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[Sensei]

Sensei, you get one too for bringing reason back into the picture.

That's pretty swell of you. Thanks!

As for a global anti-arms organization... well, I sure like GIMP, but it sounds like you want the game to be taken a lot more seriously than that would be conducive to. UNSP or IPF both sound a lot more legit. IMPS might work too, since at the least the full name sounds logical.

[BlindKitty]

While I don't mind Interpol as an antagonist (although there is really major backswing - half-informed people now believe that Interpol only hires clerks, the uninformed believe it is some kind of super-police, and you need to actually dig a little deeper to find the truth) it could really be a good idea to add some other policing force, especially as the game is set in near future. I actually like I.P.F.; I don't think you should go into strange acronyms meant to mean something. It rarely happens in the real world and, at least for me, is strongly associated with comic books. Like S.H.I.E.L.D. or something, it just doesn't sound right in realistic setting. FBI, CIA, NSA, KGB, NKVD, SAS... Those are just, you now, acronyms that doesn't bear a meaning. They sound much more believable. And International Police Force is a name a bunch of bureaucrats could have come up with.

Also, I will probably buy this, if only to support the 'tycoon' version. I would love a good tycoon, no matter what genre, and weapon-manufacturing one is just so much better.

[HopFlash]

does something speaks against Interpol in ~10 years to be that what you sketch them as?
The international community can give them more rights and/or responsibilities.
For me as an uninformed that doesn't sound unrealistic and would be a relative classic historical process.

Edit:
And a question...
Do you plan internationalization?

[hemmingjay]

If you're okay with answering these questions, how big is your team? Do you have an office space? I'm curious to know how many people it takes to create a game of this magnitude.

There are three of us working full-time (60+hrs/week), myself as a designer, writer, tester, and most importantly handling the business. There are a lot of deals to be made in order to make a successful project. On an average day I speak to publishers, banks, other developers, partner companies(Alienware, Nvidia, etc), distributors(Steam, GOG, etc) advertisers(Rock, Paper, Shotgun, etc), fans, YouTube personalities, etc. I have to manage the budget(barely under control) keeping employees and contractors on task, paying bills/wages and providing detailed guidance. Finally, I also work 30+ hours a week for my clients who all have games due soon, from next month until January.

I have a full time programmer and a full time artist. My artist actually also works for another game studio and a magazine as well. Then I have a team of contractors that I use for filling in the blanks. They consist of artists, a very talented composer, a studio engineer for sound effects, and a PR specialist. I think a game like this could be made by a two man team over the course of 12-18 months if one was a talented artist and the other was a gifted programmer and they both had a business background or education. They would both need to have 50-70 hours a week available and would have to have around $5-7.5k as an absolute minimum. Too many aspiring developers discount the need for a solid business background. Any project bigger than this one needs at least one full time business manager.

I have an office space because of my normal day job as a consultant, but the team is international. My artist splits his time between Mexico and Canada while my programmer lives in the midwest(US) and I live and work in New York, New York. There are games that don't need a team or a big budget, like 3079/3089/4089(soon!) that are made by one talented programmer in an iterative manner, meaning that he keeps making a similar but vastly improved game based on the last one which takes far less time and resources but is still no easy undertaking. The result is a very focused product line that varies very little but that gets a lot of polish as it goes from one game to the next. If you can't tell, I am a big fan of phr00t and other solo devs like the creator of Dungeonmans. I admire their ability to lock themselves in a room for months and crank out something that is all their own. I can't program well, create great art or music, but I can run multiple profitable businesses at once. Know your abilities and hire the best people you can afford. My only other advice is don't set out to make your dream game first. Make a few before it to raise the money and earn the experience you will need to make your dream project legendary. I'm probably 5 years from making mine.


Question from HopFlash
"And a question...
Do you plan internationalization?"        Can you explain this question a bit more?

[HopFlash]

Question from HopFlash
"And a question...
Do you plan internationalization?"        Can you explain this question a bit more?

hmm...ok...taking a little bit more time for writing my edits could help

Do you have plans to translate your game in different languages? Or is it "modable" to translate it?
I personally don't need translation but I know that many people in germany don't play some games because they are not in german. ("We" nearly (want to) translate all things we possible can and create strange sounding new names etc. )

[Lithare]

First of all, looks great.  Been too long since I had a good business simulation to play.

My pricing suggestion is $12.34 (or some uniquely meaningful number) because, as has been suggested, people's eyes (and digital spending accts) are drawn to odd dollar amts.  I say use marketing tactics to help us all get that sequel.

