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edg3
19-01-2009, 05:10 PM
Well, imaginecup 09 started last year already, but I am going to be entering in a team of 3 currently.

Team
ShadowMaster
Sigh
and myself

Game Concept
Due to the nature of the topics for imaginecup (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) there was quite a lot of thought that had to go into picking a topic and choosing a concept that would address the theme and still be fun, and we have something we feel will be decent enough fun wise even though as far as innovation goes it isnt really that innovative.

We have opted to go for a 2D management game addressing the topic of Environmental Sustainability.

The premise of the game is basically you have started up a new organisation whose sole aim is to promote environmental friendliness and promote prevention destruction of the environment. We hope to give a few different angles to achieve these goals. To prevent the game play from becoming overly boring or long winded we want to have a sort of short term milestone system which meeting will increase how long your organisation lasts, and we thought of doing a time based system for this, but while typing this post up I thought of even doing it based on reputation you create for your organisation (failure is fine, but making bad decisions could be costly, nobody would trust an organisation that makes a bad name for themselves, etc).

You would have to manage your internal offices (payment of employees, etc) but this wouldnt be the main gameplay factor, but rather a basic expense that will always be deducted as time goes by make gameplay more "realistic", as well as events, think fundraisers, awareness drives (like at schools), etc to gain reputation and build up your organisation.

To make it relevant we can work with places like forests that are already being destroyed and animals that are already endangered in real life and use them as the main focus of the game.

The reason we opted for a management game is that once implemented it should be easy to add functionality and content to it in hopes of getting a decent demo done by the submission deadlines.

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Thoughts and suggestions?

ShadowMaster
19-01-2009, 05:14 PM
We of course have a good role model for a bad company... *cough* PETA *cough*

AndrewJ
19-01-2009, 05:21 PM
We of course have a good role model for a bad company... *cough* PETA *cough*

And that silly flash game over at newgrounds (I think) called "Better than Mama" or something about how cruel turkeys in the United States are treated. It ended <sarcasm>wonderfully</sarcasm> with the player having to shape a turkey out of... tofu. I think that flash game was sponsored by PETA actually.

Kensei
21-01-2009, 08:48 PM
Sounds like an interesting idea, edg3 - good luck to you and your team :)

I am a sim game noob, getting bored very easily in the more cerebral sim games (such as Sim City), but I do understand the concepts behind a management sim.

Are you going a multiple mission route (i.e. get $100 this mission, raise 50 mutant cows next mission) or just one continuous game where the objectives change over time?

What resources are you going to use? Just money and reputation? And then, I assume as you gain more reputation you get access to more fundraisers and 'buildings'?

Will you be using standard management things such as how much money you put into your R&D and marketing etc?

If you go the continuous route will there be a winning condition?

edg3
22-01-2009, 03:37 PM
Sounds like an interesting idea, edg3 - good luck to you and your team :)

I am a sim game noob, getting bored very easily in the more cerebral sim games (such as Sim City), but I do understand the concepts behind a management sim.

Are you going a multiple mission route (i.e. get $100 this mission, raise 50 mutant cows next mission) or just one continuous game where the objectives change over time?

What resources are you going to use? Just money and reputation? And then, I assume as you gain more reputation you get access to more fundraisers and 'buildings'?

Will you be using standard management things such as how much money you put into your R&D and marketing etc?

If you go the continuous route will there be a winning condition?
We are going for a sort of combination of continuous gameplay and immediate short term goals. For instance, missing a deadline on a project you fund or start will basically lower your reputation and if your reputation goes too low you fail, but if you have achieve a main ending goal (eg. gain 500 reputation, or save 1000ha of forest, etc) you will esentially "win" the game, but it should take a decent amount of time to "win" the game at normal speed, but we are making it possible to increase the speed of gameplay for people not so interested in immersing themselves in the game and just want to win/finish it (or like in my case dont want to sit waiting for a project to finish at normal speed :P )

As for actual cashflow management, each project/employee/event will cost you, and if you gain reputation organisations will sponsor you, so for instance to start out you get 5 employees and they cost you R700 in total per week, you could go into bad credit with the global "bank" and slowly lose reputation, but if you achieve a goal you get reputation and on recieving the reputation an organisation might back you and say for instance "we will give you R1200 a week for the next 3 weeks" and so on.

I hope I answered your question :)