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[coeing]

Hi there,

Currently I am writing on a game concept which sits in my mind since about 6 years already: Game Inc.!

I plan to develop the game together with the community, so each feedback is very valuable for me! On http://www.gamesprout.com/ideas/944 I already wrote down some chapters of the design document, more already exist as a draft and I will add them this week.

A few sentences about the game: It's a multiplayer management simulation set in the game industry. So not really a mass market, but I guess there are more players like me who like to play decent management simulations which are not set around football (not that football is bad, but a bit diversification would be great ).

The focus lies on the development of your own games which are based on concepts that you can buy. To make the project a success you have to consider the requirements of the concept, your employees, the market, your competitors,... If you work good, high chart positions, prestige, awards and a lot of money wait for you which you can invest in hire/train employees, buy better concepts, research new technologies,...

As I said you can read the detailed design document at http://www.gamesprout.com/ideas/944 Feel free to leave me any thoughts/ideas here or there, thanks!

Update 06.10.14:

To avoid that people immediately get pushed away from the project, I'd like to add some screenshots of the current prototype. You will also find them with some more information deeper into the thread. Don't let the wall of game design text scare you off!







And here you'll find all the gifs and videos of the project in much better quality:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkRuFqVeIHRFnRGTTbn2iwHoMeuVjbjo

[machdef]

Sounds a lot like

, plus multiplayer.

[coeing]

Sounds a lot like

, plus multiplayer.

Yes, that's true. I played both Game Dev Story and Game Dev Tycoon and they are both fun games. But especially the project management part is pretty simplified and leads to a lot of generic games.

I have a system in mind where each concept consists of a number of tasks. Those have requirements which the employees who you assign on the task has to fulfill to reach the full quality. It's a lot more realistic in my opinion and should lead to more diverse and interesting projects.

The multiplayer part was just recently added to the concept and the main reason was the similarity of the setting to those two games

[coeing]

Finally I had time to add some new details to my game concept, regarding the USPs (http://www.gamesprout.com/ideas/944/design_docs/720) of the game and the player tasks (http://www.gamesprout.com/ideas/944/design_docs/721).

I would really appreciate your feedback! Would you like to play such a game? If yes, which feature suits you the most?

USPs

• Strong project-focused. Single projects really matter! Strong focus on project management.
• Develop the games of your dreams with the team of your choice! Your planning is the key to success!
• Why play? Dream to have your own game studio.
• Involve community for content creation

Player Tasks

Do/Control/Decide about:

• Hire, train and care about your employees
• Buy/Develop promising game concepts
• Plan the current project by assigning employees to tasks of the game concept
• Sell the game (Marketing, sale channels, pricing,...)

Learn/Check/Read:

• Always be aware of the market:
• What genres want the players?
• Which genres are saturated, which are not?
• What platforms perform the best or rises in popularity?
• => Forecast the future to decide for the best concept
• Which employees are available?
• Which new developers are talented?
• What does your competitors do?

Start game

• Few and less complex planning because of small concepts and few employees
• No promotional activities possible because of no/low budget
• Only a few genres available, more have to be researched, so no hard decision
• => Easy access. Planning is important, if that's understood the success of the game will be safe
• Milestones: First employee, first game

Mid game

• Some employees, planning is more complex and requires some decisions which will influence quality/costs/time of the project
• Market becomes more important, wanted genre/platform combination can have a (strong) influence on sales
• Training own employees is possible and necessary to get better games but keep costs low (new employees want a high entry salary)
• Concepts are still bought
• Marketing not necessary for all games, but profitable most of the time

End game

• Concepts are developed
• Assistants for planning are available
• Marketing is necessary to reach a big audience and to get back the costs of the game
• Fight for best employees, making offers for employees of other companies, educating new talents in own acadamies

[coeing]

Next small update to Game Inc.: I documented a typical 5 minute gameplay session, so you get a feeling how the game will play:

Typical Gameplay Session

The player just finished his second project and currently sees the result screen for the game. The final quality of the game is shown here via reviews and critics. A selection of comments about the game emphasizes the worst/best aspects and an average score shows the overall quality.

After the player has informed himself enough about the result and is content about it, he closes the screen and navigates to the concept market. During the last development he already informed himself with the help of public news and some statistics he bought that the RTS genre probably becomes quite popular next year. So he chooses a good RTS concept for his next project and starts a new production.

