Hello, I''ve been looking to work on a relatively "small" game and have come up with this idea. Name: World Incorporated. Type: Big business "simulation" and parody You are the owner of a big company and you play against either the computer or other player''s companies. The goal of the game is to build a monopole of the earth. While head of the company you will have to deal with your shareholders (got to keep ''em happy), politicians (support both sides in a campain and see what happens), laws (try to buy the judge who is examining a gigantic ecological mess you did), ecological groups (bad press is not good for business, start your own group and send them against the oponents), medias (buy them and no more bad press!), and other factors. Send spies in competing companies to get some dirt for the medias, but don''t get caught or you could go to court (not too bad if the judge is "in your pocket"). All this in a "caricatural" way. Gameplay would last about a few hours maximum. Would this make an interesting game even though reality sometimes is worst than fiction... I would like to get your opinion on this. Thanks!

What FEEL do you intend to give it?

It sounds like a resource management / Sim game with some humor. Am I wrong?

If not, my opinion about Sim style games is they they should stay very *direct*, ie. the user should be able to directly manipulate things like in SimHospital or Dungeon Keeper and not be bothered to through a lot of menus setting all kinds of settings. A lot of settings will slow the pacing of the game down and will make it harder to make it humorous. I think faster paced games are better for this. I actually think SimHospital might be good place to look for inspiration.

Maybe you could make the actual physical setting smaller. Ie. set the scene of all the in some future UN parlament/congress - where you had lobbyists, politicians, miltary leaders, assassins, spies, etc. and a across the street you had your corporation headquaters - with a the ecological groups making demonstrations between the two building - so some of you people might need bodyguards to get across. Keeping people happy would now be a very concrete thing to do. I think people would think it would be fun to see all these things unfold in front of them as a Sim game.

Jacob Marner