Monday, July 31, 2006

Design Genres #7: Sim Builders

Wikipedia calls these "Economic Simulation" games which is probably more accurate, considering the player has to balance resources and profits to get the maximum of the latter using the minimum of the former. If you want an example of the type of game I'm talking about, Sim City is pretty much the biggest name out there followed closely with any series with "Tycoon" in its title.

The central focus to this sort of game is how efficiently your unit works (steady) and unlike other strategy games - where the goal is usually a satisfactory answer to the question "how well does your unit work in beating the crap out of the bad guys?" - the unit in question tends to be something slightly more mundane and non-violent. Such as a city, a hospital, a space installation or an, um, ant colony. Of course, more often than not, the games themselves aren't quite as mundane as the reference material it uses.

I don't mind saying that this genre, like RTS games, simply make my eyes glaze over when I try to play them. It takes a level of micro-management I don't think I'll ever be able to provide enough attention to to benefit from. But again, there are ideas in this genre that interest me a lot more as a designer, especially when the games get more fantastic and surreal such as the more futuristic entries of the Sim City offerings. The attention to detail on matters such as archeology (both current and experimental/potential, like arcologies or cold fusion power stations) is again, one thing I always admire with these massive simulation games.

So where's the idea? This one sort of ties in slightly with my Alien World idea a few weeks back and even more slightly with the Stargate Sim idea from several months ago, in that's it's basically the expansion of a race as it slowly takes over their native star system and eventually their galaxy. Rather than have lots of fights with sentient races also vying for galactic control (a la something like Starcraft, which has Zerg-rushed to death) the planets are mostly devoid of life (or have their own form of it, though primitive). So where's the fun? Basically, you control a giant terraforming ship that can either mine a planet or convert it for your species to live on (or maybe a few other uses also, if I come up with any). Because the planet's government works as a series of competing corporations that care of those in their respective territories/countries rather than an elected democracy, you're in contention with the other corporations and their ships. The Sim element comes from how you choose to expand your corporation's ship (as both its captain and executive officer) and how you control the planets you leave in your stead (which may become bases of operations, mining planets or planets for settling sympathizers of your corporation, or the families of its workers).

As the story progresses, you'll eventually be bumping into other corporations and their territory. There is a very small amount of out-and-out inter-corporation warfare in this game, as the corporations are at least somewhat civilized (though the real reason is to stop it becoming too "RTS" combat-orientated), though there's plenty of industrial espionage going on, and behind-the-scenes takings down of rival companies. Think Civilisation, and how you could get rid of opposing civilisations in that game without actually fighting them. Some of these corporations have been around for centuries, so they'll have more than a few tricks up their sleeves. As the story progresses further, you'll discover more about the galaxy you're in, including why several planets seem to show traces of a previous ancient space-faring lifeform and why their whole race seemed to suddenly vanish...

Gameplay is divided into two modes: Ship and Planets. With the ship, you're required to expand and upgrade parts of it and fit it as needed for the next mission (which you'll be briefed on each time you return to company HQ after finishing the previous mission). If there's a mining planet that the company's found, make sure the ship has drillers (both machine-wise and trained people), plenty of storage space free and enough resources to set up a permanent mining base. If the planet is unhabitable, but in a favorable position close to its star for life to prosper, you need to make sure you have the sufficient terraforming equipment to handle it, etc. As you travel there, you may need to deal with various issues and events you'll meet along the way (sort of like Oregon Trail, where half the crew gets Space Dysentery and dies. Well, maybe not.) There may even be a few profitable side-trips on offer, though you have to be careful to still have enough resources to be able to finish the main mission.

The second mode involves the planets you've set operations on, and is also where the personnel feature comes to the fore. The game has a bunch of NPCs which join you for various requirements, and though they can be simple positions like soldiers (always helpful for space pirates or other types of trouble) or engineers, there'll also be highly skilled diplomats and commanders which your company will assign you. It is through these commanders, once they've been set up as an overseer of operations on a particular planet, that you'll be able to control the planets you have taken over yourself. So not only do you have the ship to worry about, but also the many different kinds of planet installations you'll be making. And they'll be increasing in number as the game progresses. Of course, the commander NPCs can take care of business themselves if you don't feel up to it, but they'll benefit more (as will the corporation) if you give them direction yourself. Each planet type will have its own simulation mode, with mining planets involving searching for new veins of precious minerals (using ultrasound or maybe some kind of technologically-advanced alien gizmo) and using the resources available when you formed the colony to produce as much yield as possible. Newly terraformed planets with colonies will need supervision to avoid the various unseen dangers the planet has, such as persistent corrosive gases covering the planet or an unprecedented orbit path through an asteroid field. To ensure the colony's safe success, you'll need to monitor their situation carefully, though they - and you - will have plenty of warning with orbiting satellites and advanced monitoring equipment broadcasting any potential cataclysms.

That's probably enough text for now, but I feel this could be a game that both covers the colonization feel of space exploration (which has been done a few times, most notably by Alpha Centauri or Colonization) with the spaceships and adventure of space exploration itself, though removing any other sentient alien races to keep it simple (and far more feasible, since the appearance of advanced alien lifeforms don't appear to be much of a possibility according to current science). Having rival corporations will probably be competition enough.