I realize this falls squarely in the category of "dubious idea at best" but I'm interested in hearing what you think. Though long, I've tried to format for maximum readability:Basic Idea The abstract sandbox RPG/Life Sim I'm working on (single player, persistent universe) revolves around a mix of everyday and adventurous gameplay. In most games like this (Sims, Kudos, even Stick Figure RPG) work is abstract, and for good reason. After all, who wants to do crap that even remotely resembles what they have to do in real life? Well, what if it was more like a mix of crafting, world building and strategy? Assassins, Mad Scientist Fry Cooks and Orbital Engineers The key to making this idea work may be grand strategy, interesting tactics and variety. Strategy: You have two main goals - achieve as much as you can in a limited time (your lifespan) and pursue goals which become unique to your character based on how you build their personality and react to events in the world. All progress through the game is controlled by time, which takes the form of turns and sub-turns. A turn can be an hour, a day, a month or even a year, a sub-turn simply a fraction of that. On one level you want to pass greater and greater chunks of time more quickly because this will allow you to build up more resources (skill points, bribe money to get certain posts, tuition, etc.). But you have to balance this against the overall clock and the fact that, at a minimum, each turn will require you to take some risk or respond to some event. Jobs are either stepping stones to other jobs or stand-alone ends unto themselves. An assassin, for instance, is stand-alone and requires increasing success in stealth and relationship building (to get more customers) which generates increased attention ("aggro") from competition and the law. A mad scientist isn't a job but requires a way to pay for power, equipment and workspace; this may lead to being an unorthodox person in an environment that allows weird opportunities (like dropping the new serum you've created into the deep fryer to see how it mutates the customers). More formal jobs are abstract, requiring you to generate points for advancement based on "projects" (below). Others, such as leadership posts (mob boss, ranger's guild leader) permit faction-faction strategy on the game's map through movement of resources or characters (NOTE: This is ABSTRACT... there's NO active AI, only resource risks, relationship management, skill tests and events) Tactics: "Projects" are things that have one or more stats and which, when finished, alter the stats of a faction (like it's security) or an item (like a prototype it sells, which abstractly affects its fortunes). Projects are completed by filling up 1 to 10 nodes representing "work." Each node may require personal resources (some described in this thread), faction resources, skill tests or inventory items to advance. Degree of success affects the time cost, and errors (failure) affects the project's overall stats. Projects always have a deadline and results affect your overall success with the faction. Projects can carry on over multiple turns and require trade-offs (for instance, weighing the future help of an ally versus reporting his wasting of resources). Success or failure can alter things like the chance for an event to happen (reactor leak) or one aspect of a faction's operation (a shoddy prototype that bankrupts a company). In addition to character interaction to get resources, skill tests involve specific strategies-- Four at minimum: Shoddy, subversive, average and careful.

• Shoddy - Save resources by cutting corners at the risk of major flaws
• Subversive - Undermine your faction, current boss or rival coworker; this can connect with greater faction-faction gameplay, such as going undercover to sabotage a rival's starship
• Average - Pay full resource price risking full strength skill checks and time costs; this option also costs the most Will (a precious personal resource)
• Careful - Use increased resources and time, lowering skill checks; this option likely generates increased attention and better results, which if you have envious coworkers or paranoid leadership may not actually be a good thing

Each option may have sub-options and will fit the job (so Engineer's careful fix might be "Diagnose" which leads the even more expensive, harder but more rewarding "Reverse Engineer") Variety: Finally, this whole idea dies without variety so three approaches hopefully mix things up-- variable sub-turns, randomly generated projects and variable encounters.

• Variable Sub-turns: The chances to make each skill test, and thus project progress, are somewhat random. One day may "fly by" giving you minimal progress but saving you on personal resources like Energy or Will. Or the opposite-- a "day" turn may be filled with up to 10 sub-turns, allowing time to fix mistakes, sabotage rivals and kiss up to management. Neither is necessarily good or bad and spec'ing your character certain ways (like taking the "Stress Puppy" perk) allow some control over this.
• Randomly generated projects: Items, characters, skill tests, etc. can be randomized as well as events that happen on success or failure. This makes something as mundane as a spacewalk to fix a comms dish potentially different most of the time.
• Variable Encounters (stat driven events): At least one event pops up for consideration every turn. This can be anything from a strange encounter that makes you late for a vital meeting to a chance to catapult yourself into an entirely different job. Some goof up or buff your project stats, your relationships with allies or how you get by in other parts of the game (data revealing that your company is crooked, for example).

