Before I begin I would like to thank the developers at greenheartgames for delivering us what I personly consider the best indie game to date, THANK YOU!
Also feel free to pitch in with your own ideas, maybe you see a better/different way to implement ideas posted in this topic or give constructive critisisme and please point out if I wrote something incorect about the game, like mechanics.
I have arranged my ideas in the following format; their all numbered and there is only one idea per post so it easy to see a single idea isolated from the rest.
IDEA 1;
Several start locations/Options with custom challenges/goals
Examples;
1 Man Army. You are a computer genious starting with 1000 in all stats, furthermore you learn quickly generating extra reachers from game reports. The twist is you can not leave the garage (move to a new level). You loose when you go bancrupt. This is a survival mode, do you got what it takes to survive for 35 years?
Console Dev. You start the game in the last level with a full crew. You must produce a console within a given time frame (1-2 year perhaps). From that point forward you must always have a minimum of 1 console on the market at all times.
Game dev company. You start in level 2 (the office) with a full crew, the rest is like vanilla.
Game dev Empire. You start in the last level with a full crew, the rest is like vanilla.
MAYHEAM. Before you start all modifiers randomised. This include genre-topic-audience comboes as well as genre-development focus comboes (like the +++ on artificial intelegence for some genres). You generate an extra amount of hints from game reports. Good Luck!
IDEA 2;
Game feature modifiers ±
Game features have ± modifiers depending on genre, audience (Young, Everyone and Mature) and topic, like for example the open world feature would get a ++ modifier from the RPG genre. When a feature gets modifiers from several sources (audience, genres, topic) these are simply added. For example say you have a feature that gets a ++ modifier from the genre, a - modifier from the topic and a – modifier from audience, this would result in the modifier beiing - for this feature in this genre-topic-audience combination
IDEA 3;
Camera genre
At the start of your game you will in addition to selecting your usual genre also have to select your camera genre. You will trough reachers be able to create multi camera genres just like with the regular genre mechanic.
Examples of camera genres;
First Person (like call of Duty)
Third Person (like the newer ghost recons)
Top Down (like the old GTA games)
Free cam (like some modern strategy games)
Sidecam (Like the original Mario games on Nintendo)
Examples of multicamera genres;
First person/third Person (like The Elders scrolls Skyrim where you can “scroll out and inn” changing view)
IDEA 4;
Sub Genres.
Sub Genres would be selected in the same window as graphic type is selected, immidiatly after you have selected your topic-genre-audience-platform-game size-engine configuration. The sub genres avilible for selection would depend on your previous choices and also some could potentially be unlocked trough reachers. Just like the regular genre mechanic you can reachers the option to use severel sub genres in the same game.
Examples;
Shooter (would be avalible when you select topics like military or aliens.
Hack&Slash (would be avalible when you select RPG as genre or if you have topics like say Ninja or Dungeon)
Turn Based ( would be avalible when you select RPG or Strategy as genre)
real time ( Would be avilible when you select Strategy as Genre)
IDEA 5;
Genre and Topic spesific game feature.
These game features will work just like regular game features exept for one minor detail. They will only be avalible for a number of spesific genres and or topics.
Examples;
Destructible enviroment ( would be avalible for the genres simulation, RPG, Adventure and Action)
Realistic weapons (would be avalible for simulator, RPG, Action and Topics like military)
atuo cast abillities (would be avalible for RPG and Topics like Fantasy and Superheroes)
IDEA 6;
A new review system.
As far as I could find out online the review system scores your games based on a hidden value called Gamescore which is compares to your current highscore gamescore. This means tat you are essensially competing against yourself and in a huge degree setting your own difficulty level. I personly doesn’t like this system as it newer truly lets me get ahead or fall behind the curve (the general market). I have not only one, but two ideas on how to fix this. First I’l explain the simple one which I will refer to as idea 6.1.
