Other than the typical "You suddenly find yourself marooned on a desert island/on an alien planet/in the primitive past/where a disaster or time has left something in ruins, and you must quickly climb the tech tree to create a new life for yourself." what do you all think would make a good story frame for the type of sim gameplay where you are starting from zero technology and building up? I was vaguely thinking about the possibility that you are a disembodied spirit and you have to create a body for yourself so you can interact with other people. (That was another question I was asking myself, how can I include NPCs without making them fellow maroonees?) Lets see what creative ideas we can all come up with. [smile]

I'm not sure what kind of sim game you're thinking of: I'm assuming you're thinking of something with a final objective rather than a sandbox style sim.

One interpretation of the "disembodied spirit" would be an advanced A.I., developing new robot bodies to interact with its environment and human NPCs.

Yeah I was thinking the final objective would be some sort of happily ever after - get declared king, or find other people and work to be accepted as a popular and powerful person among them, or in the case of acquiring a body that could enable you to court and marry someone and have a child... but yeah basically some sort of "you win at life" ending, definitely not a sandbox because sandbox games annoy the heck out of me, lol.

How about a bunch of scenarios?

Let's say, in one scenario the player's goal is to find and marry the girl of his dreams. There could be predefined events that happen or vary based on the choices the players make and current states of the game. Let's say the player is neglectful, and an event emerges where the girlfriend starts cheating on him. Or maybe the girlfriend falls under depression. Or maybe the girlfriend just dumps him. And maybe there can be a few random "luck" factors too, like a cute new neighbor moving in. Or maybe the player charming a girl on the bar. And, depending on the stats given to each citizen, things vary. Some girls are into different things. Some like assertion, some like sweetness. Some have certain likes and dislikes, and so forth, based on generated data.

Or there can be another scenario where the player's goal is to become a great leader. We could have the player start out, say, a peasant, or perhaps a prince, or something, depend on what events and triggers we make in the scenario editor. And then we can add in predefined events that trigger based on the players choices and the games states. Maybe the player focuses too little on leadery things, or maybe a random event starts with an assassination subplot where his father is assassinated or something.

Rather than just a sim, maybe a sim with scenarios that can be added even after a game's release?

Or would this qualify as a sandbox game... I'm not sure. >.<

I think the main thing that determines whether a game is sandboxy or not is whether it has an ending. I'm a big fan of endings, and I usually play a game only once so I'm not interested in things being too random or adding content after release. Well, those things are important in MMO design, but I was trying to think singleplayer so the design would be slightly more feasible to implement. The particular events you mention are all good though, I'll add them to my list. [smile]


What I've been pondering myself is what unique requirements sim gameplay makes on the game's basic concept (as opposed to, say, RPG gameplay). Here's what I've come up with:

1) Sim gameplay is about climbing a tech tree through a combination of gathering ingredients and recipes/quests, spending ingredients to do recipes/quests, experimenting to discover hidden recipes or get rare results, tending processes with good timing, and finding more efficient and effective ways to do all of the above.

So if the game is going to be about gathering stuff and recipes, that implies that at the beginning you don't have any stuff and recipes, or at least don't have that stuff and recipes. But a normal adult in a normal society generally has lots of stuff and recipes and access to a lot more through interacting with other people. So the starting circumstances of the game basically have to be one of:

A. Due to a change of location in space and/or time you are stuck without your stuff. Either there are no other people or they also lack stuff. The possibility that other people are there and have stuff but won't or can't give it to you is more problematic because it's demotivational both to be in an economically inferior position to others and to see the stuff in their possession rather than enjoying the surprise when you discover it.

B. Due to a change of goal or ability your usual stuff is not useful and you need to get new stuff. (For example you are transformed into a ghost/vampire/animal/etc or begin a new relationship/job/school/war or must interact with an unfamiliar alien/magic/dream/post-apocalyptic environment.)

C. Having just been born, you have no stuff.

D. Can anyone think of any other possibilities?


2) Then if we assume that there will be an ending, and the ending will be some variety of "You win at life.", this requires that the player will be able to gain 'wealth' and security in the areas of: Economy/Technology, Politics/Combat, Relationship/Reproduction.