WTF? Why Bother? I'm trying to capture "life in the future." If I do just monster slaying or even more traditional stuff like trade then I'll have no chance to deliver the flavor. In terms of work, the idea is to make the events, the skill tests, and the strategy for relating to allies / coworkers colorful. I'm not exactly sure all of this amounts to a game, though. In tandem with the adventure and life sim elements in a persistent game universe where you are supposed to make successive characters and see the world change, it mightThen again, maybe not... thoughts?

Well, I like your ideas - this and the resource one. This, I think, could help a lot with the immersion factor. My only concern is how wide of an audience would this be a boon to. I'm the patient type, so I wouldn't mind this at all, but others might not like the humdrum - go to work, correct all the sub-menus AGAIN, do something else in the game.

Making random events help, but just how varied and out-of-the-players-hands would these be? If there are instant loss and win events, players might get frustrated with the former and wonder why the latter was ever put in. And seeing "While going to work, you witness a vehicle crash. What do you do?" for the twentieth time might annoy the player for having to re-input the same options again to get the most desired outcome (Likely, ignore your civic duty and run/drive like heck to get to work on time).

To re-iterate: How would you make this fun/streamlined for the impatient players?

I'm doing my best to not sate my own curiosity of your gameplay, but I do have some questions once the majority of the discussion is over.

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Original post by KnTenshi Well, I like your ideas - this and the resource one. This, I think, could help a lot with the immersion factor.

Hey thanks! I'm glad you think so. In a sandbox game when you have extremely limited resources I think this might have best chance of both conveying a diverse universe and a (hopefully) personal one.

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My only concern is how wide of an audience would this be a boon to. I'm the patient type, so I wouldn't mind this at all, but others might not like the humdrum - go to work, correct all the sub-menus AGAIN, do something else in the game.

Audience I'm not sure of and I'm entirely putting the question aside for the moment. (Technically, if I was at all reasonable I'd be making a straight RPG, but unfortunately there's a sort of "golden thread" to this design that demands certain features. And I've never been known to be all that reasonable where game design is concerned. :P)

In terms of the danger of this being humdrum you're right. Design-wise it brings up the question, "Why would this be boring?" This in turn gets to the heart of work itself-- particularly repetitive, meaningless work.

But it's the future! Why does work have to be repetitive? Or, if it is, why can't the world itself be changing and offer new challenges. If you're setting up a new colony and maybe running a farm, why can't there be strange events or even more global struggles looming on the horizon?

One other important point to make-- I'm fusing sandbox RPG stuff with this. So the more everyday activities are optional. Let's say you're on a new planet and get sick of your day job scavenging for parts and fixing broken ships. So you head off into the wilderness to prospect, or seek out alien ruins (dungeons, essentially).

As far as is realistically possible in terms of development I'd like to try to make as many flexible options as possible, with your limited lifespan and character-specific game goals being the main drivers encouraging you to achieve.

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Making random events help, but just how varied and out-of-the-players-hands would these be?

Thinking these should be based on your stats, your location and the dominant factions in the area. Items and allies should be able to either help you control or mitigate them. A security drone, for instance, might be an option that negates muggings (or has settings that aid you in combat).

One big element I'm really relying on is changing the game world. Think about this almost in terms of a game like Civilization or Alpha Centauri. Times change, technology changes, the map changes. Boom and bust cycles, new inventory gadgets, new jobs, even (if I can conceptualize it in some workable way) changes in culture should really mix things up, presenting different events.

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And seeing "While going to work, you witness a vehicle crash. What do you do?" for the twentieth time might annoy the player for having to re-input the same options again to get the most desired outcome (Likely, ignore your civic duty and run/drive like heck to get to work on time).

Right. This has to tie into rewards and the way the world works. One thing I've hated about these sorts of situations (which go hand in hand with hard and fast victory conditions) is that they're insensitive to each other. Who cares if you were busy saving a busload of children from the East River, Johnson! You're late for work!

Stupid.

Events shouldn't always be random and they shouldn't be trivial. If nothing is connected you're inspired to min-max. So there has to be a tradeoff that makes a given action lead down a certain path.

