Designers Wanted

LiSE » Devlog
3 years ago by clayote
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LiSE is inching toward actual usefulness, but there aren't any real games in it yet.

I am not a game designer. When I tried to conceptualize a game for the engine I came up with Dungeon University, which is ridiculously overscoped and I never figured out how to crush it into a shape I could finish in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not even that into the whole magic school setting, it just seemed convenient.

The engine was never really about my game ideas to begin with. I'm more interested in getting this type of game to exist generally than in making one myself. If I have to make one myself I'll probably minimize the effort by remaking the original SimCity or something like that. But if I can demonstrate the engine by making a game for someone with great ideas who's got the design together but can't code so well, it'd be more interesting.

Put your game ideas in the comments. Maybe I'll implement one. Include contact info if you'd like to work together longer term.

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Rules-based, time-traveling Life Simulator Engine

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jintrone3 years ago

Hi - I just ran across your work here; it looks cool, thanks for doing it!  I'm a Prof at Syracuse University (https://ischool.syr.edu/joshua-introne/), and I'm in the middle of writing a proposal (if you're unfamiliar with the process, this is how we get money to do our work :-).  Part of the proposal is a pitch for a political simulation game - partly to study political decision making in the context of misinformation / alternative news / etc., but partly to create an educational platform to help people learn how to operate in our increasingly complex information ecosystem.

The game itself blends a life sim and political sim.  Most political sims involve players playing political elites.  In my sim, people play members of the public.  They have jobs, responsibilities (e.g., child care, community service, etc.), can buy stuff, can lose their homes if they're not careful.  The fidelity of this part of the sim is TBD, but it needs to be compelling enough to keep folks engaged.  I'm a decent designer (and coder), and can provide a good spec.

The "political" part of the game is that people are also exposed to information about policies and gov't officials (all NPCs) who can change things about the world they live in - e.g. taxation, infrastructure, public works, incentive programs.  In the envisioned game, I manipulate the channels via which people get information about such things (as well as the quality of that information), and the player will vote and communicate with others in order to enact changes.

Note that there will be many more NPCs (in the public as well as gov't officials) in the simulated work than actual players, but the behaviors / decisions of NPC will be based on sampling the activity of the players.  I envision something like 50 players per game.

If this sounds at all interesting to you, let me know, and I can share additional details!

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