Hi Aaron,
It seems that more and more BGT games are being flagged by many major
virus scanners, and so these days, even I, once a major proponent of
BGT, am avoiding it like the plague. I have it installed for helping
other people, playing games from source, whipping out quick
concepts...But I don't release anything through BGT any more.
Of course that makes things much harder for me. It's both a blessing and
a curse that BGT has a lot of convenience features built into it. Try
finding such functions in C++ or similar, with an easy-to-use
interface...No chance.
Luckily for Nick, he's been programming mainstream languages long enough
to know what's out there and how to use them. So not only is he
realising BGT's limits (I did that three years ago!), but he will have
no teething problems just switching to a new language and getting things
done.
As for me...I'm just sitting here hoping a fairy can show me what to do,
because getting my obviously relatively small brain around low level
lava and automated mastery and godliness is just giving me plenty of big
fat pounding headaches. I'm just so freakin' glad Assembly never crossed
my mind when I was trying to choose a programming language! Lol.
Cheers,
Damien.
On 18/05/2018 03:43 PM, valiant8086 wrote:
Hi.
I like this. What's more, it's similar to other projects you have so
something you have a good idea how to do already. You could in theory do
this with bgt too I think, if you actually ended up needing to stick
with it for one reason or another.
Cheers:
Aaron Spears, A.K.A. valiant8086. General Partner - Valiant Galaxy
Associates "We make Very Good Audiogames for the blind community -
http://valiantGalaxy.com";
<Sent with Thunderbird 52.1.0 portable>
On 2/11/2018 5:35 PM, Nick and Gemma Adamson wrote:
Hi All.
Thank you all for the ideas on and off list.
It looks like Sims are very popular and I’ve got a great list of ideas
you’ve all suggested so thank you for your time.
The idea that has captured my imagination, as you can see below, is a
city building simulator. I’ve been letting my mind run wild a bit and
have pulled together an idea of what I’m thinking. It’s potentially
quite a big project so don’t expect anything in the next month or so,
<grins>
Also at this moment in time this has captured my imagination and I’m
quite enthusiastic about it however I’ve got a folder of projects
sitting on my computer that I’ve started and didn’t really go
anywhere. I’m hoping this won’t be another one of these. But I don’t
believe in miss leading people so consider the below a set of ideas
which “could” turn in to a game, there’s no promises.
Take a look at the brain dump below. This isn’t a complete set of
features I think the game may have, it just some ideas I’ve had as
I’ve been reading the various replies I received. Are there additional
things you’d like to add to the wish list? Again, no promises that any
of the below or any ideas will make the final cut but if we’re
thinking big then why not add things. It’s much easier to add ideas in
at the design stage rather than trying to squeeze them in at a later
date.
So my ideas:
Concept
You start in an empty field. Your task is to take your empty field and
turn it in to a city. The main scoring mechanism is the population of
your city.
The terrain of your city plot will be randomly generated. Somewhere on
the field will be an interstate/motorway which you need to connect
your road system to for contact with the outside world. There may also
be a river, lake, mountains, sea shore, national railway link, natural
resources such as coal, iron, copper, gold, stone, ETC.
The environment will be randomly set at the start. This will include
factors like average yearly temperature, rain fall, wind.
Game play.
I was thinking 2 modes of game play. A city planner part where all of
the money stuff is managed for you and it’s all about laying out your
city and designing the environment. In this mode every time you build
a road it'll automatically include the utility supply systems. The
idea is that this mode is more casual.
The second mode is city mayor where all of the below is up to you.
More complex but allows for more interesting game play.
You'll be able to move around your plot of land in a 3d sound
environment, similar to how you did in Park Boss. Depending on what
players think a future update may include the ability to drive around
the city.
Most spoken text will be done using screen reader/tts however there'll
be a spoken guide that is able to give context sensitive hints, this
is the help system.
I'm planning that there will be basic textual information on screen.
Interaction will be via keyboard or game controller.
You'll be able to build multiple cities at one time and the mode,
planner or mayor, will be set on a per city basis.
In a future version you may even be able to tour other player’s cities.
Utilities
For water supply, power, telephone/internet service, natural gas,
water purification, ETC., you start out by getting this from the
national grid. Each will have a cost associated with the supply of the
utility. You will be able to build industrial facilities for all
possible utilities which can reduce the need for the national grid.
There will be different types of industrial units you can build. For
instance, for power you could build different types of power plant,
nuclear, coal, gas, wind, hydro, sola. Each will have an associated
cost for building and then ongoing generation. You’ll be able to sell
services back to the national grid to make money. You’ll also be able
to sell your services back to other real world players using some sort
of online being and selling system. You’ll be able to set your prices
and undercut other players and the national grid. When building your
city you’ll need to build supply lines for the utilities to the
development in your city.
Transportation:
Your city will be linked using various transportation systems. Roads,
Metro train system, busses, cycle and walking paths, ETC. you’ll be
able to Control schedules and routes for busses and trains. Roads will
be different types from major high ways to more suburban routes.
You’ll be able to place gas stations and be able to select the mix of
gasoline to electric charge points.
Buildings:
The main point will be building. There’ll be industrial buildings,
factories, farms, offices, ETC. basically most of your population are
employed at the industrial buildings, these will be privately run and
once built you won't need to manage each industrial building. There'll
be city facilities, schools, garbage collection, city hall, leisure
centres, parks, police, fire service, ambulance, hospitals, ETC.,
which will have employees who you'll have to pay.
There'll be houses, shops, entertainment areas, universities,
libraries for your residents to live and use. Each building will have
various options to do with quality or size. There’ll be a building and
maintenance cost associated with each as well as a time to construct.
It'll be a major part of the game to balance the cost of things
against the desirability and how attractive it makes your city to its
residents. For instance cost of living will need to be balanced
against the pollution in the environment.
Average house prices will be monitored and you'll need to balance the
types of housing and ensure enough capacity of city facilities for the
population you've got. You’ll also need to ensure that the housing
matches the types of workers you’re employing. For example if your
building a very industrial town you may want to keep your house prices
down to allow those that work in the industrial areas to be able to
afford housing.
Money:
You’ll be able to set taxes like a residence tax, sales tax, and
business rates. You'll be able to sell utility services to other
players. Fundamentally the game is about city planning and balancing
the books. You’ll be able to build buildings that are for national
services like prisons, waste processing facilities, military bases,
ports, financial services and sell their services back to the government.
If your trying to build a particular type of city you'll be able to
set tax rates for particular sectors, for instance if you get a map
which includes a sea shore you could build a doc, give low business
rates to shipping companies and try to become a national shipping hub.
Tourism
Depending on the type of train that gets generated for your city it
may lend its self to a tourist industry and you'll be able to build
buildings that encourages tourism, again this could be encouraged
using the business rates and infrastructure projects like airports.
Events
There'll be some kind of random event system, you get chosen to host a
sporting event, there's a severe winter so building has been slower.
Similar to how there was in Park Boss but with less severe
consequences. I used this system to really drive park boss, I don't
see this as being the big driver for city boss.
City Monitoring.
Basic information such as population level, city monthly income and
outgoings ETC. will be available but you'll be able to drill down in
to the numbers, employment rates, cost of living, and amount of
commercial premises which is unoccupied, and so on.
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