The first task of the production is the development of a gameplay prototype. The player assigns three of his five employees to this task. He makes sure that all employees fulfill the requirements of the task so it will be performed in the best way. In this case it's not very difficult as the requirements are quite low. The release of the last game caused a level up of his intern, so it's possible for the player to assign him to the task as well, so it will be finished within 5 days instead of 11 days which it would take for only one employee.

One of the remaining employees is send on vacation, the other one gets some professional training for some specific areas the player chooses.

And so the third project of the player's game studio starts and after he checked out the first sales data for his current game, the day is already gone.

[coeing]

A short look at the story and game world. Afterwards listing the key features and reward systems of the game, so you get a feeling what keeps the players motivated

Story
You start in the 80s in the garage of your parents developing your first games. While the game industry grows so does your own company. You'll have to follow the market to check which games may work out and produce high-quality games to get to the top of the charts!

Game World
Scope of the game world is mainly the game industry plus important events which may have an influence on the games market. New technologies/hardware come and go, genres get popular and unpopular,...

Key Features

Time to list the key components of the game, they will form the feedback loop for the player and describes what will keep him motivated.

Game Mechanism

Game Producing

• Employees: Skills, Availability, Workload, Motivation
• Concept: Genre, Setting, Quality

Features

Employees

• Employ/Fire
• Training
• Motivate

Concept

• Buy
• Develop

Planning

• Assign employees to tasks
• Gantt diagramm to see estimated duration

Most important

• Easy assignment from employees to tasks
• Comparison of requirements of task and skills of employee has to be very easy

Reward Systems

Short Term

• Finished task
• Experience gain of employee
• Weekly sales

Mid Term

• Finished project
• News messages
• Award win
• New employee
• Level up of employee
• New genre/setting through research

Long Term

• New office spaces
• Own device/engine through research

[coeing]

Hey there!

I realized there are quite a lot of views, but no replies to my idea. Any opinion of you would be really great, so I know what the idea is missing to get some interest!

Nonetheless, here's a new part of design, this time a look at the multiplayer part in more depth.

Introduction

The multiplayer part of Game Inc. is the aspect that most distinguishes the game from its competitors.

In contrast to the first of all singleplayer games Game Dev Story and Game Dev Tycoon (for which a multiplayer mod exists at http://www.nexusmods.com/gamedevtycoon/mods/8/?), the multiplayer aspect is at the core of the design in Game Inc. especially when it comes to sell your hard produced game.

Aspects

The multiplayer influences many parts of the game where you compete and collaborate with other players:

• Selling your game on the market
• Head-hunting for the best employees and talents ("transfer market")
• Awards
• Work for hire jobs between companies
• Cross promotions in games
• Cooperation on a game project

Selling your game on the market

Competing with your game against the ones produced by all the other players on the same market is of course the most intriguing aspect where you compete with players around the world.

The market itself consists of a defined number of players who have different preferences about:

• Genre of the game
• Setting of the game
• Pricing/actuality
• Difficulty

Furthermore the players differ in following aspects:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Experience level (how hard should the games be)
• Awareness (how likely they will find a game, e.g. very low = finds only games with much marketing)
• Free time

As the players only have limited time and money to play all those produced games, they have to decide between them. They do this based on their preferences, so what influences the sale success of a game is:

• Quality
• Marketing (defines how many players have heard about the game, i.e. maximum sales)
• Other games with the same genre and/or setting (esp. the ones released right before the game)
• Pricing
• Difficulty

What the users will experience here is:

• Always being aware what the players want and what is on the market
• Forecasting the future market to decide for the next project
• Hoping that the market will develop that way
• Hoping that no/few competitors release a similar game contemporary
• Making sure to reach out to the right target group of the game

Transfer market

Not only compete the game companies about the players at the market, but also about the developers they need to produce great games.

Each developer has some basic attributes:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Skills
• Level (= combined skills)
• Department (calculated from skills)
• Salary
• Talent (how high can the skills of this developer raise)

The better a developer, the more salary he wants of course. So small companies won't be able to pay the best ones and have to take what they can first. Their employees will gain experience over time though, so even with the same employees their games will get a bit better.

A common way for small studios to get great employees is to hire young, talented developers and train them. But other companies look for those talents, too, so maybe hiring an experienced but soon retiring developer would be a better move?

If you give your employees long lasting contracts, you will get some transfer money at least if they decide to change the company.

