I was playing around with Blender and the tutorial videos and was thinking it would be neat to have a game environment where players spent their time building stuff instead of killing each other and occasionally breaking objects in the environment. Construction could be implemented in physics code, possibly with a lego-like interface, where player characters and npcs could pick up and manipulate blocks of matter such as stone and earth, along with tools and glues/mortars to merge and cut the materials. It would kind of be a cross between a 3D rendering program and a game, in some ways, possibly with some physics and new code ("industrial code") thrown in as well. Another neat "game" idea would be a game that simulates another application. Blender is kind of tricky to learn, so a fun game might be "EZ LEARN BLENDER GAME!!!", which is a blender-like game that teaches the player to use blender in a series of game-like challenges on a reduced or simplified interface with some extra data files thrown in, along with possibly allowing blender experts to score their skills in a series of short blender-esque challenges. This educational gaming simulation might be handy on a variety of non-computer topics as well. A car repair game featuring a fully simulated car and a simulated player with a simulated kit of tools would be neat. You could even have the player start with few tools and a limited amount of money, and he'd have to fix cars for $X per customer to get more money to buy more exotic tools. Near the end of the game the player might be able to work on luxury cars, F1 racers, private jets, spaceship two, or even sci-fi machines like the inergalactic star teleportation drive. (The fictitious ones actually seem kind of silly...) Some other real activities that would be fun to model, besides the current ones of driving a car, serial homicide, flying an airplane (usually with serial homicide thrown in), and abstract puzzle games, would be activities like any manufacturing of any item (Intel could release "Microprocessor building game!"), as well as whatever else people do, enjoy doing, or could potentially do without some sort of challenge like not knowing what to do. I should note that this article was partially inspired by AA3.

Moving thread to Game Design, as it has absolutely nothing to do with Software Engineering.

Lego produced several games with a lego-like interface, but there's also Sim City.

Fun trivia, there was actually a Sim City 2000 Network Edition for co-op play. Anyone remember that?

Anyway, my theory is that you can make a game out of anything as long as you're making decisions.

With fixing cars, the difference between winning or losing is basically know what you are doing, or at least looking it up.

In games, you're not supposed to look at the walkthrough, but that is exactly what you do when you fix a car or even a B-One bomber. There's instructions and procedures for everything. Engineers spend a lot of time writing these instructions. You don't go wing it. There's a right way to do it and a million wrong ways.

There might be a game in there. Maybe you have finite time and the car needs to be used for something - immediately - and your choices effect the outcome.

So if you're in a simulation and the virtual customer/friend comes to you and says the car is making a funny noise under the hood and he'll give you $400 to fix it, there's an exact procedure for how to solve and repair that problem online? I think there is not.

The key is knowing a lot of small procedures, which could be introduced into the game, such as removing a bolt or opening the hood, then running the simulated engine to more closely identify where the noise is coming from, or you could also inspect the running engine visually to identify any incorrectly moving parts, as well as unbolt everything, inspect every component part, then reassemble every part. Note that the third approach is the "wrong" way if the noise is being caused by a stretched fan belt.

It will be necessary to model the proper bonding of natural materials, their interactions with acid, and that sort of thing; I guess one big problem there is a lack of common knowledge on the topic. One important part of building a game like this would be to consult with experts on the topic: if one were to make a flight simulator, it would probably be a good idea to consult with pilots or other people knowledgeable about flying. A bunch of Comp Sci majors probably could not design a good flying game based only on the common knowledge of flight, nor could only a pilot; it would probably require a mix of the two to produce a good flight sim.

Materials can be bent as well, I've been doing some cold forging recently, mostly with a hammer and block of hardwood as an anvil, 22 gauge bronze, and some decent upper body strength. It's pretty enlightening, and I suppose one of the reasons there's no "cold forging" games that feature a hammer is the general lack of knowledge on non-recipe based science. That is something I think video games could potentially solve, hopefully.

Also sorry about posting this in the wrong area, thanks for moving it. I didn't see a game design topic when I looked at the list, just game programming, and I saw "design" in the software engineering description, so....anyways, at least it's in the right spot now.

I was looking at the lego web site, and that's actually a pretty good simulation of using legos. A cooler game might use blocks that aren't just plastic grooved blocks, maybe a variety of materials like metal, wood, plastic, stone, and at different densities. You could also bond the metals with a heating tool, and there might be bending, nailing, gluing, interlocking, and other bonding options for the blocks besides lego-wedging. (I suppose in a better construction program you could carve plastic (mined?) blocks into lego-shapes and the physics engine would allow them to bond, although as long as we're simulating and not actually doing we might as well simulate things that are expensive and/or deadly, like mining or building skyscrapers (or even houses). Note that a house building simulator could score your house as a $ amount, could give objectives in the form of homeowner requests, and could also expose your physics based home to things like earthquakes, floods, fires, burglary, nuclear attack, or 500 years of wear and tear.

