I have had a 3D real-time strategy/simulation space game I've wanted to develop for a number of years but never really had the "design" needed to acheive one of the quintessential aspects of the game until recently. While many aspects of the game have been successfully implemented in other games, the one unique aspect of the game, the quitessential part, has never been implemented (to the best of my knowlege) because of its complexity of what it needs to do in a real-time environment. I am a software architect with 20+ years of "business" experience, and essentially no game experience. I lack a number of "skills" to go from my concept to a production quality/publishable game. So I'll need financing for a team to develop and to get the game to market. Before I can get funding, I'd need to produce a demo. Questions I have are what criteria do I use to deciding the scope of the demo? * Do I concentrate only on the aspects of the game that are unique and previously not available in other games? * Or, should a demo roughly encompass the entire scope of the game? * Is it important to fully think out the story and all of the specifics (in text), or should I provide more of a contextual statement of the story-line? Success in the game is goal directed but the path to the goals is very open-ended. * It is fundamentally a Player vs. Environment game. Should I consider multi-player or MMO aspects too as part of a demo? Thanks.

Quote: Original post by Elenesski
* Do I concentrate only on the aspects of the game that are unique and previously not available in other games?

Those are certainly the most important but if you have the resources to do more then do so.

Quote: * Or, should a demo roughly encompass the entire scope of the game?

No because you can't afford to make the whole game so focus on just a small part and make that as good as possible.

Quote: * Is it important to fully think out the story and all of the specifics (in text), or should I provide more of a contextual statement of the story-line? Success in the game is goal directed but the path to the goals is very open-ended.

The likelihood is that at some point you will need to convince someone you have thought out the entire design.

Quote: * It is fundamentally a Player vs. Environment game. Should I consider multi-player or MMO aspects too as part of a demo?

Fundamentally or only? If it has a multi-player mode then you will need to be able to explain what it is.

As you can't hope to make the whole game without funding the documentation needs to fill in the gaps in the demo to convince investors you have a clear idea of the finished product.

You are making a game so the demo must be fun - a huge empty landscape isn't a game demo it is a tech demo - people don't invest in tech demos because they are dull. Focus on making a small demo that is fun and shows off the games key features.

You might find the following useful http://www.obscure.co.uk/demo.shtml

Don,

Thank you for your quick reply.

Re: Player vs. Environment

My point is the idea has always been PVE ... I have never thought about it from a multi-player/MMO perspective because there are a number of inherent technical difficulties that may not be feasible with current technologies ... specifically the game would have to transport of large quantities of dynamic data, and while there is possibilities with broadband, it's not really possible with limited communication mechansims such as a 56Kb modem.

My question is really more to do with the business side of the game market.

If I work on a PVE game and the market is looking for MMO games today, wouldn't it be in my best interest to step back and think about a MMO implementation of the game? If I think I can figure out ways to solve some of the technical challenges of making the game a MMO. Or do PVE games sell as well as MMO's?

Re: Storyline

The current storyline provides a series of six major goals and completion of the sixth goal "wins" the game. The storyline also provides levels of difficulty.

However, the key elements of the game (the thing I think that would make it fun to play) are the things the player has to do to acheive each of the goals. As a result, the storyline is really secondary to the "fun" aspects.

(In otherwords, if I make an airplane game, I could make the game about flying from city A to city B (to win), but of course, once you're won, the game would have limited replayability. But if I make it a flying game; suddenly there is lots of replayability.)

As a result, I could conceived of dozens of different storylines with the same "game technology" to make it fun. So should I concentrate on a single storyline and hope the demo user recognizes the open-endedness of the concept or should I be more open and state that the storyline is secondary to the capabilities and fun of the game?

Other comments

Thanks for the demo link; it's not much different than the work I do professionally, so not a big leap. I've also been poking around sloperama.com and look at all the great info there. Recognizing my 7% (or less) chance ... I still believe it is worth the journey ... because nothing ventured is nothing gained.

[Edited by - Elenesski on June 3, 2006 9:38:50 PM]

It will likely take you two or three years to make a game from the time you get investment (which itself could take two years). If you base your idea on what the market is doing today the chances are you will either be out of date or will be lost in the throng of other "me too" games.

You should design your game according to your passion, then develop it in a businesslike manner. Dedigning something because you think it is good business will likely result in a poor game.