There are many aspects which influences how attractive a company is for a developer:

• Prestige
• Previous games developed by the company
• Won awards
• Salary
• Location
• Lead position in his department
• Levels of other employees
• Promises
• Contract length

What the users will experience here is:

• Checking the transfer market regularly to find out which developers look for work
• Searching for developers with specific skills if required for next project
• Tough negotiations with developers about their contract
• Tough negotiations with company of developer about transfer money
• Selling employees which are not required anymore
• Checking developers who enter the game industry to find new talents
• Train own employees to raise their value
• Negotiations about contract extensions

Awards

There are different awards throughout the game which give the studios prestige and money:

• Local awards
• Global awards
• Awards with specific requirements (e.g. young studios, specific genre/platform/technology,...)
• Awards for sales (e.g. > 1.000.000 sales,...)
• Specific competitions with deadlines

In contrast to the market the awards don't depend that much on the current favored genre/setting and marketing but more on the quality of the games. This way a game can be of high quality, winning a lots of awards, but selling only on average.

Other aspects

The other listed aspects are ways between the players to cooperate with each other. They should really interact with each other, gaining some extra advantages if they do. On the other side the advantages mustn't be to big, so players who play alone still have a chance.

It won't make sense all the time to cooperate, e.g. a cross promotion only works well if the genres/settings are close. Otherwise the players only loose money by not using the space for advertisement.

Vision

The multiplayer part should not only replace the AI opponents from the other games. It should make the game much more dynamic. The players should always be aware that the play with other people and that they have to take their decisions into consideration, too, as they share the same market.

The markets reacts on the decisions of all players and will change a bit on its own over time, e.g. players change their preferences, new platforms arise, new developers are available, others retire,...

The players should have the possibility to cooperate and have to compare notes with each other to check if it makes sense. This way long-ranging relationships between two studios can occur from which both can benefit.

[coeing]

To check if the core mechanic itself, the project planning of a game project, is fun, a first prototype will be developed which just includes this one aspect and an adjusted game goal.

Player Experience Goals

What should the player experience through his game project planning?

• Curious about outcome of each task and the whole project
• Good/bad surprised by random events that influences the project planning
• Great/Bad teamwork between two assigned employees
• Stoppage due to illness, holiday,...
• Big feeling of achievement when project is done
• Feeling of choice on
• Concept choice
• Task assignment

Formal Elements

Players

• One player, but global highscore

Objectives

• Produce a great game in time and budget to get the highest score

Procedures

• Assign available employees to project tasks

Rules

• The game runs in real time, no pause available to make assignments
• The concept and employees are fixed, the player can't employ more or fire some

Resources

• Employees with their specific skills
• Concept with tasks
• Time

Conflict

• Creating a quality game but consider time and budget as well

Outcome

• Evaluation of the player performance
• Quality, Budget, Time
• Comparison with other players

Challenge

• Every employee can only work on one task at the same time
• Employees still cost money even if not assigned to a task
• A task has specific requirements to be completed with the best quality
• Time and budget also go into score evaluation
• => Optimization problem

Play

• Player name
• Game name

Dramatic Elements

Premise
Project manager at a big game studio

Character/Avatar
Only choosing name

Story
After education, applying for first project at one of three companies

Screens

[Whiteclaws]

where is the code and pics mate
also, that's a lot of text

[coeing]

where is the code and pics mate
also, that's a lot of text

Hi Whiteclaws,

Yes, indeed I have written on the game concept the last weeks. Some images would be really cool but unfortunately I'm "just" a programmer. Nonetheless I'll put together a small gameplay prototype to test the core mechanic. It should be fun even without great graphics, although I hope to find an artist who likes to participate in the project somewhere. You don't know any, do you?

Cheers
Christian

[coeing]

News Feed/Overview



Project Planning



Actions

Add employee to task

• Drag & Drop employee onto task
• While in air: Employee portrait

Remove employee from task

• Drag away employee from task
• While in air: Employee portrait

Checks

Compare task requirements + employee skills

• When task is selected: Requirements are shown and the matching employee skills are shown below each employee
• No task selected: Show best skills of employees
• Max 5 skills/requirements shown

Task

• Name
• Progress
• Assigned employees
• Requirements
• Current quality (question)

Task complete

• Final quality
• Final time (question)
• Final budget (question)

Active tasks

• Highlighted by a special border of the task

Skills/Requirements

• Background: Category
• Icon: Type
• Value: Number
• Appearance:
• Number below icon
• OR: Number on icon

Interface

• Zoom in/out
• Drag visible area of tasks
• Tap to select task, tap on free area to deselect

[coeing]

Long time no update, I was busy at the gamescom in Cologne, doing a 96 hours game jam with Slash Games and Friends: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=691862010905199&id=391898847568185

Here are some notes on the calculation of the task quality of the prototype. Leave your thoughts about it if you like!

