Here's a little write-up I made for a game idea I have, working title Heian Future. --- :) Heian Future: A step into social and political Japan in the peak of its future, with a completely user-dependant style in which every button press helps to determine that future. A real-life real-decision game built to be complex and strategic. Innovative and original interfaces, music, art style and controls will mark this project as a venue without precedent. The user is placed in a bustling court setting, the capital seat of the country in the city of Heian. The world has faced numerous changes, failures, and successes, and has reverted to a monarchy under the Emperor and his Nejiri, the conniving aristocrats. However, along with royalty and an elite upper class, so has the civil service exam been reinstituted. The user's goal is to pass this civil service exam and join the class of elites in a fantastic showdown of intrigue, suspense and court conspiracy. Every interaction between the user and the NPC counterparts will play towards the ultimate goal. A complex in-game system will measure relationships a lá The Sims in an effort to make subsequent meetings completely authentic. The influence and importance of the characters with which the user has developed a good relationship with will also play into the final outcome. The game will also be based on skill: certain puzzles will cater towards required skill you must become adept at to continue in prestige. Calligraphy, swordfighting, taiko drums or fan dancing may number in these puzzles. Your skills will also further narrow the path in which you can take; an elite swordfighter might join the ranks of samurai, or a dazzling fan dancer could be selected for court shows. All of these retain opportunities for the player to establish themselves at court. Another important projected feature is the complete dependance on the user to supply actions. Choices of potential dialogue will not surface, and two or three actions will not appear at the intervals at which it is best to do them. At any time during dialogue, the user may say "yes" or "no", and as the game progresses more advanced phrases, according to their skillset, influence and prestige, will be supplied. This will greatly test the sense of timing so essential to social advancement: players must intuitively hone in on the correct times to speak and act, or they will face a bad relationship status. There are also incorrect times to do an action: when it is incorrect to bow so shallowly, show a personal scroll of calligraphy, or give presents of varying importance to other courtiers. --- Any feedback/suggestions would be appreciated... also, any ideas about where to go from here or something I should include. So far just planning on making a few concept prototypes. [Edited by - scurvymerc on March 29, 2007 7:51:53 PM]

Interesting. Seems like it could turn out either very well or quite boring/confusing depending on the details. It seems tough to make bureaucracy and court etiquette into a fun and exciting challenge which is not too easy, but easy for the user to figure out what they did wrong, recover from mistakes, and do better next time. Were you thinking one long game like an RPG or adventure, or missions like an RTS? Strong story and pre-created NPCs, or only randomly generated NPCs and quests?

One of my biggest questions is the playability of this game... I hope I'm not struggling to find a niche that may or may not exist. As for overall layout... I'm not sure I'm a big fan of making it a solid RPG with a strong story, because that heavily decreases replay value. I feel like it should run somewhat like a dating sim (awkward analogy, I know).

Actually a dating sim was the first thing I thought of when I read the part about measuring relationships. Although that may be because I've spent a lot of time working on dating sim designs. But, a lot of dating sims do have strong stories, sometimes one story associated with each 'gettable' character so that when replaying the game the player will choose to go after a different character and thus experience a different part of the story.

I would say, you should decide whether to go for breadth or length. Either make the game short, perhaps 10 hours of gameplay per playthrough, and have lots of career paths and NPCs each with their own story; or, make the game long with a unified story like and RPG, where the player is expected to do all the career things and interact with all the NPCs, and not replay the game.

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Original post by sunandshadow seems tough to make bureaucracy and court etiquette into a fun and exciting challenge

I wouldn't have expected Tedious Lawyer Game to be any fun either, but Phoenix Wright is pretty successful. I think part of its charm is that it knows lawyering is tedious, and it purposely strays into the realm of ridiculous anime fantasy with tongue-in-cheek charm.

Perhaps some silly stylization would help, such as the Street Fighter-like staredown in PW's courtroom scenes.

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Original post by scurvymerc One of my biggest questions is the playability of this game... I hope I'm not struggling to find a niche that may or may not exist.

One of the best parts of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games is the political intrigue. There are few things more satisfying than setting an aggressive lord's province on fire because he was spreading rumors about you in your own province. [grin]

Here are some random ideas I have for the game. Claps for the good ones, tomatos for the bad ones. :)

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User Responses

In the write up I talked about always having the opportunity to speak, and abandoning premade responses... here's what I meant about that. There are two examples of this kind of interface, the bow and the spoken responses.

The Bow: At all times the user would have the ability to approach a person. As with Japanese custom, any meeting requires a bow. Users would select the depth of their bow at every meeting. NPCs with higher rank than the user would be shocked and angered by a bow too shallow, and the relationship would suffer. As for bows too deep, that would be a little awkward but I'm not sure how much it would affect the relationship, or if it would possibly inflate the NPCs ego and cause an increase in relationship points :)

Speaking: As for spoken responses, at the beginning of the game the user would have almost no status and responses would be limited to "No" or "Yes". The user can use these responses at any time... they can say them aloud when not in the vicinity of anyone, if they so wish. However, if the user and a NPC are communicating and the user interrupts with a "Yes" or "No" while the NPC is midsentence, this can be construed as rude and decrease the status of the relationship.
Example:
User: (approaches servant NPC, bows)
Servant NPC: (bows in return) Hello, how are -
User: (interrupting) Yes.
Servant NPC: How rude! (leaves, relationship points decrease)

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Improving Skillsets

As for the skills, ie calligraphy, swordfighting, taiko drums, fan dancing, etc., I thought that every skill should have a "minigame" that, upon successful and repeated completion, can increase your score and make your character more prestigious in that area.

For example, the calligraphy skill minigame could be something like outlining a Japanese character with the mouse in reverse (or by some other sort of cumbersome method that is more difficult than just simple outlining). Your overall prestige/skill would be tabulated as an average, so you have to keep working at your skill instead of being satisfied with a single high score.

Fan dancing, or maybe taiko drums, could be some sort of minigame akin to DDR. Swordfighting might have something to do with typing... like the speed at which you type the word "parry" determines whether you actually do parry in time.

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Comments? Does this sound too boring...?

[Edited by - scurvymerc on March 29, 2007 12:20:15 PM]