Ok so I actually have 3 dream projects. I always try my luck coding something towards them but I always fail 'cause I'm forever a n00b (I gave up on computer programming for the fame and glory of hollywood). get ready for a huge chunk of text.
The first idea is a little plataformer-ish based on flatland. If nobody here ever read or heard of flatland, it's a little mathematically friendly book about a world inhabited by 2d people. Now, when I first read flatland a couple things greatly bothered me ('cause i'm that detail oriented) as in when the square was taken out of flatland and into a 3d world, he actually could see 3d (which makes absolutely no sense, since he is still flat, as is his eye. He should remain unable to see anything more than a line, no matter how 3d things truly are). Then I read another book derived from that first one (by other people, more recently, more amazing and it even was written with the 3d people interacting with the 2d beings through a computer game-like interface - flatland is from 1884
) -- The Planiverse. And that gave a much better shape to my already ingrained game idea. Growing up with first generation (as a young child, i'm old but not that old --or am I?) and second generation game systems, imagining a world entirely 2d was *never* a problem for me, but the planiverse brought it to a level of realism that my more grown up self would like.
Both books present the worlds in question more as a novelty being shown to a stranger, although they have a plot and traditional storytelling (flatland is a messiah-story gone wrong and planiverse could fit in a growing up story I suppose) the main point is to present the new universe (and it's rules, and culture) to the reader -- well, that was the main point for me anyway. So in that spirit, my idea was a exploring/crafting game. It would make for some interesting moments as we are used to think of 2d games as a representation of a 3d universe. Crafting objects and exploring a city where two objects *cannot* occupy the same space 'cause there is no third axis (that we usually assume) will be entertaining. Also, both planiverse and flatland have interesting background stories (i'm more tempted to go with planiverse thou) and the exploring could end up with you uncovering a plot that shows you interesting aspects of the world. Crafting would be particularly !FUN! (both to play AND code) since the player actually would have to make the mechanics and not simply be given a cute looking sprite that has an assumed engine inside doing the job. There is no assumed, it's a 2d world, if there's an engine inside, you should see it. And some 3d mechanics would not work in a 2d universe (it's actually more simple, I think, but with some tricky parts). It ends up being a puzzle game of organizing the sprites in a way that works, but with the right coding, could give some AWESOME emergent gameplay. Planiverse itself has plenty of "recipes" for engines, boats, houses and even musical instruments. The plot itself would not be super important, but serve as motivation to craft. If crafting by itself is rewarding enough, the player would have a sandbox to play with.
My second game idea, that actually came before this one, I like to call a culture simulation. I'm a big fan of Civilization Series, even thou the series has been going the wrong way since the 3rd one, I still buy all of them. I still like them. I just think they could be doing more, doing better. But oh well. One thing that always bothered me in Sim games and Civ, being born in a 3rd world country (now "developing". whatever that means), is that you have such a rigid control of everything. Your citizens will only build houses where you let them. If you don't plan plots, the masses of immigrants will calmly wait outside, instead of creating huge slams and filling your (much needed) workforce anyway --and hey, they are even cheaper to hire, not having rent or mortage to pay! Tropico has slums (and you can edict laws and send people to jail. I loved the first tropico) but no empire/city building has *any* organic feel. Which is understandable for playability. I like those games as they are, but did nobody ever thought of a more organic model that we could also play? So my idea started from there.
Basically, instead of having control of the entire city/empire, I thought you could be in (some) control of a "culture" that you would define certain parameters (defining who can belong in your culture and what are the accepted behaviors etc). The society would be divided in "organizations" (could be starting as small as families) that cluster together forming bigger organizations 'till you get the Nation itself. Now, the more the people in these organizations lean towards the ideas that you represent, the more control you might have in those organizations. But you won't be the only driving force in the country. You may, however, be one of the driving forces in more than one country, if you manage to export your culture away. Thus, being conquered does not end a game (in fact, playing as a conquered culture should probably be awesome fun). You can chose to be strongly xenophobic and define your culture by race (even thou still competing with other cultures inside your country that do not care about race) or define your culture entirely on religion and spread through many countries (but probably not having full control of any) and so on. This would be building oriented (certain building having certain effects, and giving certain powers according to how many people there are from your culture) the buildings would be divided by "organization" they belong to:
- A regular house belongs to a family, gives you a small spreading value if you control it.
