Sleep Deprived Game Design Ramblings
Or maybe it’s just a singular rambling. I’m not sure what counts.
Anyway, I was thinking about Real-Time Strategy Games. How can you make one that is truly unique? I got some ideas ranging from the absolutely asinine, (put the user controls on the left side of the screen! I don’t think any RTS has done that before…) to the relatively interesting. (Both players control parasitic races competing for control over local population. Another idea was that resources would need to be literally pipelined to your buildings (a la Sim City’s powerlines) in order to be used.)
However, I posed the question to myself: “How could something be made to be better and more appealing than Starcraft?”
[NOTE - Starcraft is not my favorite RTS. It’s just that it’s the most popular I know of. It’s been on the best-seller list since it’s release.]
I figured the answer to that would be to make the strategy more apparent. Make it less about micro-managing and more about big sweeping decisions. Some games try to do this by putting you in charge of squads rather than individual units but I think that only creates the illusion of a epicness.
Eventually, I came up with the idea that there would be two completely separate systems for the game.
The first gameplay system would have the player making the big high-up decisisions in very apparent ways. There would be things like, secure resources here, defend pipeline here, establish troop factory here, etc. This would be done on a sort of overworld map with the play-area divided into sections a la a Risk board or the branching path selection in Red Alert. But the basic idea here is that you are giving yourself mission objectives to carry out in the second gameplay system.
The second gameplay system should be pretty obvious at this point, but in case my sleep-deprivation has made understanding what I’m saying difficult, I’ll spell it out. It’s totally a traditional RTS game. The objectives you laid out in the first gameplay system would be monitored and if necessary, aborted.
What I like about this gameplay system is that the first gameplay system is completely unnecessary for an advanced player. They can do it for themselves. They don’t need a tool for it. However, for the newered players, they probably fail to see the game as an overarching strategy relying on “Heads-up!” messages that tell you if your base is under attack. It would allow for players to feel like great generals rather than making the game feel almost like an action game.
I think it’d definitely be worth pursuing sometime when I’m thinking more awakely. If the second gameplay system is robust enough, then it’ll be a very fun and appealling game.
Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m just not good at being consistent about doing something.