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[Pitxardo]

Hello!

Currently, I am working in a God game

And there is some huge doubts about the design of the project.
The game is about controlling all aspects of a planet, including life. And the design must be oriented as a 2D game.

First, here is my current approach:




With some visual effects (trees with lights!):




And here is a gif:



As you can see the game uses a lateral 2D view, with a "red giant" as a main character.
The planet is a flat disc with a fake conversion from 2D to 3D when the view changes to planetary system view.

The planet is a tilebased entity with only two directions: water, clouds and all this things only move to left or right.
Huge limitations and not too realistic, but visually attractive.


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And here is the new approach:




Ok, this is only a mockup  

The idea is the inner planet view is now a 2D aerial map.
The planet is now a tilemap with four directions: up, right, down and left.

Less beautiful, without complex visual effects, but more powerful and realistic in the simulation.
Also, more accurate in the 3D conversion from inner planet view to planetary system view.

With this new approach the gameplay will change to something similar to SimEarth.
Main character disappears, and now we just have the mouse pointer of the user.


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What do you think? Continue with the first approach or change to the new one?

In other worlds, Which do you want to play?

Thank you!

[rek]

I would stick with the first approach (2d) unless you're willing to seriously upgrade the graphics used in 3d. I think losing the red giant avatar would also be a mistake, in the 3d option.

I would also impose the 2d restriction on the solar system view.

[valrus]

The 2d world view is nice, but also quite reminiscent of Reus, with a giant avatar going around a circular world. 

I think I prefer the 3d world, although I don't see why an avatar would be impossible, either striding around on land or swimming in the sea.  (It'd be kinda cool if you were a sea god and could only directly interact with the land if it bordered the sea.)

[Pitxardo]

Consider that the current second approach's images are just a mockup and must be upgraded.

Here is more updated images with the second approach:

[Pitxardo]

The 2d world view is nice, but also quite reminiscent of Reus, with a giant avatar going around a circular world. 

I think I prefer the 3d world, although I don't see why an avatar would be impossible, either striding around on land or swimming in the sea.  (It'd be kinda cool if you were a sea god and could only directly interact with the land if it bordered the sea.)

Consider that in the first approach the red giant avatar is the player.
You can walk around the world and use your magic in the touching tile to increase/decrease terrain level, create a volcano, invoke meteors...


In the second approach, the player is not a visible entity and the control is with the mouse pointer (as usual in god games).

I can include the red giant avatar as a NPC who can interact with your world.
Or maybe, also use the red giant as player and move around the world like in the old 16-bits RPG games.

About second approach's appearance, I'm thinking about something like Civilization I (but with high resolution textures):


Merged with gradient colors to represent the height:
http://www.twodee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/l3dt31-300x225.png