For instance, what if ignoring people in distress somehow changed your personality or moral alignment? If there was some value of being one kind of person over another, this would be significant. Maybe your boss is a jerk and you get no credit for helping an old lady across the street. Make the old lady a potential heiress with no children who's inspired to leave her fortune to you, or something. Or make it more subtle, maybe using inner monologues with choices that allow you to reflect on what you did or didn't do, in effect evolving you toward a selfish, uncaring jerk yourself or self-sacrificing, unsung hero.

It should be possible to obliviously walk through the world achieving your own ends and ignoring everybody. But I want this to have a cost, even if it's something fantastically like seeing your country slip into fascism while you do nothing.

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I'm doing my best to not sate my own curiosity of your gameplay, but I do have some questions once the majority of the discussion is over.

No, please, ask away. I've got a sinking feeling that this whole thing is tl;dr to most folks, especially because it's so unorthodox. I do think there's enough supporting the gameplay to make it all interesting, but work in games is a very tough sell.

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Original post by Wavinator One other important point to make-- I'm fusing sandbox RPG stuff with this. So the more everyday activities are optional. Let's say you're on a new planet and get sick of your day job scavenging for parts and fixing broken ships. So you head off into the wilderness to prospect, or seek out alien ruins (dungeons, essentially).

Would these choices have a negative impact, such as breaking a contract (and all the fun that brings) or losing a non-inherent resource such as crops or customers?

I am a little curious as to how the player could get feedback on how their work is valued. Such as a "boss" telling the player that it would be better if the player would work faster, even if the player has to cut corners to reach the desired speed? Or a potential customer telling the character that they have heard of the player's work and would call on the player when the time comes?

Also, can skills be leveled up or trained? Could the player start out as a new, young farmer on a recently colonized world and will - over time - learn the tricks of the trade, i.e. level up their farming skill? Or could the character, conceivably, be the ship's doctor and find himself having to play doctor on the engine because the ship's engineer is currently in the sickbay with Space Fungus?

I had more questions, but then I re-read your posts and realized they were either already answered or were a non or impossible issue.

Perhaps ignoring events such as the car wreck could affect your resources as a reflection of a change of personality.

Go watch 2001 for ideas about how the future can be very boring/ordinary,
Kubrick showed teh long list of instructions on how to use a ZeroG toilet while on a flight to the moon as exciting as any airplane trip.


Anyway. Your individuae will not just have work time but also whaterver hours are left to do other things -- nightschool for self impreovement or moonlighting as an assassin or digging up dirt to blackmail the boss , whatever else could also have an impact on the 'life'.


The hard part will be filling in all the interrelations with other 'individiuals' and social entities that make up so much of our lives. Those NPCs much behave in expected ways (including whatever endcases give the player an in for advancement/adventure). Presentation of the situation in adaquate levels of complexity yet with some subtlety (not smacking them in the face with it) is hard as will be letting the player take desired actions (which will cause appropriate reactions) without it all being choreographed.


The AI to run the NPCs is a daunting task even if kept to a fairly simple level of complexity. With your tunr based mechanism at least you can control the processing requirements (versus continuous real time AI).

Planners with Hierarchical Goals
Templated skill attributes for NPCS (sets of solutions to achiev goals)
Individualized preferences for solution choices
Roles and Social entities
Social contracts are based on Negotiation (what I get for what I give...)
Local themes for terrain and social context
Self adapting NPCs that adjust into their environment (organicly) to prebuild the 'world'
A common metric for 'worth' for decisionmaking (risk vs payoff)
Stability of the world system is paramount (simulation must handle what the player does to it)
Multi-core/machine programming (the AI consumes CPU geometrically)


The AI system will dwarf the game mechanics part of the project.

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Original post by KnTenshi Quote: Original post by Wavinator One other important point to make-- I'm fusing sandbox RPG stuff with this. So the more everyday activities are optional. Let's say you're on a new planet and get sick of your day job scavenging for parts and fixing broken ships. So you head off into the wilderness to prospect, or seek out alien ruins (dungeons, essentially). Would these choices have a negative impact, such as breaking a contract (and all the fun that brings) or losing a non-inherent resource such as crops or customers?

This is a good thing to add, it should be something simple like a hit to your reputation. It could be interesting if reputation has more than one dimension-- not just good/bad, but whether you're considered inept, or a saboteur or flaky. Then this might mean that you have to do different things to redeem yourself based on what your reputation title is.

This could also be a factor of the job. Maybe some allow more leeway / time off, and for others (low skill, high turn-over jobs) there's no cost at all.

