Hy everyone, Introduction: I'm a programmer that enjoys very much writing games. Done a few comercial ones and a lot of amateur ones. But the key word there is writing. I almost never get to design mainly because I don't like it, I always enjoy getting things to work, rather than getting the fun-playable-interesting ideas of what to make the game about. With that in mind, I was asking for help for a personal project of mine. I want to make a android game, and I've been stuck for several days on how to make the gameplay work. Seeing all the creative that prowls this forums, I figured I'd ask for help. The idea: You are some kind of overlord/evil villian/ mafia head that wants to take over the world. You start, as most promising enterprises, in mom's garage, and work your way up. The only thing I've got clear is I want one of the gameplay pilars to be the minions you have, the getting, the caring and the using of the minions. What I ask: Can anyone elaborate? Give me some fresh insight, some suggestion for gameplay, something? Each time I go about designing the gameplay, I ultimately find the player staring at the screen while my wonderful minions do everything, and that's probably no fun for anyone (except for the programmer maybe :D ) Thanks everyone!

Overlord

http://www.kongregate.com/games/theswain/mastermind-world-conquerer

Are you open to making it a formal "board game on computer" like Risk? You could have faceless drones acting as force numbers in regions across the map and minions as sort of "hero" characters. Money buys upgrades to your base, more drones and allows you to hire and retain minions. Upgrades to your base attract different types of minions, not all of which like each other. Controlling territory brings in the cash. Drones defend territory and enhance minions when they go on special missions. Special missions involve stuff like setting up puppet governments, stealing technology and assassinating the forces of good.

If you don't want to create an AI that actively fights the player, you could use a time-based mechanic where all the territories are slowly improving around you and it's a race against time to topple the forces of good before they find your lair and crush you.

As a twist since you're not an army it makes no sense to hold territory like one. So instead each territory has a special building which confers some ability or creates some effect. Hold the grain factory for X turns, for instance, and you get the ability to infect the food supply with your drone making nanovirus; hold the dam and you can destroy the nearby airbase, reducing the cost of air missions for one of your missions.

So you already have some idea for the game and how you want it to play but do you have any idea as to what type of game it is? e.g. FPS, RTS, RPG?

Graphically how do you visualise it in your mind? I'd love to help out ^^

Hy again everyone!

First off, thank you for your help and time. Overlord I had already played, as well as Mastermind (and Evil Genius, just to add another one of the genre). But reviewing them proved to be quite refreshing.

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So you already have some idea for the game and how you want it to play but do you have any idea as to what type of game it is? e.g. FPS, RTS, RPG?

You're right Robert-Glen, first things first. After thinking it over, it seems the genre I'm aiming for is tactical strategy. I've only got bits and pieces in my mind right now, but hopefully writing it down for you peeps will make it easier for it to come together.

I want the main gameplay pillar to be the minions.

- I picture them as each unique (maybe up to 50 or so minions in total).

- With plenty of dialogue to go arround, both predefined and emergent ( an example of the first would be when the evil mastermind, you, fist meet the particular minion, an example of the second, the message they give to you when you return to your base and they have to explain why it's in ruins).

- The control of the minions must be a balance between automatic and manual, I was thinking along of the line of doing a touch (remember, android) on a enemy and selecting Kill || Capture || Ignore and having the minions near me do the task. Just give them some guidance. Except for the evil mastermind, which you can control directly.

- Taking a leaf out of Wavinators book: Money buys you upgrades for the base, and you get money for the special buildings you control.

- New minions are attracted to your cause by a mixture of things. (Base level, investigation, game progression...).

- Missions are either investigated (my minions in a control room, for example), scheduled (when you reach a specific level, or cash, the mission appears) or sporadic (select a bunch of minions, tell them to follow you, and go out to the street to capture puppies, for example).

- Missions are assigned to a minion, or several. If they are several, one of them is given the lead of the team, and the rest must do as he says (which could have very different outcomes for the same mission. For: "Steal the medicine", a lone and efficient minion could come back with the medicine. A group captained by a scheming minion could bring back the medicine and 3 or 4 captured doctors, and a group captained by an ex-marine could bring back half the medicine and burn the hospital to the ground).

-- Specially at the beggining, when you have few minions, you can lead the missions yourself.
-- Later on, you can tag along on the missions to observe from the shadows how your team handles them
--- All this implies that missions are real events, on a real map and with real objectives and obstacles, not just scheduled events that happen on the background and you are notified of them later. So I guess this makes it somewhat real-time.

- You can take hostages, and later threaten or bribe them into working for you (or just press THAT button, and have them fall into the trapdoor at their feet)

- The forces of justice (and any other group you piss off) get their own missions in a similar fashion as you do, sometimes reacting to your actions, sometimes anticipating them, and sometimes just calling the army to raid that bakery that THEY THINK is the entrance to your base.

And that's mostly what's on my head. It's a medium sized game, to be implemented, technically speaking, in several passes (maybe the first version only allows you to conquer your hometown, and on later versions you get the country and the world, or similar stuff).


And that's more or less all that's in my head people. Writing it all down for you all made it a lot clearer. :D
Toughts?

50 Unique minions, thats a lot. What kind of different abilities/stats/powers did you have in mind to make them unique? Or did you mean graphically speaking?

Your gameplay sounds a lot like Mastermind World Conquerer do you see it that way?

Have you ever played Dungeon Keeper 2?

Do you happen to have any games you've programmed before to show?

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50 Unique minions, thats a lot. What kind of different abilities/stats/powers did you have in mind to make them unique? Or did you mean graphically speaking?

The only thing I had in mind is different personalities, gfx (mainly colors) and AI behaviors. The stats haven't even been considered yet. I suppose I'll stick to the minim required ones, and yes, they will vary from one to another.

I probably will not be giving them any kind of special powers, and I most certainly will not start with 50, maybe just 20 or so for the first version. IF it works out I'll think up the rest of the little critters.

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Your gameplay sounds a lot like Mastermind World Conquerer do you see it that way?

It does resemble it, in the sense that the minions are the focus of the game, but I want a final look more like FF Tactics, where you actually know the minions.
Actually, the mission system is turning out to be the major gameplay element, so in the end it might not have anything to do with MWC.

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Have you ever played Dungeon Keeper 2?

Loved that game.

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Do you happen to have any games you've programmed before to show?

No exactly relevant, but I don't see why not.

Here's the assembla spaces for most of my amateur projects.
https://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/caged11 -> My first game. A full rpg done entirely in C++ and SDL. Uses XML for scripting.
http://code.assembla.com/phago/subversion/nodes -> A one week game to learn actionscript 3.0
http://code.assembla.com/Quickcompo2009/subversion/nodes -> A xna 3 day quick compo.
https://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/Proyect_X -> My current big project. A 3D engine + small games as the engine progresses.

The professional ones, can't say naught until Nov the 6th. :D

Well, thanks a lot for everyone's help. The design is finally straightened out, and I'm off to make the game.

If in a few months you see a "Evil Mastermind" type of game around gamedev, might just be me.

Thanks again!

Forgive me if i missed something...
you said you have played overlord or at least are familiar with it..
how can you justify this being so similar, I am tempted to say that a large majority of what you wrote is a rip.
I'm really struggling with this because as i read one bit and think how it is exactly the same as overlord or overlord 2, I think oh, well that must be where the similarities stop, but then i read something else that is exactly the same as overlord.

are we talking about an original game here or are you actually talking about how you would make overlord 3?