Task

A task consists of

• Name
• Duration (Normal man hours)
• Requirements

Employee

An employee has

• Name
• Characteristics: Speed, Teamwork,... (Not used in first iteration)
• Skills
• Limited workload (can only work on one task at a time)

Task Quality

Requirements/Skills match

• Better than required isn't considered, counts as completely fulfilled
• For multiple assigned employees the average is used (Good Teamwork characteristic can raise this towards better skill)
• Linear correlation between difference and quality to start with (per point difference 2% quality; this means: >= 50 lower => 0% quality)

Speed

• Multiple assigned employees will be considered only partly (team penalty) (e.g. 2 employees doesn't mean 50% duration, but 67%; good Teamwork characteristic can lower the penalty)
• Speed characteristic of employee is considered

Challenge

The first iteration of the prototype will have the following challenge for the player:

• Assign employees to tasks by matching task requirements and employee skills to increase project quality
• Assign different employees to parallel tasks to increase project speed

So the conflict raises from getting the best possible project with the available employees and getting it done as fast as possible.

[coeing]

Hi there!

Last weeks I've been busy starting up the development of the first prototype for Game Inc. More precisely I worked on the UI for the project management. This will be the core part of the game, so I want to make sure it is fun!

Prototype features

The first prototype will allow the player to develop a game from a concept by assigning employees to tasks and supervise how they perform. It will contain the following features:

• Choose from multiple concepts
• Choose the right employees for the concept
• Assign employees to tasks by matching skills and requirements
• Make sure to stay in budget
• Make sure to stay in time
• Make sure to get a high quality game
• Realtime time lapse
• Scoring at the end of the project
• Highscore list, compete with players around the world
• Share your result and show your friends whose the best game developer

Current progress

Right now it's possible to assign employees to the tasks via drag&drop, the employees and tasks are already filled with data although there is no logic behind it yet.



Next steps

• Remove employees from tasks
• Connect tasks logically and visually (dependencies between tasks)
• Better dummy icons
• Many little improvements due to the feedback of the drag&drop

If you have any questions, ideas and/or feedback, don't hesitate to write a reply! I'm always happy about input

[coeing]

Hi again!

Last two Fridays were prototype days and I managed to add some nicer graphics created by my friendly artist Jo Lott (http://jolott.blogspot.de/) and some core logic, so assigned employees really work on their tasks now

Task dependencies are also visualized and considered already. So it's possible to complete a project. Next step is to pimp up the version so it's really playable from start to end, than we'll see who creates the best games out there! Any things that catch your eye which are not immediately clear?

[coeing]

GameInc is on its way to first playable!

Added the result calculations and windows and adjusted task quality calculation a bit. The quality is now not calculated from the relative skill vs. requirement ratio but by the absolute deviation of the skill. E.g. required value is 60, skill value is 30 => Old quality 50%, new one 70%. This makes deviations at low required values way less severe which seems fairer.



Things to do before first playable:

• Larger concept with more tasks and having a draggable task canvas to show all of them.
• Short welcome/tutorial screen
• Maybe a global highscore list and/or sharing the result. But this may be too much for a first playable, what do you think? On the other hand it could spread the word for the project... Mmh, maybe for a second prototype?

[coeing]

Hi again!

I added dragging and zooming for the project canvas this week, so a more complex project can be used. This was the most important task which needed to be done for the first playable prototype.



Tomorrow I will do a few more tests and fix minor issues, but a first version should be ready soon! Any management game fans here who like to be one of the first testers?

Additionally I am looking for helpers who would like to design some own game concepts for the game. Could be serious ones with tasks like "AI", "3D models" and "Physics System" or more funny ones with "Calculating gravity", "Crunching" and "Buying beer for release party"

[Innomin]

hey coeing, it's looking pretty good so far! I have some advice for getting more people to check out your page:

1) Put some of the best screenshots/gifs in the first post, I almost backed out when I only saw text. Ideas are cheap, and I think most people won't be too interested in the design doc stuff.

