I’ve been thinking a bit about this, and am currently working on an outline. Originally I was working on a romance sim, but I wanted to do more with it, so I am likely going to use what I wrote so far in that, because I’m a sucker for romance.
Anyway, question is, just what would people like to see? Would they like it to start out as a child and m ove on up through teens, young adults, etc? Or start anytime after 18? I have a lot of ideas and after next week 3 months with nothing to do. I also expect it to be something to be added to constantly, as in probably never ending
I intend to let you choose personal characteristics, but i’m also thinking about random origins, like, you have a chance to be born in a well-off family or not, or on a farm or something.
@Farmboy - I loved it, but it didn’t quite give me a chance to really immerse myself in my character, i guess. That, and you only had a certain amount of time before the next age group. My biggest issue is that we couldn’t have same sex relationships.
@Babisko
I think it should be like where you have an interlude from birth to the graduation of high school. So like through the interlude you can decided if you dated or played a sport, something like that.
Then after high school you have to choose down a path in life. From going to college or joining the military. And have scenarios play throughout yourchoosen path .
@Babisko – as @HornHeadFan said, start at the beginning. I always enjoy these kind of little excursions, and I also like the idea of both being able to choose but also having the origin (and everything!) completely randomised (the latter being as it is for us all).
(I always wished they kept the longer childhood in Fallout 3, ha!)
My thinking is, I start at the beginning, (as in, you as a baby), move on up through the age groups, but with each age group you can have a number of things you can do/goals you can reach, such as, if you’re a kid, one (out of many goals) is finding a way to get a ball out of your evil neighbors yard and avoiding his guard dog by doing certain things like being sneaky, or working to get money to buy a steak or something (you know, cliche stuff). Or, as a teen, working on convincing the most popular person at school to go with the dance with you, or even just getting out of highschool with good grades and a scholarship.
I also intend to put an opportunity to allow you to skip these if you don’t want to mess with them, even though they may help improve skills or have certain events that will affect your future (that person you took to the dance could very well become your husband/wife, etc.) Things like that.
@Babisko, I apologize if my previous post seemed flippant but I do think childhood is too often skipped in most storylines, relegated to a few lines of “you excelled in sports” or “you didn’t have any friends.” A more robust coming of age story, particullary in a life sim like yours, could be really compelling since our formative years essentially mold us as people.
A Simulator? No, unless you can make it exactly like real life (which you won’t, no one could) I’d avoid that word.
But I would like to see a “in the life of” game, where you can go to school/work/hang out and get some interesting social mechanics in there, if that’s what you were thinking then this could definitely be interesting!
@HornHeadFan -Same here. It’s generally bypassed for the adult life, or it goes by very quickly and is completely linear. I can think of a few off the top of my head, though it doesn’t make the games any less wonderful, still, you don’t get all of your personality or skills as soon as you turn 18, you know?
@CJW -that is what I’m aiming for- the social bit, and then some. Pretty much, a lot of goals, a lot of ways to meet those goals, and pretty much the ability to do whatever you want if that’s what you want to do, whether its to make a lot of friend, or become a hermit with a house full of cats, or just work on moving up in the world.
I should probably mention that romance is gonna be a big part of the game. Not to the point that you’re forced to take part in that part of the game, of course, but it’s what I’d like to work on
Start as a child. Something like later ego or real lives. Both awesome games. Your slumbering peacefully. Come out kicking. Count out peacefully. Your not ready. Like choose how you were born. I’d play the Hell out of this regardless
Just a random thought, what if you started the game at the moment of conception? Like, you’re a sperm racing toward the egg , and your action during this pivotal time helps shape aspects of your character, like intelligence, charisma, etc. I’m not sure how difficult it would be to pull it off without being too corny, but it would be different.
