Hi,
What you’ve got is a description of what the game is about, but it says very little about how the game works. Yes, we can see it’s about cleaning up the environment, but HOW do you clean it? Is it built around RTS mechanics? Role-playing mechanics? Do you wander around a map with a giant vacuum cleaner strapped to your back, sucking in garbage?
From a purely game design perspective, it’s hard to determine what the game mechanics will be from your text. (What your text defines as “Game Mechanics” in the heading is not a description of game mechanics!)
There’s very little detail: no diagrams, no mock-ups of how you expect the game to look. No walk-through. Just a vague, hand-wavy description of what the game is about.
I find the most useful technique for nailing down a game design is to write a walk-through of a gaming session. This would be a step-by-step description of what a player would see and do from the moment he opens the game to the point where the game returns him to the main menu after a session.
You’ll be amazed at just how much detail you need to sort out for something like this, so you’ll often find yourself writing additional sections for your game design detail things like the user interface, expository text / mission briefings, NPC AI details, audio asset requirements, and more.
If this is your first attempt at designing and building a game, I strongly recommend buying a book or two on the subject. The 2nd Edition of “Game Architecture Design” (Rollings Morris) is a good choice. Although it predates Unity and is aimed at more traditional developers, it does cover a lot of ground, from basic game design theory, through to the actual process of developing the game.
A very accessible, yet more academic, look at game design, and its links to learning and fun, can be found in Raph Koster’s “A Theory of Fun for Game Designers” book. You’ll breeze through this in a couple of hours—it is categorically not your typical science paper!—and it’ll explain a lot of the “why” and “how” behind solid game design.
Some specific criticisms:
I don’t think the various ‘Cleansing Stones’ you suggest will work effectively. It seems a simplification too far. Cleaning up a river or a landscape isn’t easy. If sewage is being poured right into the river, you first need to address that by building proper waste-water infrastructure and cleaning the water. You then need to find a use for the filtered-out waste matter while the cleaned, filtered water is pumped into the river. A likely option is to use this residue for fertilising crops, so the player would need to run trucks (or trains) to suitable processing plants. (Another possibility is to use the sludge for biofuel or similar. Again, similar logistics are needed.)
All this resource management and logistical support infrastructure lends itself well to either an RTS or business management sim. (The latter is most often seen in the many variations on business tycoon games.)
The “Tycoon” mechanics are more resource management-focused and may be an ideal fit for this kind of project as you don’t need as many complex graphical resources. Both game types have logistical elements too, which will be important. The RTS mechanic is normally applied to warfare games, so may be a good fit if you intend to have NPCs actively opposing the player in some way.
Remember, too, that you need antagonists—people who are either indifferent, or actively “pro-pollution”—to give the player something to fight.
Many antagonists are simply ignorant of the facts and need to be educated in some way. Others could be people who don’t want a smelly sewage processing plant right next to their homes. (You get these “Not In My Back Yard!” people—known as ‘NIMBYs’—in almost every country.) They’re more than happy to use the end results—e.g. an airport—but heaven help you if you try and build it anywhere near their homes!
Others might not appreciate the need to demolish existing, probably historic, structures to make way for your processing plants, roads, etc., regardless of the fact that there might not be any suitable alternatives. (“Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”—‘BANANAs’).
Finally, there are also corruption and political bias angles—again, common in most cultures around the world, including the UK—where you need to grease some palms to smooth the construction process. (Not to mention dealing with corrupt contractors who might be skimping on quality to make more profits.)
In short, there is lots of potential for a very good, genuinely addictive game that also has the potential to educate as well as inform and entertain.
A game that only gets played by maybe ten friends and colleagues is laudable, but a game that reaches tens of thousands of people is better! Don’t be afraid of trying to make something of commercial quality. There’s a lot of potential here if you have the resources.
