Hi, I have recently (about 4 months back) started on a project that holds a lot of potential if it was fully developed. I stopped working on it about a week back due to the fact that the game is to complex and would take to long to develop the dream I had in mind for it. I would work on a specific thing for about 2 weeks before I would see a result. I like big projects, but not if you don’t see results, it is that type of game that takes a company with a $50 million budget and 300 people standing beside the project to make sure it gets developed and shipped. I want to work on projects that and or where you see results on a daily or at least weekly basis.
Only now have I come up with a big project that holds potential(or at least that is what I think). What would you think of a game like EVE Online and EVE Valkyrie combined into one and it will have realistic physics and not arcade styled physics. It will start of small and I will build it starting with making a spaceship with all it components then going on to make a single level and take it from there. My speciality is at coding GUI’s, something that this type of games have a lot of.
Do you see any potential here for a game as big as this one without online features, just AI’s. I always ask myself this specific question, can UNITY make games as big as this one. When you strip down all the elements of the game it is very straight forward, well…at least 60 % of it.
Will people play a game like this one if they would have to control a spaceship with realistic physics. For example: Most space games would limit your roll (rotation on the x axis) when you are at 90 degrees and bring you back to level flight, but with realistic physics the spaceship would just turn continuously till you apply a counter force. This means that you must plan ahead and start applying a counter force to level yourselve out about 2 seconds earlier than non physics based games. Will players play the game if the it was about 70% realistic. The game would have a steep learning curve. I am more concern about this question than any other. Also keep in mind that when you are lets say traveling at a speed of 100km/h in space, you will travel like that forever till a external force is applied.
Ant feedback on the game idea would greatly be appreciated
Totally doable in Unity. Still far to complex for a single man team to achieve. You want to be aiming your scope closer to flappy birds, or crossy road. And further away from EVE and most AAA games.
It should be doable. I’d probably go for low-poly graphics (as in early 3D games low-poly) and lo-fi sound (chiptunes and other bleeps and blops) though as those are fast to make so you could concentrate on the gameplay.
At first, just make something small, 1 small star system to test it out, mainly physics part (there is no such thing as realistic physics in games, even Kerbal physics are to some degree unrealistic - too much realism and your game stops being fun), then start working on things like ship’s interior, etc.
Lastly, I’d suggest analyzing games that tries to do similar thing, like (in your case) original Elite, Oolite, Rodina (last one is still in early access but already quite playable).
There is probably a reason why all the big boys do it “arcade” style. Do a prototype with simple/no graphics and see for yourself if it’ll be fun to play.
Thanks for the comments. Prototyping Is key to success otherwise you end up getting yourself into something to big to handle. The market for “fully”(like darkhog said) realistic physics are small. And devil_inside that is exactly what I am going to do. The market for scifi games has grown but most of it still remains in the fps games, there are about 8 new games like this idea coming out this year. There is this specific game(I can’t remember the name, only saw it on a youtube video…maybe someone here van help me out with the name of the game) that similar to this idea that has raised about $40 million for the production of the game. This is a good indication that the market for these games are out there and are growing strong.
Realistic physics in space causes problems, especially if the player has to travel over large distances. Unless you include theoretical physics in with the realistic physics you won’t get things like wormhole or faster than light travel. This is partially why space games are ‘arcadey’, realistic physics in space is just boring to actually play.
Is there a fun realistic physics spaceship game out there somewhere?
Sure.
Is it going to be harder to make it fun than going a more ‘tried and true’ route?
Sure.
“I have an idea for a game” is sort of dumb. The ideas that you build a game around are almost entirely meaningless. The thing that matters is the execution, entirely. Super Mario Brothers is a platformer about an italian plumber jumping on turtles while warping through pipes into bonus zones. It’s the dumbest idea for a game ever, but it’s probably one of the best games ever made.
What made it so good is incredibly tight control, the colorful consistent art, the excellent pacing, the innovative reward systems, the expert level design. Super Mario Brothers made so many small innovations. These are not ‘game ideas’, these were just the fruits of really exceptional execution.
You can make a realistic spaceship game, but by taking mechanics that are generally avoided (for good reason) you are setting the bar for execution higher. And making games with very high bars for execution … really tough.
As a big fan of EVE online, I think I should give my opinion on this.
Sadly, any game trying to be like EVE, will never be like EVE. Developers and gamers expect if you make an open sandbox like eve, it just draws in politics and war and player driven economy. It doesnt. The reason for this is two fold-
EVE grew naturally. It took 5 years to get to any kind of civilization. For 5 years, EVE online was anarchy. No such thing as real economy, or politics, or huge wars. Slowly, players formed little groups, then squads, then armies. Order and productivity grew naturally. And this brings my onto my second point…
Your players, as will you, expect that natural growth instantly. And so when it doesnt end up the same way as eve, players will (unfairly, mind you) blame the game, not their own patience.