Feedback needed

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14 comments, last by Impervious 10 years, 5 months ago

Hi everyone,

I have an idea for a game which is a city builder with a military component. The player builds houses for their people but they also need to build the supporting infrastructure like power, water, police, fire service, hospitals, schools and transportation. The player builds and manages the budgets for all these and if they do not allocate the correct amount then bad things happen like the effectiveness of the fire service decreases.

The player can also build a military and attack other players.

The player can also participate in a game world which has a United Nations. The United Nations serves to co-ordinate global wars against players or humanitarian efforts for a player if they suffer a natural disaster like a hurricane or epidemic. Also they can impose sanctions against a player.

Any feedback would appreciated.

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I like the humanitarian efforts idea. More games should have coordinated efforts where advanced players can help pull newbs and unlucky players.

To be totally frank and assuming you want to propose something new, your idea seems over-used and kind of boring. The only new thing I see in your description is the humanitarian effort, it can be a good idea, but it's still not enough to make me think this game can be good or new.

I'm sorry I can't really help you without more materials.

It's kind of a rude comment, but well, this is my opinion about your idea.

Good luck.

To be totally frank and assuming you want to propose something new, your idea seems over-used and kind of boring. The only new thing I see in your description is the humanitarian effort, it can be a good idea, but it's still not enough to make me think this game can be good or new.

I'm sorry I can't really help you without more materials.

It's kind of a rude comment, but well, this is my opinion about your idea.

Good luck.

No thank you. Any feedback helps.

What you describe is a game mechanic for a city builder in a contemporary urban dress-up. I would keep the city builder mechanic, keep it simple but well balanced and then dress the whole thing up in a different theme that has not been used so much. Themes can be:

  • Pastry people in bakeryland
  • Alien planet with strange plants.
  • Cube planet with 6 squares with a city/landscape on each side. (Simple: square 2D cities viewed from top, click buttons to flip cube. Complicated: 3D cube with shapes indicating buildings. Cubes are in fashion now with all the pixel art games around.
  • Buildings as organs inside a animal of some form, business is to keep animal alive by keeping budget.
  • Hippies who are building a settlement in the desert, trying to live self-sustaining life. instead of buildings you have people you select to be leaders. UN could be an outside city or something that helps out.

Could have a more related theme too, say, like, space colony management. You build your "survival" area (air tanks, power plants, quarters, etc.) and train space marines to defend it.

RimWorld comes to mind, which looks a lot like Prison Architect and both play sort of with your mechanics.

Could have a more related theme too, say, like, space colony management. You build your "survival" area (air tanks, power plants, quarters, etc.) and train space marines to defend it.

RimWorld comes to mind, which looks a lot like Prison Architect and both play sort of with your mechanics.

That is where my train of thought is heading. I like science fiction so I will incorporate that into the design.


The player can also build a military and attack other players.
I don't think military in a modern setting works too well (for a city builder). I mean Caesar and Pharaoh series were fun, but I can't see these in modern times (in modern times you just build an uranium enchancement plant and nuke the opponent).

Overall I vote for: modern times = peace, ancient times = war (if we are taking about city builders).

Stellar Monarch (4X, turn based, released): GDN forum topic - Twitter - Facebook - YouTube

Archaris "vote for" inspired this idea.

It might be kind of neat to have a time travel city builder. Where you play out stone age tribal warfare (or any past conflict), defending the territory, hunting and surviving and building shelters. Then at any point the player can jump into the future and view and interact with the futuristic metropolis that has been built from the locations of the humble shelters and structures the player created in the past. The game could end with the player achieving victory over feuding tribes and achieving a utopian future or the player could play through the ages to reach the future they've built, the aim could be achieving peace either through economic, political, philosophical or military paths or have a more character driven story with past characters effecting the future characters, etc. In any case I think it would be a nice spin on the usual city building to have the strife of the past shaping the design of the future.

I think you'd got a nice idea, you just have to find a way to make it different from all the "city builder" games already out there that are similar. I don't specialize in this sort of game so I can't give many ideas. I definitely like the military aspect of it though. Keep that if you can. Maybe your city will normally come under attack and you have to defend it more than in other games.

Any idea can be good if presented the right way. Hope that helps-

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