I checked out at the Democracy demo and a thought occurred to me:
Would you be interested in making a global geopolitical game/simulation?
The last people that did this were Golem Labs with their Superpower 2 franchise (now lost due to business problems). Superpower 2 was quite good in some areas but it was not complete.
I think you are maybe the right guy to do this.
Imagine Democracy, expanded to include every nation with a 3D topographical world map on which you could move your forces, perhaps zoom-in to watch ‘aerial satellite battle’ unfold in real time. No, not a ‘war game’ but a geopolitical simulation that can include war. Small-scale conflicts and the politics behind them can be fascinating.
I have bags of conceptual ideas on this, in fact I wrote an outline that I was going to push to some well known game companies.
I’d like to do a game like this, although it wouldnt be this year thats for sure. You might want to check out introversion, they are doing a game based on the film ‘war games’ that looks a bit like you describe.
A little tip, most well known game companies will probably see your ideas in the bin. You’re best bet is pushing it to unknown smaller companies.
Still, I like the idea too, there used to be quite a few of those sort of games around, including some online-versions which were “interesting” to say the least.
The amount of effort required for a company a small as mine to do this style of game is collosal, however, I like a challenge! so who knows what will happen next
My dream game would be a mix of that and Democracy. To have to deal with international and domestic situations, with all the complexities of real life. A game that replicates real life politics! OMFG I want!
Properly made, it would not just be a small indie following, it would become the greatest game of all time!
I’d like something in the style of an old game called “Shadow President” where you were the president (aka foriegn relations dictator) of the US. You did very little domestically other than change tax rates, but diplomatically you had a range of options from sending food aid, to encouraging education, to global nuclear war. Really fun game.
I remember getting that as part of an old compilation disc a few years back. Had to tweak around with it to get it to run even back then as it’s an old DOS clunker but it did seem a very clever game from what I saw of it before it kept bombing out.
I did the same thing everyone else probably did just to see what happens and started dropping nukes on countries. Needless to say all my advisors started resigning on the spot and it wasn’t long before there was a massive world war 3.
A game like that working on todays machines but maybe not changed too much would probably go down quite well if it stayed true to the format of the original game and made improvements just to keep it in line with todays ideas.
Sadly though, it’s not because it’s a good game. It really isn’t.
It’s just unique. It fills a niche that has little like it and nothing better in it. I’ve zero doubt that it could be done again and done better.
There just aren’t too many that are trying.
There are some other games like it, aka Superpower and Superpower 2, but they are not very good. Those two games are too dry. They lack flavor. They also seem to lack ideological conflict, difficulty, and things worth doing.
