Mesa88 wrote:I`m an old Tycoon-fan. (Mostly the old classics)
What I like about the this type og game can be summed into 3 points:
1 - The feeling of creating a company
2 - The economics of the company
3- Creating something new (like the rollercoasters in RCT, or the car models in Detroit)
Notes on point 1 - This is where most games suceed in my experience. However a lot of games contain so much micromanagement that the game stops beeing fun when your company grows to big.
A few notes on point 2 - I have seen that a lot of the new low budget tycoon games the last few years have horrably bad economy controll. I want to be able to see prospects, detailed cost/income, be able to recive advice and have the tools to plan the companys finances. This is whare a lot of games in my experience go wrong. This part of the simulation tends to be to simple, and simply not satisfy me.
Notes on 3 - Looks like youre doing a bang up job on this! the engine video released recently looks great! Can`t wait to see how you make a car model!
Good luck! This game promises to be the spiritual succsesor to "Detroit" I have been waiting for!
(PS: Sorry for my poor english, I seem to have another language for my motherstounge

)
These are all great points.
I especially have to agree with point 1.
The fun in this type of game is seeing your company grow, designing new cars, but not in the tedious little tasks. Theres nothing wrong with a ton of detail, but its where the detail is.
If for example Im setting up a production of a car I dont want to have to go to a different screen to hire my employees, It should all be right there. If Im running a small company I might have to adjust the production often to stay alfloat, and the more clicks and menus I have to wade through the more tedious the game becomes.
As for the game speed I would suggest a Paradox style 5 speed + pause system. The more speeds to choose from the better, especially in multiplayer when pausing is not fun. Its good to have a speed everyone can play at without it being too slow or too stressful.
There should also be an option to keep playing after the end date, even if there are no new competitor models or changes in economics. Sometimes you just need a few more weeks or months to see a project through to get a sense of completion and acomplishment.. Theres nothing worse than almost achieving a goal to have the game force you to quit because of an arbitrary end date.
zeussy wrote:Our current plan for the Car Designer demo, is you will be able to submit your cars to this website to appear on a gallery. With a pretty render and stats about the car.
People can then rate and discuss the cars. These cars will be utilized by the AI car companies to compete against you.
Whether we get there, I certainly hope so

The one problem I can see with this is that the game wouldn't feel right unless there were recognizable cars and companies.. Even if the players could design a ford mustang(for example), what would stop it from being a GM mustang in the game?
Maybe enlisting the community to help design cars based on real ones for the companies in the game, and have have a separate gallery for players to submit their custom cars and an option in the game to choose random car companies that use the players cars to add a bit of randomness to the game, if the player chooses.