This was the only forum I found to fit my topic. If its wrong, go ahead and move it =) I was downloading a game called Mobility (http://www.mobility-online.de/en). Just a look at the screenshots gave me an idea. Why don't make a game that looks like this game. A little bit bigger (more zoomed in) perhaps. This game will be a mix of SimCity,The Sims and Mobility. The game will consist of unique persons, that are totally independent beeings, who take their own decisions. Persons that move in to the town when they feel for it and move out when they feel for it, and there is nothing you can do about it when it comes to it. All persons will exist in a register over town people. The one who is playing this game will be - what can we call it. A city planner. He will control the land, sell it, rent it out. He will build roads and schools and police-stations, and further on. This game should be much more detailed than for example SimCity. You will actually be able to see when a certain person, gets up in the morning, walks from his house to the car, drives to the work, stoppes at red if he has to, parking and enterering the place where he works. There will be queues in the rush-hours, crashes, and other naturally things. I mean what will happen if you put a hundreds of cars in a street made for fifty. The thought here is that every person in the town will have his own AI that takes decissions based on eg. personality, age, sex, situation etc. Maybe this game is all to big to be made, or maybe even all to boring =). But in my head it's not so big. Keep a list of persons, process each person every game-tick. Make it up like tasks to be done (walk to the car, when ready do next task). Draw it tilebased. I will not make this game. I really have no time for it. But maybe someone else wants to. Someone could make it a Open Source project. What do you all think. Am I totally out of my mind? /J Lindroos

Moved to game design

A game released on the playstation 2 (bad japanese conversion I think) that was very simular to this, called Metropolis Maker. 3d, watch people move in and walk/drive around, build police/schools/houses/roads...

While the reviews of the game were crap I actually enjoyed it. Though the cost was only AU$25, if I did pay AU$80 for it I would have been angry... It kept me going for a few days before I realized the ultimate goal was stale and the repetition was outshining everything else.

Wondering if anyone else played this game?

Hey

Have you seen a game called Pharaoh

It's not modern city but it's up close and personal. It's actually quite fun.

Not shooting down the idea, or your possible career? When I read your post I didn't think of a game but of a city congestion
simulation that could be used in city planning, by insurance companies, home designers, therapists, and researchers by using concrete human reaction based AI to show how a set of humans might live in a certain area given a distinct model. So I'm saying I like the idea but I don't see it as a game. I see it as something potentially useful, and I think it illustrates where the knowledge contained by a game programmer/designer etc may end up maturing towards. One year GTA, x years later, a simulation to help police predict behavior patterns of car thieves.

I'm not assuming software like this doesn't exist either, it may. Simply saying the stated 'game idea' popped into my head with
a bunch of engineers watching it going 'see, that intersection will only last 6 months' or 'that intersection is dangerous, and now we can see why'.

Just rambling, thats for giving me the thought.

It'd probably be too complex to work very well, I mean if you don't have a lot of RAM even the Sims will lag if you have a huge house with 20 people in it. However, maybe if you show a bit less detail you could do a new twist on the SimCity type games...how about making various laws and seeing how the people react to them? Kind of like NationStates.

Well. When I have been thinking about this, I have realized that it would be all to complex for "normal" users to play. And even if this was not a problem, I think that the game would be boring to play. But to see that it actually can be done is fascinating to me. That's why the idea thrills me.

But...it's true, won't work as a game.