How about a game where the earth has been devastated by any number of natural or unnatural disasters. Your job is to rebuild through good leadership and resource management skills. Each disaster presents different yet equally challenging obstacles to overcome.
Examples:
Post ice age, post meteor strike . . .
A few questions that might help bring this one along a bit:
What type of interface would you put on a game like this? A 2-D overhead map? A 3-D map?
Would the user play as the head of a nation…ie control one nations efforts you rebuild in a world that is changing. Might be an interesting take on the “Mad Max� syndrome, as some nations slip into total anarchy…others turn to worshiping golden sheep….and others turn to weapons or science.
As an overall goal perhaps unifying the world? Or dominating the mess that’s left behind…….interesting idea.
I was thinking a 3D map at a tilted overhead view as in Age of Empires or Civ. I never thought of a nation based game just a generic bunch of people with a few start off resources. The idea of making it specific to each nation would certainly add more depth to the game, different challenges on different continents?
I can think of a lot of cool features this game could have depending on the different scenarios presented by different disasters.
I was thinking a disaster would give the perfect licence to change the map. Example: The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate….or a huge tidal waze has flooded half od America or Europe.
You mentioned CIV or Age of Empires as a possible template. This would probably need to be a turn based startegy game…like CIV. In addition I think it might be an idea to seriously what the user can see map wise….as computers, satelites and the like are now out of action.
Like CIV government types, you could introduce new twists. Obviously the more common types of government would not apply.
The groups of survivors that turn towards religion may be less prone to riots, but be easy targets to those who turn to the sword to ensure their survival. The tech evangelists who place all their faith in rebuilding through technology may have several advantages…….and so on.
This stuff was touched on in Alpha Centauri…..but I think an excellent feature of this game might be this:
You choose a nation. The first x amount of turns see you in control of a country. A disaster is introduced and you watch it unfold….be it meteor strike, www 3, alien invasion….whatever.
Your population takes a huge hit, as do you resources. In addition to this you loose your advisors, and any other tools you would have had under the old regieme. As things begin to slip away the user has direct influence over what way their civ goes……….
Am I ranting or is there a good idea in here???
I think the part of the storyline where you have control of a nation before the disaster is a nice twist. You could set the game to “Random Disaster” as in you don’t know what the hell is going to hit you thus making it impossible to be prepared.
There could be hidden twists aswell, like in the original CIV where you can uncover scrolls of ancient wisdom or a horde of barbarians. This game could use a similar method to give the user the odd help along by maybe finding a tank or a working computer or several other things that might be of advantage or possibly disadvantage to them.
I think the most interesting thing about this idea would be giving the user the freedom to rebuild a world in their own image. It would certainly have to be flexible enough to allow this.
I like to think of Utopia on the Amiga when I think of post apocalyptic resource management games. Although Utopia was set int he future and not necessarily post-war. It was an excellent strategy and resource management game.
Although there was an alien prescence that you had to contend with the primary aim in the game was to create a perfect balance between Colonist happiness and productivity. A superb game, that I wish was remade and re-released!
Another game that that was similar, although the name escapes me it was very similar to Utopia, where you had to build a colony, terraform, mine and produce goods to aid your base.
Nowadays though there seems to be a major demand for warfare more then resource management, take C&C Generals for example, and it’s follow up Act of War. But I say, bring back the resource management games, and I rest my case with Utopia. For all you Amiga owners outthere, who have ever played this, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Utopia was a great game alright, i think i might go play a game of it now!