The first area is the simplest, all it requires is that the player max out all the tech trees and, if the game has money at all, continue making money until they have nothing left to spend it on. Exactly the opposite of what one would want to happen in an MMO or sandbox game, but then winning a game is basically playing the game until there isn't any left to play.

The other 2 areas however are more problematic. Combat and Reproduction can be handled on an 'animal' level, meaning that the enemies can be monsters/robots or things which look human but act like monsters/robots in that they do not talk or otherwise interact with the player; and in terms of reproduction the 'player character' could be a reproductively self-sufficient group of people or creatures, or some kind of asexual creature which does not need a mate or might evolve itself instead of producing offspring. But politics and relationships by definition require interaction with people.

That brings us back to point 1A, the problem of having other people around for the player to interact with while avoiding making these people seem like copies of the player character, making these people seem hopelessly more advanced than the player's beginning state or less advanced than the player's end state, or making them inconsistently exclusionary and prejudiced at the beginning and accepting and admiring at the end. Also its not very romantic if NPCs reject the player at the beginning just for being poor and a beginner at fighting, then love the player at the end just for being rich and kickass. Its much more romantic if the NPCs are inclined to like the player from the beginning but external problems and rivalries keep them apart until the character overcomes these.

So what is the solution here? One option is to split the game into 2 segments, the first dealing with climbing a lower level tech tree, the second dealing with advancing within a society. That's probably bad design because it's basically gluing one game onto the end of another. It might not be too bad if the romanceable npcs were introduced near the beginning but for some reason could not be interacted with until the player climbed some tech tree. (For example a ghost player could not interact much with living human NPCs until they acquired a body, or civilian NPCs might be in a part of town that was off-limits to first semester students at a school, or they could be introduced before the initial disaster which removed the players's stuff and physically separated the player from the NPCs, or the NPCs could achieve their graduation or transformation earlier and the player would have to catch up. And also if an NPC was available during the first part who was not romanceable or economically superior but was still good for talking to.

Is there any other solution which would make romanceable npcs available and interactable concurrently with climbing the most primitive part of the tech tree.

I still like the idea of an A.I. protagonist gaining different robotic bodies. If the starting body was similar to a box on wheels it might be hard to have romancable NPCs, but it shouldn't be an impediment to forming relationships. You could take it as having the A.I. wanting to form closer friendships with humans, and thus upgrading to more humanoid bodies to gain more empathy (people find it easier to relate to human-shaped entities than boxes). Plus you could throw in some gender identify in there pretty easily - an A.I. is very gender neutral to begin with, but once you start putting in some human characteristics you'd have to pick a gender.

Yeah it's a nice idea. The only thing that would stump me a bit is how do you make a human player identify and empathize with an AI character. Might be easier to do it with a biological basis, making the PC a formless shapeshifter evolving the ability to take better shapes, or a human evolving to become like some superior fantasy creatures or aliens.

Some sort of experiment, colony, or journey scenario would work well.
You could be a student/lab tech who sets a up a micro world as project. You then guide the world's growth over the course of a month. How you colony develops over that month and how well they develop would determine the ending.

Or you are in charge of an expedition or colony. Different endings could apply based on how things go over the course of a year or other time period.

Humorous little idea that came to me when I was really sleepy last night: You are a male bowerbird, and you have to gather grasses and shiny colorful objects to build your bower with to attract a mate.

I think something with virtual reality would be interesting territory to go into. If the story takes place in a cyberspace realm, you can get the freedom of an AI run world, but still have the human element by having a human representation (i.e. Tron, The Matrix, Neuromancer). That stuff also fascinates me, so I do have a natural inclination towards it.

For a more casual approach, maybe it's just me, but I think a restaurant sim would be hilarious. You're suddenly put in charge of a lowly joint, and throughout the course of the game you have to develop it into a world class restaurant. Various episodes would allow for some nice comedic opportunities (killing the rats, satisfying a critic, annoying teen-agers, etc).

I think a pirate sim would be a nice twist on the "marooned on a desert island" setup as well. The player is (obviously) marooned on an island, and begins by building a raft to get off, then eventually gets bigger and better ships until they have a nice good ol' pirate ship. Could add some Simcity aspect to it by giving them the ability to take the island they started on and turn it into a "pirate haven" or something like that.