Explorers!
Explorers Status
- Possible names:
- Age of Discovery
- Age of Exploration
- Gold Rush: 1500-1750
Design Doc Pages
Inspiration
Explorers is a single-player game inspired by Seven Cities of Gold. The goal is to take what they did in that game to a bit deeper level, but not overload the player with too much. I'm looking for a game something along the lines of the very recent update of Pirates! in terms of scope of game play. The key aspect of 7CoG for me personally is the exploration of the game. There is definitely a bit of resource managment on a macro scale, but the macro is not as interesting to me personally. In other words, I'm not looking to make a game where you have to spend a lot of time managing things, like you find in Civilization, for example.
The basic game play will be very similar to 7CoG. You will be in charge of a single expedition, and that expedition's survival will be dependent on it keeping food available to it, keeping men alive, and handling the natives. You will move your expedition around the world in a similar manner as 7CoG, though in our case you'd use mouse/keyboard. You will trade with the natives for gold and information on hidden objectives, including maps to interesting locations. As you explore the world you will gain titles from the monarchy. You will try to take advantage of native rivalries.
The first place I'd like to add some depth is in the types of things you can discover during exploration. I want to flesh out the exploration aspect more and make it more satisfying. The next area I'd like to add depth to is how combat is handled, though I would like to keep it as a arcade-like minigame. Not too in-depth, but a little more interesting as there are only two real ways to succeed - peacefully or not - as you deal with natives. Another area I'd like to add depth is in keeping a journal of your exploits. Pirates! does this to an extent, as does Civilization and Warlords, but none of them allow you to add to this journal.
I would like to explore having the players keep a more in-depth journal if they'd like, by not only allowing them to select what types of events are automatically added to their journal, but also allowing them to add their own entries. The entries could include maps that they create using an in-game snapshot feature and notes of their adventures. I'd also like to look into allowing them to then post their journals (or portions thereof) to a community website as an RSS/atom feed. I'm not sure really how interesting the journal stuff would be to players, maybe only a few would really get into it. But if the Sims community is any sign, it might do well if we make it interesting enough and easy to use.
The plan is to make this a single player only game at the moment. There is certainly a possibility of a followup having multiplayer in it, but that's out of scope for the first pass. We might explore the ability to save off the settings for the current game when you start it and then publish them so that other players could download and compete in their own game. This might also tie back in to the journaling some, as multiple players could compare their exploits on the exact same world.
Words from the author of 7CoG
Dani Bunten created 7CoG, and some of her thoughts on the game (and other games she made) are found here. Here's another.
In particular, the following quote is very intriguing to me:
There are several things I'm proud of about that game. Unlike most strategy-adventure games then (and now as well) which load the player with numerous economic and logistical decisions, it only used four commodities to model the constraints and opportunities facing the Conquistadors (men, food, trade goods and gold)__. I also like the way I was able to reflect the unique interactions between natives and Conquistadors when they shared neither a language nor cultural values in common. I __came up with a simple arcade element which also included a number of subtle "secret" opportunities that I was quite gratified to learn that folks found on their own. Finally, the fact that our "New World" was randomly generated (and so large it required disk caching and overlays) made exploring a challenge fraught with peril and surprises. It sufficiently captured the sense of panic that comes from being lost in the wilderness and running out of supplies as well as the joy of rescue (which was something I experienced once backpacking and wanted to make a touchstone of this design).
Early prototype pics - Volume One
Prototype maps - Volume One
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