Wild west BBG

[Chris]

I'm thinking about making a "western" game. The problem is the core activity. I mean, there is a lot of possibilities: gunfight, mining gold, build railroads, become a sheriff, an outlaw, cowboy, farmer, etc. In short, if you want to put all the things players want you will never, ever finish the game  (fantasy is so simple compared to this: red dragon, green dragon, black dragon, dragon egg, dragon sword, dragon slayer, dragon armour, dragonlance, etc ). I'm trying to find the core activity that will be appealing to many players but does not consume my 'time budget'.

I think they are two ways of doing this. First, concentrate on one aspect only (like you are a bounty hunter, and that's it). Second, make all professions but let them work the same way (so bartener and sheriff would use the same or at least very similar code), this could be done if the game is on a quite high abstraction level (like Princess Maker where you could select tons of professions and each changed some stats, but generally behave the same way).

Any ideas?

[JohnMunsch]

The feel of your choices are so massively different. Mining vs. ranching/farming vs. outlaw/sheriff are in completely different directions. I agree that it would be cool to have all of them in one game at some point but if you're going to pick one of them and have some hope of integrating them all at some point, why not make something vaguely Rogue-like?

That is, there's a map, they move their little avatar around on the map and they can perform various specific activities based on what is available at their location, what is in their inventory, and any other player's present. Then at least you can focus on a single set of actions appropriate for one type of character (e.g. miners can mine for ore if there is an exposed vein, they can walk anywhere accessible on the map so they can carry mined metals and minerals back to town to the assayer's office, they can dig, they can dynamite to blow open a whole, they can pan, etc.) and then later other actions can be made available but the overall framework doesn't change. That is, when you give somebody the ability to buy a gun and threaten another user with a gun then they can become highwaymen who prey on the miners or gunmen in the town. Their actions dictate their character rather than their character dictating their actions.

It should be fairly simple to code a simple version of the game and you could crib some notes off the many Rogue-like games out there (Rogue, Larn, Angband, etc.). See site like this for more info: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

[overklokan]

check this excellent tutorials and make sure you read "getting started" and parts 1, 2 and 3:

http://www.gamespp.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?tutorials#gamedevelopment