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[Bennett]

In the previous thread, a number of people requested a regular series of "What is this game about?". So here we go. Same again - here is some artwork with no game design or programming, not even a game concept.

Tell me what this game would be about - what would it be like to play? What kind of gameplay mechanics would there be?



This time, I'm keeping the fat nude men out of it so that we might get some more serious suggestions, and not so much preoccupation with fat asses. Please let me know if this is disappointing, and we'll bring them back for #3.

[Akhel]

Looks like a sci-fi 4X to me. Maybe this screen shows a Risk-style map where you administer your colonies and ongoing battles from your badass mothership.

But...

This time, I'm keeping the fat nude men out of it

 

[FARTRON]

You play Commander Jameson, a fat nude space pirate.  You must cause as much damage to the solar economy as possible, while promoting interplanetary nudism.

[Melly]

I think you should have probably left out any HUD's and words, cause they basically already tell us a lot about the game concept. I already know it's a space themed game where you can battle with your ship, trade, level up in some way, communicate with other ships/races/whatever. It's probably much like Star Trek.

So yeah, half of the figuring out fun is over in that one, for me. 

[Chris Whitman]

I guess maybe he started off just not wearing clothes as a comfort thing, but when the Solar Police pulled him over for drunk driving and told him to step out of the space ship and put some clothes on, it became a cause.

[Guert]

You play earth trying to communicate with the sun and other planets but some space ships are interfering your conversations. As the all mighty mother earth, you can recognize the ships that come from earth but cannot know those form elsewhere. The goal of the player is to find a way to get rid of pollution and ecological problem by talking with other planets and see how they've dealt with their problems. If you choose to exterminate your life form, you have to make sure they don't know how you're going to do it or they'll declare war against you and they already have the upper hand.

The rings are your communication waves.
Space ships block those communication waves so ou have to time yourself correctly
Earth can use the moon to crash the ships to get rid of them but killing too much ships from other planets may cause interplanetary wars

In all cases, every minute of the game, a random picture of a fat nude man appears, telling you the state of he game like: "You're doing good", "keep at it lad", "That's it, work it out" or "This game's as hard as I am!"

Later!

[mjau]

That's an awesome concept, Guert, but I think a better aim for the game would be to convert all of your population into fat, nude men.

[Mr. Yes]

You play as a lonely old man who lives inside of the sun, and the goal of the game is to try destroying everything. You do this by creating this game, trying to confuse many innocent citizens. What you need to do is make as many confusing objects as you can, filling the area with lines, numbers, and anything else that you have the choice of placing. If you do it correctly, the Earth explodes a little, and you gain a level. Repeat until the planet is completely gone.

[Xion]

I'm keeping the fat nude men out of it so that we might get some more serious suggestions

so much for that theory

You play as a stranded space-captain (randomly named) who has crash-landed on an asteroid. You need to find a way off the asteroid, or find a way to live on the asteroid, using your resources and time wisely, as you only have 5 hours of air (though you can get more by extracting it from the rocks and stuff). The screen above shows the pause menu, which zooms out to display the trajectory of all nearby objects. This is useful in telling when you need to launch your craft, once you get it built, to be picked up by a passing ship or land on another planet. The player above has chosen to live on the asteroid, as indicated by the fact that he has shields and weapons (though broken). Eventually, if you do extremely well in inhabiting the planet, one will be able to mine its resources and sell to passing trade ships. If you do extremely well in trading, you'll become a regular stop for traders and a social hub. The above player has built boosters on his asteroid, enabling him to jump orbits. (To build boosters takes an incredible amount of rare resources. Dude must've been playing for a long time.) The numbers on the orbits show how many time units (days, maybe?) it will take to move to that spot, and how many fuel units the move will take.
The actual gameplay takes place in a much closer view, top-down, actions include inspecting, jumping, phazoring (which acts as a weapon and a [rather inefficient] means of mining minerals), gathering materials (such as scrap from your crashed ship), assembling materials, and using things. You also have to find food, which can be extracted from the environment as microorganisms that can be combined for different effects.
If you launch yourself from the asteroid to a nearby planet in an attempt to escape, sometimes the planet will be inhabited by primitive beings, sometimes it will be just like a bigger version of the asteroid, and sometimes it will be inhabited by sentient beings. If you land on one of the former 2 types of planets, you'll just go back to being like it was on your asteroid, only with whatever resources you left the 'stroid with, and different life.
The game is won when you land on a planet with sentient beings or a friendly ship or make like, 1000000 credits, or establish a city on a planet.
Oh, oh! You can also amass an armada and invade a planet, where conquering it is also a win condition.
The "level" is just an indicator of how well you're doing. It can go both up and down.