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I am a little curious as to how the player could get feedback on how their work is valued. Such as a "boss" telling the player that it would be better if the player would work faster, even if the player has to cut corners to reach the desired speed? Or a potential customer telling the character that they have heard of the player's work and would call on the player when the time comes?

I like these. I haven't gotten much farther than a ratings system for your reputation but I can see that individual NPCs might need to have individual opinions. The potential customer should probably be a stat-based random event, as would something like a competitor luring the player away.

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Also, can skills be leveled up or trained?

Yes.

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Could the player start out as a new, young farmer on a recently colonized world and will - over time - learn the tricks of the trade, i.e. level up their farming skill? Or could the character, conceivably, be the ship's doctor and find himself having to play doctor on the engine because the ship's engineer is currently in the sickbay with Space Fungus?

One I have yet to figure out is how detailed I want to make skills. If you're a farmer, for instance, does that mean that you can farm everywhere? This is simple, but I'm wondering if there should be any complexity to getting trained itself. The ship's doctor, for instance, is an interesting situation because it hints that you could have a web of knowledge where like disciplines relate. Maybe not engineering and medicine, but maybe medicine and xenobiology, or engineering and navigation.

I'd also been mulling over a way to really radicalize jobs using the fiction of plug-in implants. This would sort of be a Matrix-style "I need to know kung-fu" thing but temporary and with side-effects. It would be one way for the doctor to take over for the engineer but still leave a purpose to even have people with fixed knowledge.

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Original post by JasRonq Perhaps ignoring events such as the car wreck could affect your resources as a reflection of a change of personality.

This could work provided there was a way to make it clear over time. The inner monologue idea I posted about could help here, though I have to be careful to set expectations-- I don't want a player thinking that the game is going to penalize them for not taking risks, only that this is one choice which results in certain consequences.

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Original post by wodinoneeye Go watch 2001 for ideas about how the future can be very boring/ordinary, Kubrick showed teh long list of instructions on how to use a ZeroG toilet while on a flight to the moon as exciting as any airplane trip.

Haha, seen it already. That's the opposite of what I want. Philosophically things will probably be much the same, but in terms of game design I think this idea depends on things being just off enough that it's actually interesting to explore the presented options.

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Anyway. Your individuae will not just have work time but also whaterver hours are left to do other things -- nightschool for self impreovement or moonlighting as an assassin or digging up dirt to blackmail the boss , whatever else could also have an impact on the 'life'.

Yeah, a game like Kudos does this (at least the nightschool and shopping, no assassinations in that game) in the form of time, stat and relationship management. The stats, such as your friend's regard for you or the state of your household, drive other stats, which in turn drive the overall state of the game.

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The hard part will be filling in all the interrelations with other 'individiuals' and social entities that make up so much of our lives. Those NPCs much behave in expected ways (including whatever endcases give the player an in for advancement/adventure). Presentation of the situation in adaquate levels of complexity yet with some subtlety (not smacking them in the face with it) is hard as will be letting the player take desired actions (which will cause appropriate reactions) without it all being choreographed.

Yes, presentation is key. At the most basic level, characters could have a single stat indicating their regard for the player and they could be fixed to a location. Your boss, for example, would technically always be at work during business hours and vanish otherwise.

The next level would be give NPCs multiple locations based on time (not paths, game's too abstract for that). One level above that would be location probabilities based on stats that make up something of the NPC's personality, again constrained by time.

If it's possible to conceive of discrete relationship states (much as 4X strategy game rulers have, e.g., friend, foe, neutral) then it would be possible to have some sort of next layer where there is gameplay in dealing with and changing the relationships. I don't know that I'm much willing to go beyond that.

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Planners with Hierarchical Goals Templated skill attributes for NPCS (sets of solutions to achiev goals) Individualized preferences for solution choices Roles and Social entities Social contracts are based on Negotiation (what I get for what I give...) Local themes for terrain and social context Self adapting NPCs that adjust into their environment (organicly) to prebuild the 'world' A common metric for 'worth' for decisionmaking (risk vs payoff) Stability of the world system is paramount (simulation must handle what the player does to it) Multi-core/machine programming (the AI consumes CPU geometrically) The AI system will dwarf the game mechanics part of the project.

Meh. Possibly. But I'd like to invite you to think values that spawn events over agents that plan and out-maneuver the player.

