Setting specifics in a war strategy game

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Socoder -> Concept/Design -> Setting specifics in a war strategy game
Sat, 15 Aug 2009, 21:24
mindstorm8191	Okay, for those of you who don't know, I have been working steadily on a browser-based game I call Vesuvius. You can check it out at https://vesuvious.x10hosting.com if you want. Development so far has been pretty steady, but now I am at a decision point, and not sure exactly what I should do. By the way, this is a sort of real-time strategy game, like Command&Conquer or Travian. At this point in development, I have to figure out exactly which units and structures I should have in the game, and what to leave out. I could very well include a great deal of units and buildings, since there isn't too much graphics to go along with any buildings or units. But having thousands of different units just won't cut it. I have to admit, my ideas are still scattered in general, as well. I have first thought of having the players start out with only medeval buildings and units, and then advancing their technology to include increasingly more powerful weapons, up to present and to the future. But I don't know how well this would work, in all honesty. I have also thought, instead, to have the game be played in the future, and the player runs a planet colony that's shut off from the rest of the known universe, and has to develop all their own gear, starting out with mere makeshift swords and shields. The player can then develop their technology, pooling in from different sources and developing up to 'their technology level' of the game's time. I'm certainly no expert at designing these kinds of games, and have only played a few varieties of them, so I'm not sure what best to aim for. I guess what I'm asking is, what kind of structures and units should I have? If you have some ideas on unit ideas, it would also help to consider where those units would fit, in relation to the other units. Thanks in advance for helping... -=-=- Vesuvius web game
Sun, 16 Aug 2009, 04:28
Jayenkai	My personal hatred of RTS games comes from the "I like building things, lets build thing, OMG! They're coming to kill me! shit! shit! shit!! I'm dead!!" issue that I usually have with them, so I'm probably not the best person to ask! As it stands though, Units, structures, build, advance.. it's all a bit samey. There's not really anything newer I can think of, except that.. perhaps focussing on the people, rather than the buildings.. ? What if the Blacksmith started out on his own, and he had a little blacksmith hut. He trains a student, and the two work together to build bigger/better swords. The student perhaps creates some new technology, and rather than use up the resources of the single blacksmith hut, decides to go it alone. You need to build him a new hut, then they both become Master Blacksmiths, and each get new little students.. The game carries on building the characters up, with each little hut eventually building all the different types of smithy type things. shrugs It's pretty much the same idea, but from the person's perspective..! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sun, 16 Aug 2009, 07:08
Scherererer	I signed up and got this error: mode=3, level=3, count=1 ...err, ignore that, its just debugging data! Error - unable to send welcome message. Please tell the admin. Unknown column 'Welcome to Vesuvius, villager. Now that you are king of your co' in 'field list' You can still log in from the homepage. Thank you for registering. You may now log in. Back Home --v ... but I was still able to log on and play, so I'm not too worried about it. I've always liked playing RTS's based in the future, especially really big space warfare games. But I think that whatever you decide to do is entirely up to you from a design perspective. Are you asking more how it would be structured in code to do some of the things that you want to do? -=-=- YouTube Twitter Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Sun, 16 Aug 2009, 11:23
JL235	You should first research other games that already fill this void. What do they do? How are they setup? How do they handle elements of construction, research, player advancement, combat and scoring? Then I'd try and break up which parts of those games do you like, what you don't like. What works well and why? What doesn't work well, and why? How could the elements be improved, changed, tweaked and how good will the effect be? Then I'd take a long look at your own project, what do you want the player to be doing? How do you want them to be in the game in 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month and 1 year? How can you satisfy these elements? How much game time do they have to put in to advance over time? Finally take all of the above, plus more, and try and compose it together. GamaSutra also contains plenty of articles on game design.