014 11:38 PM

A level designer can be more then simply create this map this way. A good level designer can create a map dynamically, so that what you wish to implement can and will be implemented efficiently.

That is to say, a poorly designed map will limit your creativity within map changes. Even if you wish the game to be dynamic within one environment, I'd be making sure you make that initial map right.

If you're looking at creating an economic sim to begin with, then I suggest you use what I like to refer to as the 2-step game. Basically, a 2-step game is where you finish your economic sim at version 1.0 as a completed form and charge, say, half of what you wish to charge in total. Once that's done, you immediately move on to creating version 2.0 with the funding you just received, which includes combat and any other mechanics you wish to implement and change the price to the total of what you wish it to cost.

In other words, you'll have a cheap beta for people who wish to support you, or get it for less money, and then it'll go to full price upon official release. You could include an alpha version into this, but frankly I find that a lot of alpha's are actually detrimental rather then helpful. Unless you have a working game already in alpha, all you're doing is making people second-guess the game, and review it poorly due to 'lack of any gameplay'.

If, at any point, what I post is hard to understand, tell me. I am bad at projecting my thoughts into real words, so I appreciate the knowledge that I need to edit my post.

QuickSilverCarpet

131

Author

March 02, 2014 11:32 AM

Thanks for the advice Shifty. It's been instrumental in forming my plans. I also appologize for the formatting. For some reason my antiscript software has been breaking the formatting of my posts.