5 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:It's a broad question. The feedback you've gotten about "what is sci-fi" are appropriate in trying to narrow the question. Star Trek and Star Wars (sci-fi or not) were TV/movie shows - the popularity of the games made from those IPs were primarily popular because they were based on those highly popular IPs. That suggests that the formula for success begins with an already-popular IP. Until you get to Wing Commander, which was a 3D space combat sim that became a series because it was well designed and sold well.
In games, "sci-fi" is not a genre. We have simulations, RPGs, RTSes, adventure games, shooters, etc. I3Di, do you consider Borderlands a sci-fi game? Do you consider games with zombies to be sci-fi? I guess what I'm trying to get at is that your question needs focusing. Nobody can give you "the five steps that guarantee you'll have a hit sci-fi game." There's no simple formula. I don't know this game "World Max" that you mentioned. We can give you better answers (better ideas) for your idea if we know more about the genre, the basic play mechanics you're contemplating.
Okay, spoke before reading this. You want to make a game about space travel? With trade, diplomacy, combat...?
World Max is what I have spent the last year on. It's a procedural world generator. I plan to debut it at the next gaming convention here at the Eastridge Center where my store is located next summer. It' generates terrain, populates the world with trees, foliage, creates a separate database for each world using seeds and vector databases. I've made it to be compatible with Arc SRTM technology but that will take some time to integrate, so thinking on sticking with this and working the other in later. I'm doing atmospheric differential equations right now. But, I am thinking, if it generates 1 entire world and then get's compressed, I could potentially generate entire worlds and galaxies that could be streamed. I personally love Sci-Fi and that would be far better than a RPG starter for it. RPG's are a dime a dozen, Sci-Fi's, well, nothing terribly great yet. Beautiful, not phenomenal and entirely immersive.
To narrowing the question, this is a brain storm by the community. I hope to gleam lots of input and I am simply testing the notion. I want to start small but think big. Expansion is key and planning expansion in early design is important, but understanding what has been done and it's effect in other games and the views, well, it's simply, what to you, personally makes the game? What elements did you like what do you feel overall is missing, how could you combine your ideas into something great for you personally?
4 hours ago, Anri said:I suppose the winning formula can be found in works by Verne and HG Wells. Those were the stories that presented science fiction to the masses before the miracle of film, and if you read them and then study their authors and how they came to write them, then you can start to grasp how much they have influenced sci-fi and fantasy films over the last century.
If you watch The Empire Strikes Back carefully, you can almost make out War of the Worlds. The empire are the Martians with their overwhelming technology whereas the force is "our microscopic allies" - the Bacteria. The Empire takes almost everything from our beloved heros and just when the baddies have them beat, Luke places his faith in the force which allows him to connect with his family and start to resolve the galactic conflict. Yoda teaches us that it is the smallest things in life that are important, but we are blind to that when faced with great adveristy and fear of loss.
Its so easy to look to Star Wars, Back To The Future and Aliens as if they are the turning point in science fiction, but the attempts to emulate their success usually fail to meet expectations because film makers today lack the wonder of past generations where they had little but the imagination with which to build their worlds.
We know that we currently cannot joyride around the solar system, but stories, films and games allow us to over come that fact by saying "okay, lets pretend we have the technology to do that - how would that affect our life? Would it destroy or revolutionise it?". For some there is another question "what is stopping us from doing that?".
A computer allows us to simulate that experience to a certain degree - which is constantly changing as we struggle to find the limits of technology. Elite Dangerous is a game that can truely make us believe we can become part of the cosmos and actually own a space ship. Playing ED in the dark, using a flight joystick etc - you might as well be flying around in space...
On a personal note, I'm very fond of the Atredies palace in Cryo's Dune. Whether its in the David Lynch movie, Si-fy series or even the books - its like an old friend to me and a pretend holiday home once every summer. A similar feeling we get when seeing Bilbo's house once again in The Hobbit after all those years since the first three movies.
I guess what I am trying to say is look back into the mists of time and discover what made us fall in love with sci-fi in the first place, and then how we can bring those worlds and situations to life.
This is a awesome response. I happen to love Jules Verne. I have read all his works. 20,000 leagues, Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Around the World in 80 days. Very great response, and I agree. When I was growing up I had imagination and when the first Atari systems came out and I played the first attempt at them, I was already envisioning 3D adventures, dragons, heroic characters but much more alive than digital really. Being a kid. I will be reflecting on that, because you are absolutely right. Digital Media, Computers, Technology has taken a lot away from the simple imagination and bringing it to life in our conversations, writings, and thinking. Instead, we work feverishly to create our own versions on a computer and spend more time doing the work than writing a simple novel with words. Word Pictures are the spice of any great work.