[skaldicpoet9]

I'm keeping the fat nude men out of it so that we might get some more serious suggestions

so much for that theory

You play as a stranded space-captain (randomly named) who has crash-landed on an asteroid. You need to find a way off the asteroid, or find a way to live on the asteroid, using your resources and time wisely, as you only have 5 hours of air (though you can get more by extracting it from the rocks and stuff). The screen above shows the pause menu, which zooms out to display the trajectory of all nearby objects. This is useful in telling when you need to launch your craft, once you get it built, to be picked up by a passing ship or land on another planet. The player above has chosen to live on the asteroid, as indicated by the fact that he has shields and weapons (though broken). Eventually, if you do extremely well in inhabiting the planet, one will be able to mine its resources and sell to passing trade ships. If you do extremely well in trading, you'll become a regular stop for traders and a social hub. The above player has built boosters on his asteroid, enabling him to jump orbits. (To build boosters takes an incredible amount of rare resources. Dude must've been playing for a long time.) The numbers on the orbits show how many time units (days, maybe?) it will take to move to that spot, and how many fuel units the move will take.
The actual gameplay takes place in a much closer view, top-down, actions include inspecting, jumping, phazoring (which acts as a weapon and a [rather inefficient] means of mining minerals), gathering materials (such as scrap from your crashed ship), assembling materials, and using things. You also have to find food, which can be extracted from the environment as microorganisms that can be combined for different effects.
If you launch yourself from the asteroid to a nearby planet in an attempt to escape, sometimes the planet will be inhabited by primitive beings, sometimes it will be just like a bigger version of the asteroid, and sometimes it will be inhabited by sentient beings. If you land on one of the former 2 types of planets, you'll just go back to being like it was on your asteroid, only with whatever resources you left the 'stroid with, and different life.
The game is won when you land on a planet with sentient beings or a friendly ship or make like, 1000000 credits, or establish a city on a planet.
Oh, oh! You can also amass an armada and invade a planet, where conquering it is also a win condition.
The "level" is just an indicator of how well you're doing. It can go both up and down.

This is awesome I would play that game!

[Bennett]

I think you should have probably left out any HUD's and words, cause they basically already tell us a lot about the game concept.

Well I thought if I made it look like a space-based roguelike, it would promote the invention of novel gameplay ideas. After all, there are an infinite number of roguelikes.

But you're correct, for #3 I'll make it more vague. AND maybe bring back the nudity.

[Stij]

Heh, am I the only one who caught the Commander Jameson reference? That's the default name of your pilot in Elite.

In this game, you control satellites, like the one in the middle of the screen. The dots with numbers show how far you can move in 1 turn. The satellites can't leave orbit (showen by the dotted lines), but you can control which direction they go in and how fast. You must use the satellites to defend your planet(s) against attack. The bottom part of the screen shows the stats of the selected satellite. Unselected ones just appear as circles.

Dotted red lines are the paths of ships. Not all of them are hostile, some of them wish to trade with your empire. In later stages of the game, you must manage fighting off enemy ships while avoiding collision with friendly ones. You can zoom out to see more of the solar system, too.

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Er, I mean, something about giant naked guys.

[Stij]

Adding to that:

Credits can be used for two things: researching new technology/upgrades, and resources. Resources are used to build stuff and keep your population happy. The resource management part of the game wouldn't be too complex, as the main focus is on fighting. No micromanagement here. You can also buy extra resources, tech, and information off of friendly alien traders.
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"Level" shows how advanced your civilization is. You can win by reaching level 100, through either conquering other planets (more on that later) or reaching a high enough level in technology.

As mentioned earlier, you can make contact with other civilizations. At first you won't be able to understand them, until you research the Universal Translator upgrade. Talking with the aliens is done through a Star Control 2-style menu where you choose dialogue options. What you say can change the alien's attitude towards you. The alien species each have their own personalities, likes and dislikes, so it pays to know stuff about them. Like I said, some traders will sell you information.
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Of course, you can build your own ships, too. Ships come in 3 types:
Fighters are fast, manuverable and cheap, but their limited fuel prevents them from straying too far from the home planet. They can "piggyback" on colony ships however.

Satellites, I already covered. Quite strong, affordable, but can't leave orbit. You can only have so many satellites around 1 planet, too.

Colony ships have lots of fuel and can carry troops, colonists, and bombs. Vital for conquering planets. On the downside they're slow and have almost no weapons.
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When you find an uninhabited planet, getting it is as easy as dropping your colonists on it. At first the colony will be weak and defenceless, but it'll get stronger over time. The planet's hospitality is shown by its Environment Level (ER). Higher ER=easier to colonize. If the planet is inhabited, you must fight...

Conquering a planet works kinda like Risk. You send down your troops, and they fight the enemies' troops. Whoever wins takes control of the planet. (there is some randomness involved, but strength in numbers usually wins out)
You can also drop bombs. Bombs take out lots of enemies, but lower the planet's ER. Drop too many bombs and it'll turn into a barren rock.
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Whew, lotsa text.

[Alex May]

It's quite clearly a top-down, turn-based remake of Elite. Complete with hoopy casinos and whoreson knave blackguards. Except in this version, the whoreson knave blackguards are naked, and probably fat too, and quite probably, in addition, ginger.

Bah, I got nuthin'! I agree with Melly, less is more with these things. Still some hilarious responses though, good work everyone :D Great original art too.

p.s. if you want to play a top-town turn-based space trader, find a copy of Space Rangers 2, which is one of the best games I've played in recent years. Seriously!

[Stij]

Space Rangers 2

This game is amazing. No foolin'.

The translation is unintentionally hilarious though. Apparently the authors are Russian...

[Inane]

Space Rangers 2

This game is amazing. No foolin'.

Triple recommendation, oh yeaaaah!
I like the quest where the goody scientists optimize a toothbrush a human diplomat left behind, so it rearranges peoples thoughts.

[Stij]

The only thing I didn't really like about it was the RTS sections- they just felt tacked-on and boring.

Luckily, like everything else in the game, you can just choose not to do them....