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UntouchableOne
04-02-2008, 10:50 PM
Concept 1 : Doomsday

Story line : The player plays a commander on a space station on some sort of planet. An ordinary day has just got ugly. The stability of the planet has changed and thus the structure of the space station is falling apart due to the planet that's about to blow. To make things worse, explosives have been built into the building by an unknow source. A fleet of weird and dangerous species are also heading your way and it's not for a social visit. The staff on the station are demanding and require help from the player with some tasks but the player is unable to satisfy everyone and this results in terrible outcomes(eg the chem expert could get angry with you for not paying any attention to him and decide to consume some nasty chems and mutate into a boss or a sewer staff member could be killed by monster rats and his ghost shall haunt you). Every decision made will effect the end of the game and the events that occur during the game. Doomsday can only be prevented if the game is played "perfectly" and all the "correct" choices are made. This will motivate the player to continuously play the game to experience the different endings and aim to achieve a win by stopping Doomsday. This will all take place in 10 minutes so the player will have a fulfilled time of gameplay with the above mentioned as well as some random events that may occur.

Think about the above elements and add a whole lot of humour to it..would it be better? Or should I stick with a more "serious" approach?

FuzzYspo0N
04-02-2008, 11:48 PM
humour, its better.

one thing, it seems a bit epic for a short time.
Sounds interesting though

Cyberninja
05-02-2008, 12:56 AM
Humour. Either way, it already sounds awesome. =]

01DT!m3r
05-02-2008, 06:09 AM
Humour! but i an gonna agree with fuzzy spoon here it sounds awesome but you only have 3 weeks to finish it in.

UntouchableOne
05-02-2008, 06:56 AM
it seems a bit epic for a short time.


If you mean short time in terms of completing the game by the deadline then that might be an issue. If you mean too epic for 10 minutes-I disagree, the whole point of this game is to have an epic time within 10 minutes.

FuzzYspo0N
05-02-2008, 07:34 AM
i was referring to the amount of "and also" ideas in your game idea...
Its not a bad thing to dream big but dream realistically big.. its the worst feeling to not enter at all, after talking a lot on forums about an entry

Fengol
05-02-2008, 10:30 AM
The only thing I worried about is that it's a "game tree of death", step off the path and you die. What about looking at the McDonald's Video game (http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html) which allows you to always be successful but the game steadily spirals out of control and you win by the amount of time you can keep the company afloat.

An example for your game is having the player keep a balance between powering the science labs, life support and other systems. If the science labs are off for a continous period of time it leaks toxic gases if the life support system are off for too long the staff start to suffocate. The player must continually switch various station functions on and off; and you can add a third dimension by having any active system deplete remaining pover so that player is forced to eventually switch off non-essential systems and suffer the consequences.

This way there's always a sense of achievement even though the player eventually loses everything.

dislekcia
05-02-2008, 11:52 AM
*waves hands in the air*

Liiiiisten to the Fengooooool!

That is all.

-D

Gazza_N
05-02-2008, 12:08 PM
Nothing is more frustrating than losing a game because you made the wrong choice along an event tree without realising it. I think Fengol's idea will eliminate that while keeping player choice at the forefront. Otherwise, it sounds great!

I'm also going to be a deviant extraordinaire and suggest that you keep the game serious. Humour is great, but it seems out of place in your back story. Unless, of course, it's gallows humour, in which case I approve. ;)

UntouchableOne
06-02-2008, 08:31 PM
Thanks Cyberninja. I hope the game turns out as I want it to.

@ Fengol, thanks for the pointer. I thought about it for a while and I decided to make it a lot easier for the player to prevent doomsday. If the explosives are defused in time, the station building kept fairly stable and the intruders are held off for the 10 minutes then the planet will automatically normalise and the player will win.

@ Gazza_N, thanks for advise. After thinking about it, I realised that the player will be frustrated from losing all the time. The other issue about humour or not is still debatable though. I'll first finish the actual game mechanics then adapt it to a serious or humorous nature.

Oliver
08-02-2008, 11:35 AM
Just to hammer home that point about the 'game tree of death', it's essentially the 'God Concept', or what I refer to as the 'Theory of the God Gamer':

Click 'em Here (http://dukenukem.typepad.com/game_matters/2003/12/the_god_concept.html)

Scott Miller is an endless source of experience. Well, almost endless.