Milo - Day One
Ok. So its day one of the big new game, hopefully a game that sells like Democracy (it needs to!).
Milo is a very vaguely designed game. It's about one person (by default a man named milo in his twenties) and his life, the people he knows, and more specifically the relationships he has with friends.
It's a strategy game, probably turn based, set in the modern day real world. Everyone who milo knows will be simulated, and people whom they know are similarly modelled. The 'aim' of the game is very fuzzy, but generally it's to make milo happy, sociable and popular. Milo will be able to socialise with his friends, and his choice of where, how and who-with are going to become very important indeed. Ideally milo will spend his time at flash restaurants getting along famously with wealthy, popular celebrities from all walks of life. At the start, he will probably sit in a seedy bar chatting with work colleagues who barely tolerate him.
It's basically a game of building relationships. Part of me suspects it might be a popular game with older gamers, and with women gamers. Basically, people who are bored with shooting at NPCs, and fancy having a beer with them instead.
Coding this game will be easy, I have no worries there, I can code simulation games with my feet now. The real problem is designing it. Designing games is hard. Designing original games with no template to work from is MUCH harder. I guess the Sims is the nearest game to handling this, but they have a 3D world and a real time interface. I'm turn based and 2D.
Of course, it's only day 1, so I'm still bolting together bits of library code, but I put a screenshot (so far) up on Milos page. I'm going to plan on updating this screenshot page very often so people should be able to follow the games progress visually.
Ok. So its day one of the big new game, hopefully a game that sells like Democracy (it needs to!).
Milo is a very vaguely designed game. It's about one person (by default a man named milo in his twenties) and his life, the people he knows, and more specifically the relationships he has with friends.
It's a strategy game, probably turn based, set in the modern day real world. Everyone who milo knows will be simulated, and people whom they know are similarly modelled. The 'aim' of the game is very fuzzy, but generally it's to make milo happy, sociable and popular. Milo will be able to socialise with his friends, and his choice of where, how and who-with are going to become very important indeed. Ideally milo will spend his time at flash restaurants getting along famously with wealthy, popular celebrities from all walks of life. At the start, he will probably sit in a seedy bar chatting with work colleagues who barely tolerate him.
It's basically a game of building relationships. Part of me suspects it might be a popular game with older gamers, and with women gamers. Basically, people who are bored with shooting at NPCs, and fancy having a beer with them instead.
Coding this game will be easy, I have no worries there, I can code simulation games with my feet now. The real problem is designing it. Designing games is hard. Designing original games with no template to work from is MUCH harder. I guess the Sims is the nearest game to handling this, but they have a 3D world and a real time interface. I'm turn based and 2D.
Of course, it's only day 1, so I'm still bolting together bits of library code, but I put a screenshot (so far) up on Milos page. I'm going to plan on updating this screenshot page very often so people should be able to follow the games progress visually.
posted by cliff at
10:27 AM