- A Army Base represents the Army organization - which could give you power to take control over the country with a coup d'etat.
And as long as you have enough people from your culture, you can create your own organizations with their buildings. Schools (for indoctrination!), Churches (for converting people) and so on. And if you have enough control over the government (monarch, president, congress) you can ban certain organizations and their buildings - to get the enemies off your country.
the idea is to be pretty open, any culture can create a organization and it's buildings inside a country, so long as they have enough followers. A religious culture could create a new army base (you know, survivalist cult style), but each country would then start limiting what other cultures can or cannot do in their countries. It might become illegal to have a religious army base and your dreams of your spiritual revolution will go away... unless you disobey and make a covert army base. Any building should be able to function as another one. However this stealth action limits the powers of the building, and gives a chance to the culture in power to find out. As soon as they find out, you get backlash. It might end-up working on your favor, though. A minority may have control of a country and oppressive actions against your group might give sympathy to your cause. Or not.
Also, when I say any culture can create a organization and it's building, I mean any building. Including a Palace. That's how former colonies and separatist regions will gain independence. And there would be international buildings, once you get enough followers in other nations, you can then build a central church with a pope-like figure that can concentrate your world power into actions affecting any nation you have followers on, or a U.N. style organization.
This system was designed to create a form of government that relates more to what I see in real life. Even non-democratic countries don't have absolute control over their nation. Some established government have way less control than they appear, too. Also, I envision it as being hard to have 100% control of any building you did not create (and even some you did create) so in many times your decisions would need to be backed up by other factions. Now that is a Empire Building game that encourages democracy (or not, but it will shows how bloody hard it is to get a police state going). Despite me talking about buildings, notice that i'm thinking nations, not cities. Every nation would have a few cities, and every city a bunch of buildings. Yes, that is one huge map, when you put countries in, I know. I'd make it 2d, isometric maybe. And probably wouldn't be able to keep track of individual citizens - which is fine.
And finally,
My Third Idea which is by far the craziest one. I love conworld (worldbuilding) and conlang (artificial language) and my idea is basically to create a 2d platform-like world with some simple rules and some inhabitants. Basically it's a alife game, but the twist here being... instead of having them competing to see the better adapted life form to that 2d world, I want them competing to see which one can create the most "natural-looking" language they can (creating a vocabulary out of objects, actions and events available in game - so it's gonna be a little bit limited, granted) but i want the individuals being able to formulate phrases in such language that make sense and are in context of their universe. Basically, I want them to only be able to cooperate through communication and that communication to not be (at least completely) pre-programed. Even if it's not "naturally" evolved, but simulated, it must "feel" as naturally evolved as possible. They would need some sort of social organization (also procedurally generated) that dictates small things that will make it feel more natural too, otherwise their whole communications would be "do this, do that" as they coordinate actions, and no polite phrases with no actual practical use (they would NEVER ask "how are you" otherwise).
The fun (for me anyway) in this game -- aside from being able to create a computer generated language that can "feel" natural -- would be trying to make sense of what they are saying, and possibly interacting with them. How open ended could they be? would they care for a conversation that does no involve anything they are programmed to do? Could you possibly teach new things to them? Increase their vocabulary? Would they be able to understand on some level concepts that are not present in the game? Get them to worship you as a god?
I reckon that one is more of a pet project and not going to be amusing to many people other than the few like me that care this much for world building that we even made a lingo for it. Also reckon that this will most likely be seed for the A.I. that will take over the world eventually.
Darn it, now I feel like sitting down and try to program one of those again.
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Topic: Game Mockups Thread (Read 4849 times)