Take planners, for instance. Do you need them if what happens in the game is the result of events presented to the player rather than agents making decisions? Example: You're presented with a chance to side with your boss and accept defective parts for a starship prototype or report him to authorities and lose your job. Either choice drives stats like your reputation, honesty and maybe even stats tracking your criminal deeds. These are latter ticked off to generate events. If you side with your boss, I create a consequence in the form of an entity (all the starships being built) potentially failing.

I see the game tracking and ticking though these "consequence objects" as time goes on (likely driven by your stats, as these should track what you've been doing the most).

Hmmm OK keeping the simulation aspect more abstract....


Archetype situations with fill in details from the local situation (with some at least some rules to cull out nonsensicals and maybe avoid repeats to close together).

That particular location node has coefficients that control the mix of situations offered for the user to interact with (some forced, some selectable...)

The decision of the player then adjusts immediate results (another deal for the company, a commission for the player or a plus to job evaluation...) but then secondary effects like accellerating the deals sent the players way due to his ability or a shady decision being adopted as a prefered deal the business starts doing (adjusting/altering the ratios of the mix of situations given the user).

Adaquate feedback to the player when things start slipping so that there is time to compensate (and adaquate different actions to take -- a large spectrum to give the playe some control)


Have some competing simulated opponents/contenders that offer other solutions to the same offered problem and the palyer gets to decide whether to let it go because of the cost/risk or top the opponents (gambling on the risk to get the payoff)

Have a mix of some mundane problems/situations to act as a background so the player can play easier when desired maybe while waiting for a good opportunity.

Have solution hinge on players discovery of information (some actively sought others accidentally found) some coming from edges of the situation or the players secondary activities (that tip given during that golf game or the overheard conversation at the bar ???)



Make a calendar mechanism for player to track activities -- specific times when the decision must be made (with delays as happens in reality too).
Time would be managed to get benefits or player could 'wing it'


With this abstract aspect the players assets have to be laid out for them -- maybe a graphical token moving interface to rearrange things/ hold things in reserve or apply them to activities. "I put 2 'days work time' into projectX
while also spending 3 'off hours' digging up dirt to sabatoge the competitions solution to ProjectX (or to steal their solution and pack on my 'work hours' to improve upon it. The time past when I spent 'off hours' cultivating info sources would pay off, etc, etc...


The details of project X would be filled in from a list 'starship engine' or 'holo-toilet' or whatever --- long lists could be made even with self mutating paterns to greatly expand the appearance of not being canned. The size/aspects of the project would be a template with factors that the player could discover and influence in various ways (again mutate depending on meta factors (those secondary aspects) that the players previous activites may have shaped.



Side effects of the players actions start to limit behavior choices (by making them riskier or more costly or by cutting access to resources/tools (criminals rarely call on the cops to save them from ruthless rivals..). Resources/tools can be built up over time (subject to unfortunate circumstances lowering them or lucky boons at times)


Player can learn patterns of common difficulties which can then be handled by covering those contingencies (ie- that high priced 'fixer' that he met a while back or who owed him a favor --- beware of asking favors of the Godfather...)

I love this idea. A whole game could be made in this vein focusing only on engineering R&D. You either select or is assigned a project, depending on your position in the hierarchy. This can be anything from an internal job to upgrade the company's <procedurally generated technobabble> component to a new commercial spaceship to a bid on the giant government order on a new weapon system.

Then your allocate your resources every turn on activities. This can be lobbing your boss for resources, designing wacky new prototypes, refining old technologies, test prototypes, do market research or other field testing, maybe some PR like letting a "Ships n' Rockets" journalist take a ride in your prototype or submit your work to the Agency for Safety in Space to get it approved for use in commercial flight.

The inventive process could be similar to how those breeder games work, except you can control which properties should be strived for. So you could say "durability of design1 + firepower of design2 + brainstorming" and those properties would be prioritized. Don't forget options like peeking at the competition in either legal or illegal ways.

These nodes you speak of would be like a progress bar, right? For devices, their stats could be used as goals. For a starting job, a component might need it's <procedurally generated technobabble> endurance improved from 40 to at least 55. A government contract could be minimum spaceship specs like speed, firepower, etc. plus some hints on how they value different properties when comparing different models.


On a final note, jobs involving relations like marketing or spying could be modeled on 4X games where you build up networks. Your resources are time and money, your "buildings" are contacts which can be guys reading the local newspapers to analysts to insider spies. Some give constant rewards like staying up-to-date while other might give more random rewards like dirty info on someone. Strive for that rewarding feeling of buiding stuff and the "one-more-turn" effect.