Ok, let me first start by saying that this design has been sitting in my notebook for like, 4 years. It started as a joke with my cousin, I attempted to make it once, but didn't have the technology, and then it hasn't seen the light of day since. Most people have told me it's funny as hell and they would love to see it, some people say it's the stupidist idea they've ever heard.... basicly, I never ended up making it because people are really fussy one way or the other. So, with no further adue, here's the "abridged" description that I tore out... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Lemonam Genre: War Statagy, turn based, global domination Player view: city maps, world maps, "lemmings" type view for battle scenes (sidescrolling) style : cartoonish, animated, rediculous humor Countries have gone to war over beleif, wealth, land, and glory. But now, something new has emerged that that is taking the world by storm and entire countries will fall on it's behalf... lemonade. Starting a game as a group of kids who want to start a lemonade stand, you encounter several competing stand that turn into rivalries. Ad campaigns and marketing expansion soon grow too rapid and powerful to be peaceful when some of the stands start playing dirty. Armed with mere toys, the groups rage at eachother. They force eachother out of different areas untill they begin figuring out new methods... and get more advanced. The conflict escalates outside the city limits where new people are recruted and connections to serious power are made. Grow more powerful as you make more money form internationally positioned lemonade stands and eventually run an underground franchise that rakes in billions without taxes. Establish allies with countries and buy weopons from Russia, the middle east, and other corupt parts of the world. Move from spit balls to M4's and water cannons to rocket launchers. Make and break alliances with other stands around the globe and form teams to dominate continents. It's up to you how to take over... flourish the work force, or crush the world economy. Take cities by diplomatic domination, or brutal armed force. Start a nuclear arms race against your enemies and see who is the first to srtike. The world just may suffer a nuclear winter.... Civilization lies on the dividing line and could face it's end... all from a lemonade stand. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments..... or you can just say you're speechless if that works...

It sounds good. A game idea doesn't have to be serious, it should be original, which that is.

But, the idea doesn't mean anything without fun gameplay. So if you can figure out the gameplay to be fun, you're there.

Quote:The world just may suffer a nuclear winter....

At least I'd agree this is -by far- the weirdest cause/effect chain I've seen from the premise of kids starting a lemonade stand. The basic idea of all this happening over innocent lemonade brings a brief smile to my face, but I don't think it's that innovative. Substitute tiberium or whatever sustance you like for lemonade and you're back to your average wargame setting. Having unique weaponry like spit balls and water cannons might give it twist, but if you move on to rocket launchers, M4's and nuclear weapons (used by kids, mind you), I think it rapidly looses its appeal.

It's a fun thought but I don't think it'll make for a fun or unique game. To be a bit more precise, I feel you haven't really described a game, but more of a fantasy what might happen if you had a lemon stand.

Hope that's not too honest an opinion [smile]

Well no, the game was designed to AVOID being a typical war game. Ummm, lemme think here. If I were to describe the gameplay, it would be like a mix of advanced wars and a turn-based version of Defcon. What I had invisioned was a world map (a cartoonish looking one) where groups of 3 to 8 buildings represented a city, it's size, population, military powers you held there, and how much economic influence you had.

If you zoomed into the city, it would become another map. Each city could have it's own control panel with more detailed statistics like how many stands you had in place, what kind of profits you were bringing in, new arms development, weather forcasts (ect.).

A battle took place by an army getting too close to a hostile city and then giving an option if they wanted to invade or not. If there was a fight in the city, that's when it becomes like Advanced wars. A turn based map of the city is shown and the play is turned to very strategic war. The style is much more activley animated than advanced wars however, but still in the same art spirit. The battles revolve around setting up defences and offensive postitions and sometimes you have to fight silently behind the publics back, the more paniced the city becomes, the harder it is to sell your product :D .

lol, that's why I said "in the spirit of". I'll have to make a mini-game and post it on the showcase

I really like the idea. The only thing that turns me off is that the kids graduate to real weaponry. I feel that it loses it's flavor at that point. Rather than bringing in serious warfare, why not let things escalate in a child-like way. It'd be much more humorous to see a large object moving through space picked up by satellite (ex: Wargames) and have it hit one of your cities only to find out that the entire city has been globbed by a giant spitball. Nobody dies, they just get icky. Not only that, you don't lose your younger audience.

There was an episode of Invader Zim titled "The Wettening" (IIRC) that did something like this. Dib, Zim's arch-nemesis, starts a water balloon fight with Zim. Things escalate as both parties creatively enhance their water balloon technology. It ends with Zim using his alien technology to suck up all the world's water into space where it accumulates into an enormous water ballon and targets it at Dib. Silly, but entertaining (and no one gets hurt).