Computersight -

Man, I love the game of Risk. It’s such a simple, yet satisfying game. The thing that I’m looking for in a strategy game, however, combines the elements of micromanaging and world conquest. The other piece is that I’d really like to have a game where I can create my own worlds. Like, it’d be great if I could play Sim City 4, sculpt my own geography and build a couple of cities, but then plug that information into an RTS where the battles take place in that world. In fact, it’d be truly novel to have any set of games that interacted with themselves in a similar way. The Sim franchise tried doing it fifteen years ago with their Sim Streets and Sim Copter plug-ins, but the technology was still so raw that the end result was a bit disappointing. After all, if you’re going to play a racing game or a flight sim, wouldn’t you rather play the one that handles better, as opposed to the one that’s a gimmic?

But my thinking is that there could be a programming framework that allowed all the different games that people come up with to get stuck together. Kind of like Second Life’s doing (and the other ones) with their sandbox designed to let the avatars design on their own. I’m sure that the world is becoming more rich and complete with each passing day, I just don’t have the computer or connection speeds to keep up with it all.

Or the patience. I couldn’t spend all day modeling myself a pair of shoes. I’m just not that committed to self-indulgence.

And yet I am. But the self-indulgence that I partake in consists of a dreaming, a creation of a world that exists only in my mind. And it’s a cool world, it’s just that I don’t have a good way to market it just yet.

Back to the programming thing. Isn’t it possible that you build a programming language within the framework of an engine? Like, anyone can build a level for a Quake/Unreal based game. And people can model, and they can code various things in that framework. Okay, so what if (and right now we’re just cross platforming FPSes) Builder A creates a post apocolyptic world with laser sniper rifles, and Builder B is working on a similar thing but he’s focused on hover shoes. You’d have to have grafters to splice the two, but the premise is you play A and then walk through a door into B.

And Builder C has this project on Mars, and Builder D is building a Civil War mod. So now you’ve got to get your grafter to build a space shuttle and a time machine to act as links between them. But the point is that no matter what level gets built, they’re all in the same framework. So you can walk seamlessly through each world that’s been created.

Now, you could specify- only allow people to work on certain base structures. You’ve got your earth, your moon, your mars, your past, your future, your fantasy realm, etcetera, and you could even have all of the grafts already in place were you to pull something of that nature. And empty space extending away from the links. That’d be the easiest way to make it cohesive. But the point is that if Builder B’s hover boots work in his map, they’re going to work on Mars as well.

But that’s thinking on a small level.

What I’m imagining is you can have different games within it all. I’m imagining that you can be the president of the country that’s at war with the aliens and you can choose to send reinforcements to whatever sector you deem in most need. I’m saying that you can rebuild the bombed out city with whatever utilities and recreation as you want. I’m saying that you can be a god within that framework, sending plagues at your own whim.

There’s an adventure game/platformer where you can get wings to fly to the top of a mountain to fight lizard men. Well, the bio-soldiers sent in to protect against the meteor-transported ooze infestation might just stumble upon said mountain, and now they’ve got flying wings too.

It’s the framework that needs to be created. We’ve gotten to the point that most of what we could ever hope to do with a videogame (visually, and in terms of gameplay) has pretty much plateaued. Now it’s time to create a programming language that is all modular. That is from the ground up bug free. Nothing can be created that will cause problems or interference with the rest of the world in which you’re doing the creating.

And it all gets back to Risk. I’d love to play a game wherein I can take over a country. Even just starting there, it’s a little past what we’ve got today; say you’ve got six cities, and a whole lot of terrain between them. Well, there aren’t too many games that can boast creating six cities, first off, if you want to get technical the Elder Scrolls series is the only one that comes to mind. But even those are small towns, really. Not cities.

But say you can model six cities, and we’re talking real, full on, public transit and utilities cities. Living, breathing, I can walk into everyone’s houses cities. And the physics engine is good enough that everything breaks (and in its own special way, bricks falling apart versus wood splintering.) And you’ve got a financial model, taxation or what have you, with areas around the cities that are sources for resources. So you can build aircraft carriers, or trucks, or you can conscript soldiers and so on for a set fee.

And there’s got to be the upgrade element. Having control of scientific centers allows for better equipment. And your citizens have personalities (and yes, every city is fully populated.) So from the top you’ve got a border town, an industrial kind of town, and a capital city, and once the tanks start rolling the cities start to crumble and your citizens are at risk.

You can tax the shit out of these guys, go on an all out offense, but then they might uprise. In which case you can send in the national guard to quell them, or use diplomacy to settle your differences. And you need to use terrain to strategize your attacks and defense. Already I’m beginning to see that six cities is not enough. Six cities a side, perhaps.

Okay. Take a step back. Two countries. Six cities each (and for good measure a number of little towns between them.) Each has resources and citizens, trade and commerce, and a level of technology. You start at war with the other side. How you win is open ended, so long as you’re the only one standing. You can win with influence; building a strong commerce and unique commercial ideas, then trading with the next town over might get them to rebel against their government. You can win with force; sending a fleet of bombers to carpet a city can destroy it and render it useless. But beware retaliation.

In this game you can develop nuclear weapons, but if both sides deploy it’s a stalemate (which means you lose.)

My point is, the game I envision is bigger than Oblivion, as customizable as Sim City, as strategic as Diplomacy or Risk or Imperialism or Civilization, as open and fluid as Black and White, but you can zoom into any citizen or soldier and play them as easily as Crackdown, God of War, or Halo.

Oh, and as for the individual playing style: a citizen needs clearance to go places, isn’t particularly strong, but can act as a politician to rally the citizens. A soldier has their physical stats, but little control. A general can command entire armies, but tends to stay away from the action. Even little tweaks in gameplay like that could make a game so much more enjoyable.

Well, enough about all that. I haven’t even gotten into the whole RPG that I’ve been envisioning. Nor have I gotten into the MMO elements that could blow a war game like the one I’ve been describing right out the water.