I should also note that the lego games I looked at were mostly sandbox-style games, whereas a building game could be both sandbox or mission/objective based, like a physics puzzle where you have to repair a hole in a tire in a desert equipped with only a dull knife. (Note the tree nearby, perhaps it has some sap? (would be the hint)) That would actually be more of a mining/resource gathering survivalist game with a car, but that's okay too.



[Edited by - aersixb9 on April 7, 2010 3:49:39 PM]

Dwarf Fortress. You build a fortress, mine, build an economy, military, and condemn nobles to death by magma. Then you flood the world in magma and start a new one. Along the way, you have projects like waterworks (providing water to your dwarves), farming, and breeding whales. Then a female dwarf uses her baby as a shield in battle, gets mopey about it when the kid dies, and goes of and slaughters your entire population.

The newest version has even added healthcare to the list. But in general, the bulk of the fortress mode is not combat, but designing and building a successful fortress. Combat keeps things interesting, and provides additional challenge. You could even run a pacifist fort, using cage traps and a zoo, or just trade them for more booze.

If I understand correctly your asking a game with fairly advance physics that is probably even more advanced than red faction guerrilla geomod 2 engine
Custom parts with variable geometry and properties? you would need allot of material science to even begin not to mention the physics engine will scream

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customer/friend comes to you and says the car is making a funny noise under the hood and he'll give you $400 to fix it, there's an exact procedure for how to solve and repair that problem online? I think there is not.

Online? No. But there are manuals for operating on the car. My brother bought a truck on craig's list that "was just fine except for a blown headgasket" and that was "like a $20 part".

It turned out to be an epic adventure, but it was mostly following a (very large) manual, a lot of physical labor (outside, summer, Florida), hunting for parts and a fair amount of cursing.

The feeling of triumph at the end was entirely because it was real, and the car drove.

In a sim it would be the most tedious thing ever.

I'm not sure that there's even a market for a sim. Flight sims are great if you don't have an airplane, adventure sims and shooter sims sure, Orbiter sim yeah, but if you want to fix a car, you can get a broken car for dirt cheap, fix it, then flip it to recoup your cash.

If you don't feel like doing that, I don't think you'll do it in a sim.

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building game could be both sandbox or mission/objective based, like a physics puzzle where you have to repair a hole in a tire in a desert equipped with only a dull knife.

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If I understand correctly your asking a game with fairly advance physics

You don't necessarily need a monster physics engine. If you already have the solution in mind (the sap) its no more complicated than any other adventure puzzle game.

What manual was it? I'm going to go try dwarf fortress now...is there a 3D or 2D version, or is it only text? I think a dwarf fortress 3D MMO would be neat possibly, or even a single player 3D game like DF, although I haven't actually tried it yet...

As for the processor requirements, it may be necessary to initially design small map locations and focus on perhaps a few or even one object, since yeah this may cause some gnarly processor drain. I also don't claim to have the ability to build this myself, this is more a free suggestion to the pros and amateurs and anyone who's reading this site, since you all are probably into making games. Feel free to use any part of this idea, mix it with other ideas, or do the whole thing verbatim.

Also one of the key parts of having the car mechanic game would be building the "manual" into the game in a 3D, easy (hopefully fun) to follow format along with "example problems". The idea is that a new player would not necessarily know how to fix a car, but a game winner would be ready to start attempting to modify or repair a car with at least some knowledge of the potential dangers, challenges, risks, costs, tool requirements, difficulties, and effective procedures.

It was some kind of engine maintenance guide, it went into a lot of detail about how it all fit together, steps to get to parts, how much to rotate bolts, everything.

Your idea, I think, does depend on having a detailed simulation of the machine.

That's interesting in and of itself.

A while back me and my artist were brainstorming - well, fantasizing - about making games in the future. We talked about a wilderness driving simulation and how there could be detailed mechanical models so that the car can be damaged in realistic ways and you could need to fix it out in the field to home or whatever.

I don't remember where that went but I'm reminded of it here.

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some gnarly processor drain

Bwahahahhahha, good word.

I tried to fix a P3 buell blast motorcycle with only the owners manual and the repair guide, and the guide was completely worthless. Luckily I had some bicycle repair training and a friendly local underground mechanic who was willing to explain the 1-cylinder air carberated engine mechanism. I have also studied simpler machines, and one very simple car design is the electric car; it's literally just framework, wheels (+ steering), batteries, wire, electric motors, and a potentiometer as the throttle.

Using encapsulation, one could claim that a gas motor, fuel tank, and fuel lines behave in a similar way to an electric motor, batteries, and wires. Many of the common physics engines of today feature gears, pulleys, and belts. A motor would simply be a gear with a heavy inanimate box attached that spins with X watts of power. (Most car engines are around 70,000 -> 500,000 watts max), around which physics 3d parts could be matched in the approximate alignment of a real car. Modeling the hundreds of parts inside the motor might be trickier, although both IRL and in mechanics one can look to simpler engines, such as the 2-stroke diesel engine commonly found on motorized scooters and RC cars.