6.1; The hidden value Gamescore higscore is changed constantly by a fixed script that on regular intervals with respect to time changes the value. This results that you will be playing against a preset baseline or a function with respect to time if youd like. To give the player some clue of how the market is doing you would get regular uptdates about competing game releases (maybe 2 per year). These competing game releases would use the same review system code but, would use the new (script generated) hidden gamescore highscore as the gamescore input in the code and use your, the players current hidden gamescore high score as the high score input in the code. There might be called for a little randominization depending on how easy it will be to “guess” the value difference between the scripts gamescore highscore and yours gamescore highscore. Basicly how much of a hint the player actually are getting. These competing game release uptades would give the feel taht your not alone and actually fighting in a “dynamic” market altough this isn’t really true. Also a system like this would when first constructed be very easy to modify in order to get several difficulty level or custom difficulty level (the script ask you for a difficulty level (number) between say 1-100 at the start of the game).
6.2; Interactive Ai competition. A interactive Ai is developed for you to compete against. And the hidden gamescore high score used by the review system is now replaced with a average gamescore highscore which essentially is the average gamescore highscore for all the Game dev Companies. (Yours and those controlled by the AI)
IDEA 7;
Demanding Fan Base.
As it stands I fell like fans is something that is simply accumulated trough the game and have little impact on my decissions except for when to start self publishing medium,large and AAA Games. I want fans to be something to be considered as a game dev tycoon on a regular basis, not just money - altough fans might be an exellent money source. First I suggest that changes are made so one can loose alot more fans if one makes mistakes, like releasing a bad/dissapointing game. This would also add a more stratigic value to the Trash Game button that currently is in the game, but hardly used (atleast by me). Secondly I propose that fans are diveded into sub categories, after genres, platform and audience. This would mean that you might have a bigger fan base on certain console, genres and audience than others, influence how much your games will sell aswell as how large games you can successfully develope for the different consoles, genres and audiences. Also I suggest that one start loosing fans in the different categories if one produce a medicore or bad game in that genre/platform/audience. Also one schould start loosing fans if it is long since one released a good game in/for their subgroup.
(EDIT 15.01.2014)
I further suggest that one also have a category for fans dedicated to a gameseries of your company. This will add more value and incentive to creating a continuously good game serie (game + sequels). Fans dedicated to a game serie would boost the sale of future sequels in that game serie that recieves good reviews. Also one schould be able to loose alot of fans from this category if one releases a bad/medicore sequel in the game series. (a bit like what happend with the newest Sim City)
I don’t like idea #1, at all, it either doesn’t bring anything good imo or just makes the game weird. It’s not long to get to office #2 or #3 so i don’t see the use for this idea!
I like idea #3, already thought about something similar in the past, i’d also add sub-genres to genre such as Real-Time Strategy which focus more on artificial intelligence than the real strategy category does. Japanese RPGS a more focused on dialogs and world than american rpgs which focus more on world and gameplay/content!
IDEA 8;
Development Subcategories.
I suggest that each category in the different development stages is splitt into two or three sub categories. Like graphic could be splitt up into, textures, particle effects and shaders or three catogories selected by someone alitle bit more competent. Anyway these subcategories would be unlocked trough reachers and would be avalible for rechears once one gained a certain level in the main category (Graphic, world design ect). Furhter more the ± modifiers a category have would be divided between the subcategories. So say a game has +++ in graphic. This would mean that the sum of the modifiers of the subcategories equals +++, but not that they necesserly are distrubuted evenly. Like forexample Category graphic has +++, it’s subcategories could then have textures -, shaders ++ and particle effects ++. This would lead to a further spesialisation options wich will add depth and give the user more freedom to choose what he wants to focus on.
I think idea #3, 4 and 5 share common ideas. For idea #5, i think that would be game features. Each feature is already researched and added into a game-engine. I think adding toggleable features could make the game too complex for nothing but could add to the chalenge for someone that wants more out of the game. (Some kind of hardcore mode)
For the real features of the gameplay, i don’t think destructible environment, realistic weapons, auto cast abilities are good examples, remember you are developping a game in general, not specific features of the game…
If you look at all the researches, it’s never something specific but always a rather vague idea: Realistic Weather, No loading screens, Online play…
First of all thanks for your input. I’d like to underline that the idea is first and foremost designed to add replayability, by adding different game angles and or challenges for the player to play after they have played trough a 35 year vanilla game
Again thanks for your input. I which to underline that the idea was to add more spesific features that due to them beiing more spesific would have to be restricted to certain topics and genres. I agree that my examples like realistic weapons wasn’t the best, guess my imagination ran a little dry. A better example would have been Advanced weapon effects. Something wich could be a relevant feature in a large array of games like Fallout, Battlefield, Starcraft, Total War, The elder Scrolls Skyrim, Arma 3, Worms, Deer Hunter, but still be a little more spesific, giving the player a better sence of what spesificly he is developing and help keep games with similar topic-genre combination more unique to avoid the feel of repetition - Making the same game over and over again.
