A general note on Tycoon-style games

[zeussy]

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

[Kubboz]

You misunderstood me a bit. That's propably caused by my poor English. I meant, that if you start a game session, then, at end of this session, there would be a gallery showing the most important cars in that session. Is my idea understandable now?

[conan]

I have some question and Idea aswell

Can the car be bought by Companies to make a Companies car? Like Thailand in 1990s Peugeot Sold the 505 to the bank So Bank use it as Bank Manager car. Because Peugeot can't sold many 505 anymore As it on the market for 14-15 Years.

And I think a bit more than that

How about sold or lend or give the car to some Television program. As they will use it for something. Maybe Advertising as the Character use it. Or some Motoring show buy it to have some celebrity drive it. (You know what I mean )

Example Suzuki Liana. in 2001 nobody know what it was. Until 2002 Top gear Bought it for Celebrity to drove round the track. So more people know it.

The car will getting more famous Good or Even Bad way.

[zeussy]

You misunderstood me a bit. That's propably caused by my poor English. I meant, that if you start a game session, then, at end of this session, there would be a gallery showing the most important cars in that session. Is my idea understandable now?

I understood you, I just replied with our other plan as well, to get some thoughts on it. A gallery of cars over the life time of a game should be possible.

I have some question and Idea aswell

Can the car be bought by Companies to make a Companies car? Like Thailand in 1990s Peugeot Sold the 505 to the bank So Bank use it as Bank Manager car. Because Peugeot can't sold many 505 anymore As it on the market for 14-15 Years.

And I think a bit more than that

How about sold or lend or give the car to some Television program. As they will use it for something. Maybe Advertising as the Character use it. Or some Motoring show buy it to have some celebrity drive it. (You know what I mean )

Example Suzuki Liana. in 2001 nobody know what it was. Until 2002 Top gear Bought it for Celebrity to drove round the track. So more people know it.

The car will getting more famous Good or Even Bad way.

I am afraid on that, probably not.

Here is a question for you.

We are planning for the game to cover the years 1946 to about 2020. How long would you imagine a full game to take?

We are probably going to allow different game speeds, but what do you feel a normal speed game should take to complete?

[conan]

I think it should be 4-5 Hours.

And can save anytime during one game.

[Kubboz]

different game speeds are OK. I think that there should be 2 real second per game day speed mode, which means about 12 minutes per game year, so these 74 game years of full game covered would take about 15 hours, not including any breaks. Then I would play that speed mode. I'm rather a marathon player.

[conan]

After some think I realize that 5-6 Hours is too short.

So agree with Kubboz. 1 Minute 1 Month. 2 Seconds 1 Day.

But time that you design a car need to pause.

[Kubboz]

And after some time I think there should be just a textbox, in which player could type how many hours full game should take, excluding breaks, and game then would set the secong/game day ratio, so that lenght of game could be achieved.

[Mesa88]

I rather like the turn based gameplay of Detroit. But as long as you can pause the game while making cars, engines or sorting out other stuff, I see no problem not having a turn bases game

[zeussy]

Pause is not a practical method during a multiplayer game.

The back end effectively works in turns (A Day is processed as a batch),

The game could quite easily become turn based as an option.

[Mesa88]

It would be nice to be able to pause in SP mode at least
In MP a pause or turn function can kill the flow of the game. (Neither Civ MP or Europa Universalis 3 works wery vell in MP imo)

[JeffreyCor]

One thing I thought was missing when playing Detroit was marketing cars for use by emergency services, for example the Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor for law enforcemnt. The needs would be unique from the general population and open different market options.

I am VERY excited about this game! You guys are doing an amazing job

[zeussy]

I have given emergency vehicles a passing thought, it would be a nice thing to have, but probably not on launch.

Got to keep feature creep at bay!

[Caitlin]

As has been mentioned it differs between SP and MP - in single player as well as a pause, would a sims-esque (blasphemy I know) speed setting be possible? E.g. 3 different speeds with a keyboard shortcut, so you can fast forward as long as your management skills can keep up.

[Drake]

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.

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.