2) Maybe edit some of the earlier posts to be simpler? I think you really have to grab people's attention early on, and images are a good way to do that. A picture says a thousand words, right? =)


The most recent posts are showing that you really have a good grasp on the UI coding and concept, so I actually went back and read some of the text _after_ I saw the gifs. Here's my ideas:


1) Burnout on team members should be a stat, and affect their efficiency.
So if Chris Oeing is working on a task he doesn't like very much, or working too long on one task (across multiple games), he will slow down and maybe even quit. I like the idea of this being represented as an HP bar next to his name, and sorting the whole list by HP bar so you can see who is in danger of quitting at a glance.

2) Build multiple games with a common engine (a "Research" tab that resembles the current "Project" tab)
Many modern companies design general purpose game engines and use them in multiple games. Companies like Double Fine come to mind - I know they added Lua scripting to their core engine, so level designers and gameplay programmers can script in any game they make.

You might want to add this idea to the simulation, but simplified. Improving the engine uses the same interface as a project - you assign engine programmers (more experienced, cost more money) to tasks (2d platformer support, adventure game, scripting, HD graphics, shaders, etc etc etc). Then only games with all their _engine requirements_ can be built (can't make 2d platformers unless that has been "researched" and added to the core engine).

To get more complex, if you are modeling the real world (I see 1978 on the date timestamp) you can measure the engine tech vs. how "ground-breaking" the game will be. So a game engine that supports 3D in 1990 would take a lot of time to develop, but 3D games developed in the engine would be revolutionary.

I like this as a mechanic, but maybe because I have my own opinions about teams spending too much time on tech and too little time on gameplay. XD


Please note that these are ideas coming from someone who hasn't played either Game Dev Tycoon or Game Dev Story, so they may be bad! I'm totally just brainstorming ideas, and I wish you the best of luck on this! =)

[coeing]

Hey Innomin!

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer!

Very good advice to edit the earlier post and give them some more graphical content. I can imagine that people are much more attracted by a nice screenshot than to a detailed game design.

About your ideas:

1. I have indeed something like "Burnout" in the game design. It just goes the other way around and is called "Motivation" It takes into consideration how well the skills of an employee fit to the requirements of a task. E.g. if the employee is overqualified he might get demotivated over time. The motivation was just considered for the work quality of the employee, but very demotivated employees should be really more likely to quit the job, great idea!

2. The idea of an engine/tech tree could be a great long term motivation for the player to grow his company (some kind of meta game). I noted it on the list of ideas and will definitively consider it once the basic features are implemented. Thanks again!

I think it's an advantage that you didn't play the other game dev games, so your ideas are fresh and new Of course I will try to develop a different game (which the more detailed project planning should already guarantee), so any not used ideas are always welcome.

Have a nice Sunday
Christian

[Innomin]

Hey Christian, I just realized that your username means you're Chris Oeing! Probably should have figured that out last time... XD

Did you see the recently abandoned

? They were planning a system where employees had two stats: skill levels and interest levels. So you might be a five-star engineer who doesn't like engineering, or a one-star gardener who loves gardening. Skill levels improve over time, but interest levels do not, and interest would affect morale. Maybe that's a design idea you can adapt, because it's pretty intuitive to understand.

Since I never played those two game dev games, I was worried that my ideas already existed, or just wouldn't work in that system. Glad to know they helped though! =) A long time ago I was planning an idea similar to this, but it was much more focused on the employees than the project management. I'm liking everything I've seen so far here, though!

Heh, I just had a funny idea. You could have two bars next to employees: MP is "Morale Points", and HP is energy/"Happiness Points". As they work on things they don't like they lose MP, and when MP is zero they start losing HP. 0HP = quit! I keep working in an employee-centric design though, so these ideas may not fit in your game. Just brainstorming!

[coeing]

Hi Innomin,

Thanks for the insights into DF-9, I heard about the game but haven't tried it yet. Interests of employees sound nice, but right now it would add some additional complexity without adding much fun, I guess. I added it to my list of ideas nevertheless

It's always good to get some brainstorming stuff from other people: If they have new ideas, you get new ideas. And if they have ideas you already had you know you are on the right track So every input is appreciated!

If you are interested I'd like to add you to my list of testers. The prototype with the most basic core mechanic is almost ready, I just have to think about some questions to ask the testers for, then I can do a first playtest. It's not easy for me to publish such an early version as I am a little bit of a perfectionist, but I guess that's the best way to do