Console Exlusives!
This is an idea for an event relating console releases. Before ( fairly long before) every console release you would get an event where you are asked to sign an exlusive deal with the console manufacturer. The deal is that you make a game that will be launched on the launch day of the console and be exlusive to that console manufacturer. Meaning that you would have to develope a new game (or a sequel to a non exlusive game with a review score above 9 that meets any of the console manufacturer requirments, you will get to that in a moment) and that you could only produce further game sequels to that particular game on consoles own by that console manufacturer. Furthermore this event would popup afther you have already produced a game, but with still enough time to develope the largest game type avalible before the release and have some time to debugging. The event/deal could also have requirements regarding Topic, Genre, Audience and Review Score, much like a publishing deal. The upside of accepting these deals is that your game atuomaticly gets a tremendous amount of hype. When the game is finished it will not get a review score before the launch day of the console.
This event will make the player feel more of the fuss surounding new console releases aswell as a one time only opportunity.
Game Prices.
The abillity to set the game prices is something I feel would have been a very natural feature for Game dev Tycoon. I propose that you get a slider where you can select prices. When you lower the prises you would get an increase in sales, but a lower total income. Lowering the prices would also increase the amount of fans gained by the game and extremly low prices could have a minor positive effects on the game review, with review comments like Good Value. When you raise the game price you would sell less games, but gained an increase in total income. Also you raising the prices would have a negativ effect on how many fans your game gains. Setting extremly high prices would have a negative effect on the game review with review comments like Overpriced!
Also each game size would have it’s own default price, so a small game might have something like 5 as a default price and a AAA games might have something like 50, you guys are probobly way better at balancing prises between game sizes than me so keep that in mind
Development stage focus.
I propose that we get a new development stage called development stage 0 or planning stage or something in that general direction. In this stage you would find three sliders just like in the regular development stages. The sliders would be named Development stage 1-3 and the sliders would deside how much time (of the total avalible time) is set to each development stage. Changing allocated time to a stage would have an impact on workload (how much work precentage a crew member gets, where + 100% leaves them overworked) of the stage and how many game features could be added. This would add further depth to the game, allowing you to focus your game even more on what is important (has the highest modifiers +++) and adding extra game features in those categories with high modifiers (+++). This feature would perhaps be extra usefull when making multi-genre games where the modifiers not necesserly are spread evenly trough out the different development stages. How much extra time would you be able to put into a development stage you say? I suggest that atleast for AAA games setting the slider max out in one development stage, would cause all category (world design, graphic etc) sliders to fill a crew members workload to 100% when the category has 33% time allocation, it’s default position.
A slider setting Game Development time.
As it is we have the choices between making a small,medium,large and AAA game. I propose that after you have selected a game size you would face a slider called something like Allocated Time for Game Development (you guys could probobly come up with a better name). This slider would increase or decres the total amount of time that would be used in the game development with a certain amount of percent, like say ± 15%. It is important that even when sliders between different game sizes are pulled towards each other that there is a reasonable gap seperating the different game sizes. ( a small game that has maxed out it’s devopment time has a sizeable gap between it and a medium game with minimum time allocation). This feature would allow the player to decide how much he wants to invest in a game in it’s respective size category. So how to use this feature? Maybe you know that you’r next game will get alot of hype (G3, etc) and you wanna make sure it is a good game because of it and you are willing to take some extra risk money wise. You make a AAA game with maximum time allocation enchanting the odds for it to be uber succesfull. Another example are publishing contract’s, not sure you can create a game in that genre-topic-audience-platform combination, spend some extra time and make sure you can! Perhaps you see an opportunity for small app like games on the grapple- sieze the moment and create a massive stream of games for it by reducing the development time of each game!
I got one myself to be able to choose the time it takes to develop a stage so if there is a percent then you can spend longer
on that stage obviously if you spend more time on a stage that makes it longer to finish.