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[ToonyMan]

I like the Sentient Gas.  That would be cool.

[Jakkarra]

sentient gas is awesome, it also makes for some really nicespecial stuff,

like it possesses an NPC, who is good, and DOSENT KILL THEM.

forcing the player to make a choice.

it also makes for incredible killing moments,

say its attack is to be breathed in, cutscene typ thing kicks in, headaches blindness attacks happen, all from your POV and then you look down,

it BURSTS OUTTA YOUR CHEST! or head, whatever,

this would be awesome, we should make this.

[ToonyMan]

Let me fall asleep and make it!

[Jreengus]

any good at coding?

I have no experience

:/
Do you know of any good tutorials out there since I doubt you'll want to teach a complete newbie on your own.

Oh now I think of it the above statement is a lie, I have some experience of coding flash, I made a little side scrolling shooter but gave up when I couldn't get the health bar to work. Although I wonder how much that will count for.

EDIT: Also if we are actually going to make this maybe we should move to creative projects.

[Jakkarra]

not planning on doing anything yet, besides this is another person's topic.

we need pplz anyway.

[Granite26]

My impression was that you wouldn't know what the situation that caused the problem was.  Basically, it'd be like a sci-fi show (Star Trek type series) where the plot was 'ship broke down' every episode, only the reason changed.  Sometimes it would be mynocs chewing on the power cables, sometimes it would be that they discovered and ancient monolith, sometimes it would be that they answered a distress beacon and found some wierd eggs, whatever.

I got a distinct 'multiple ships' feel, with a play something like spelunky.  Each game would be unique, but there'd be a metagame that would encourage you to keep playing, whether Bob the space engineer died or not.

That being the case, you'd need multiple distress calls, and multiple unique root causes (chosen randomly) for each one.  If it were me, I'd have multiple solution types (simple physics puzzle if it just broke down, little bit of FPS action if it was aliens, whatever.)as well.  The key to keeping the tension high is making sure that the boring ones aren't to boring, or too often. 

Personally, I'd think that a few standard ship designs would be cool too, so that the player would know going in, "This is an Alpha class mining ship, I know what that looks like", but the situation, layout, etc, would change based on the problem.  (Say one of the problems is asteroid damage.  All of a sudden, the challenge isn't to figure it out, it's to get through the ship to the guns, but the ship is damaged and dangerous.)

To clarify earlier though:  Say asteroids were the problem.  That's the physical problem, done. Why were the asteroids there? why did the ship go there? why weren't the guns on?  That can be more interesting.  OR say that the ship is dead because someone opened the airlock.  Why did they do it?  Simple depression, insanity, alien threat aversion, what?

[Jakkarra]

a 2d game of this, as said, similar to spelunky would the the simplest project,

do you think we would actually be able to develop it?

i can see how we could get a 3d version working however.

[Servant Corps]

Okay, calm down everyone. Having been in many game design projects, I know for a fact that having too many ideas can spoil the broth. The offical term is "Too Many Bloody Writer Syndmore".

I was thinking that text-based games would be easier to program than any 2d game, since that is what I am used to programming. I have a text-based game engine (QML) that I could use for this, but I need to have a good random generator for the enemies, the problem, and the causes of that problem.

[Granite26]

a 2d game of this, as said, similar to spelunky would the the simplest project,

I meant more the metagame feel rather than the playstyle.  My poor use of the English language is to blame though.

Let's see

Apparent Causes:
Death of all/Most of the Crew (Something that kills the crew, leaving the ship intact)
Explosive Decompression
Crash Landing
Massive Damage
Power Failure

Root Causes
Disease (inc Zombies)
Aliens
Physics Anomoly (Pulsar shooting strange radiation)
Demonics (Cthulhu in Spaaaace)
Natural Disaster (Asteroids, etc)
Normal Problems (The power converter blew)


Remember, it doesn't have to be a big mystery in order to be a challenging 'level'

[commondragon]

Maybe different ship types to help mix things up when trying to guess, like:
Asteroid/Gas miners
Battle cruisers
Space stations (SS13, lol)
Exploritory ships
Merchant cruisers
(long game only)Capital warships

Different ways to get clues:
Crew logs
Finding living crewmembers
Obvious damage
Mechanical puzzles


You could add all sorts of elements that could be possible to arrange into a single answer, but hard to pull into too much of a metagame (at least very early after release).

Mechanical puzzles could give varying results based on different knowledges you pick out at mission start, so having an electrician hook the wires back together would be easier (via in-puzzle "Well I remember that..." cues) than say, having a programmer go about it.

Players might opt to allow enemies to screw with the station more (say surviving crew members seal doors mid-game to keep the aliens in).

Along with enemies you should involve the environmental hazards (Oxygen tanks to breathe, space suits to survive being in massive holes, biohazard suits in case of disease, flashlights attract enemies)

Add different engine types to further mix things up, say have one that requires switching out plasma cells every so often, so you have to keep in mind that the power failure on the station may be from a lack of plasma in the systems.  Have an anti-matter engine, that might have blown due to someone (un)mistakenly falling in.

All this kind of stuff would need more attention to detail and spice up the puzzle.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

There are two problem I see with this, and they both involve believability.  First of all, the idea of the player being sent to some broken down space ship/station all by themselves is really silly.  Second, the idea of the player as a maintenance guy being coincidentally sent to multiple broken down ships/stations, all with something horribly wrong with them is really silly.

It'd be allot more believable if you start out with a team of characters with different personalities, all of whom can live or die depending on your actions.  Then maybe you are all formed into some sort of paranormal investigation team that's sent in to deal with potentially dangerous maintenance jobs.

[rickvoid]

Okay, calm down everyone. Having been in many game design projects, I know for a fact that having too many ideas can spoil the broth. The offical term is "Too Many Bloody Writer Syndmore".

I was thinking that text-based games would be easier to program than any 2d game, since that is what I am used to programming. I have a text-based game engine (QML) that I could use for this, but I need to have a good random generator for the enemies, the problem, and the causes of that problem.

Until I got to this post I was thinking: "Man, I remember a particular top-down, 2-D Star Trek game when I was kid that was similar to this, would be neat to play something similar again."

Then I read Text-Based, and I was all "OH YEAH!"

That is all.

[Floirt]

This totally looks like barging in an end of a round in Space Station 13. 

[Jakkarra]

actually, a SS13-type interface could be a good way to go with this.

i'd say we should develop both, and whichever appears to be more fun and working better is continued, while the other is discarded,

(what coding language does this use by the way?)

[Servant Corps]

actually, a SS13-type interface could be a good way to go with this.

i'd say we should develop both, and whichever appears to be more fun and working better is continued, while the other is discarded,

Good idea. I have the belief that a graphics engine is better than a text-based engine, but the problem is I can't really program a graphics engine. If somebody creates a graphic engine, I'll use that instead of a text-based game. I am thinking the possible, not the "incredible" here.

rickvoid: Is that scarsam I detect?