I don't see that this has been asked explicitly, though I did gloss over the palpable tension part, but will this me moddable at all?  If so, to what extent.  Just think it'd be fun have an arms outlet in my tiny hometown in Indiana, for instance.  Or some other small changes.  Though if this was easily modded to allow the reshaping of the globe and entirely new maps/worlds, that would also greatly extend the value.

Love what I see, though.  Will set aside whatever price you come up with in my budget.  Or else eat 1 less pizza the following month.

[scrdest]

OK, RE: agencies, here's a little idea - add another layer of strategy on top - have a bunch of agencies, perhaps made-up intelligence agencies/alliances of special services, which can act against you - but you can manage that by... selling them arms. That gives them an edge against other agencies, weakening them, but raising the buyer's actions against you if you operate in their area.

So, basically, you'll want to juggle sending the aid to agencies to strike a balance between making them a tool to neutralize threats and making THEM into a threat.

[hemmingjay]

OK, to answer a few more questions:

Languages: Initially released in English, Spanish, German and possibly Russian will follow soon after in patches. The way I structured the game has the text in one file to make it easy to switch out.

Modding: Modding support will be patched in post release if there is a demand for it. Some parts will be easy, such as maps and weapons and vehicles. Rulesets will be somewhat harder and will require some finesse.

scrdest: That is a really interesting and in-depth solution but I think it would have to wait for a sequel due to the complexity and game changing nature of it. I love complexity but the game needs to still be accessible and to do that with something like you are proposing, you really need to build it from the ground-up.

[Rakonas]

If the game is set in the near future and you're going to be saying that an international agency was created with the power to police stuff like arms dealers across the world, I really think it makes sense that Interpol would be the agency. If it was a totally new agency it sounds like it would render Interpol obsolete and end up with most of its employees ex-Interpol.

[Neonivek]

Am I to assume that you have to try to protect your assets during deals? or is making deals with a scummy dictator perfectly safe?

[hemmingjay]

Am I to assume that you have to try to protect your assets during deals? or is making deals with a scummy dictator perfectly safe?

With so few large scale gun runners, such an event is unlikely. The dictator in question would be cutting his own throat by cutting his supply line. The real danger is having a shipment seized by the authorities. Not just because of the loss but because the information on board will lead inspectors either to the destination or origin of the deal. This then leads them to trace the operation and begin closing in on the player. The player must then spend time, money and effort to try to throw them off the trail, and while doing that you aren't earning money and are most likely losing it. Certain stages of the game you might be wholly devoted to devising strategy to outwit the law enforcement. Other times you won't even remember that there is a danger while you rake in millions.

While working on the "Interpol" AI we had an interesting experience. We were stuck for hours trying to figure out what we broke because everything kept getting locked up while running a simulation for both sides. The problem was that the Interpol AI was too effective in countering the different "Player" strategies. I am sure real players will be able to "break" the game and AI, but we will just patch it to account for that and keep going. That's what makes PC games so good, patching in improving code at regular intervals and changing the dynamics of gameplay subtly.

So, I want to ask you guys and gals for a favor and I think some of you might enjoy it.  In the game there are 10 weapon supplying nations which correlate to the actual top 10 weapon suppliers in the world. Russia, US, China, France, UK, Germany, Israel, Spain, Italy and Sweden. We want to include weapon systems from these countries that they employ currently or in the last 50 years. We want to focus mainly on small arms and with some crew served and vehicles. We won't be including planes at this time as it would be beyond the scope of the game to implement the disassembly and shipment of complex combet jets, etc. However, we will include several iconic armored vehicles and a few helicopters as somewhat rare items that will occasionally pop up on the market. The player deals with corrupt generals and politicians that are looking the other way while overstocked items disappear       So what would you like to see included?

[scrdest]

Can you give a scenario or two with the AI? I think that maybe if we could see how it acts, we could see why is it so effective.

[Lightningfalcon]

The Davy Crockett Recoiless Rifle.  Not sure if that would be something reasonable for an arms dealer to obtain or not, but is the only thing I can think of right now that would be unique. 
Beyond that the only vehicles I can think of are the usual, such as the M1 Abrams, M270 MLRS, and the Stryker. 

[10ebbor10]

No Belgium. 

We're also very good in the distributing of weapons (and nuclear technology) to people with unknown credentials.

[Knave]

Sorry if I missed it - What time frame are we looking at for the game?

EDIT: Nevermind see in the previous comment
Now to 50 years ago.