Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:39 am by bigcat1969
The case for dumbing the game down? That would be selling the game to people not already on these forums.
Ever try the airline sim games with horrible interfaces, intense repetition (of course the head of an airline individually sets every ticket price for every flight daily) and no actual game play underlying the sim engine? I've also gone to their forums and watched them bemoan not selling more than a couple hundred copies when inferior simulations like Civilization and SimCity sell millions. At the same time they decry any suggestion of 'dumbing down', when what they need to do is simply create scenarios and goals for added gameplay, a clean interface and a way around the tedium of a thousand mouse clicks to do the job of ten that passes for actually playing the game.
You seem to actually have gameplay and having scenarios even in the engine designer demo is an excellent idea. The interface is ok if a bit old school. What you don't have is a way for the novice to easily create an engine. For now this is fine, but when you put the game out the door and bill yourself as a modern version of Detroit or a functional version of that mess Car Tycoon, it will matter.
Fortunately it is easily solvable by allowing someone who doesn't want to deal with building an engine from scratch to ask the pleasant AI engine creator type person who works for the head of the car company (aka the player) to create a new motor using 1978 tech for the new sports car I have planned. He can present the player with the motor while noting that it can be tweeked to make it better. Then the player is rewarded for working on the engine by having some extra RPM or a longer engine life or whatever, while the player who says great I've got my engine and moves on isn't rewarded, but doesn't know or doesn't care that it could have been a bit better. Best of all, the player who wants to do it all doesn't even hire this AI chap and never even misses him.
Dumbing down is Civ 5 where the gameplay is inferior for everyone, adding options to suit playing styles while still retaining the complexities for those who desire them is smart business.