{"id":728,"date":"2006-11-03T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2006-11-03T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=728"},"modified":"2008-08-16T10:55:46","modified_gmt":"2008-08-16T15:55:46","slug":"virtual-villagers-game-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=728","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Villagers & Game Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of these days I hope to get the chance to make my own videogame. I don’t know if I would sell it, or ask for donations, or just give it away, I just know I want to write one if I get the chance. My Terrain Project<\/a> was a result of me trying to scratch this particular itch. <\/p>\n

I know I’ve got too much going on to make the attempt right now. This might end up being a “Mister Holland’s Opus” thing, but if it does<\/em> happen it will probably deal with some sort of Sim or stats-building game. I like constructing simulations and inventing tech trees. The idea in Virtual Villagers has already been done, but I still enjoy toying with the concept in my head and thinking about how I might have done it differently. I just need to stay focused and resist the urge to go write some code. Or write a design document. I’m not kidding – it is taking real effort to not write down the technologies and gameplay dynamics that would drive a game like this. I have several files floating around on my hard drive along these lines, from when some game tickled the game-designer parts of my brain and I ended up mapping out a game just to get it out of my system.<\/p>\n

After playing Virtual Villager for a couple of days, I can see there is a lot more this idea has to offer. You could take this same idea (guide a group of villagers to prosperity) and make it as a “Sim” sort thing, and end up with a very different game altogether. I keep looking at the tech ladder and picturing ways to make it into a tech tree<\/em>, with the ability to pursue hunting \/ gathering \/ farming at different levels and with different tools. <\/p>\n

I would also like to see a game along these lines where the player arranges marriages<\/em> instead of arranging matings<\/em>, which would give the thing a more tribal feel. There would also be a strategy element to it: As long as the player isn’t shy about a little low-tech eugenics, they could try to breed better hunters or better engineers… <\/p>\n

Ah! I’m doing it. Okay, enough of this. <\/p>\n

Virtual Villagers is amusing. A demo is available<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of these days I hope to get the chance to make my own videogame. I don’t know if I would sell it, or ask for donations, or just give it away, I just know I want to write one if I get the chance. My Terrain Project was a result of me trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}