Ok folks, so I’ve been churning some of the framework of the mechanics of the game and how it adds to the message. I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about those two subjects in relation to how the player will view these things. While I think we’re definitely moving ahead with some of our ideas, I think others are struggling with keeping up. Particularly the question “Does the player see our message in everything?” I’m going to list some strengths and weaknesses with our current set up, followed by some suggestions that I think would enhance the game, and I want thoughts and feedback.
This is all based around two messages that we want the player to feel. One is that space exploration is exciting and necessary for humanity. Two is that NASA is not being supported nearly enough to complete that task.
Right now we are leaning toward a system of limited resources, the player’s death being included, and people communicating with you from NASA trying to convince you to spend your resources one way or another. Here are some feelings I have about that framework.
The Strengths:
- Managing weighted decisions about limited resources can be fun.
- Exploration can still be a large reward, despite a player’s inability to “see it all”. Good replayability.
The weaknesses will all feel like they suffer from a similar symptom, not conveying the message strongly enough.
The Weaknesses
- Having two narrations of what NASA wants the player to do feel more like they undermine NASA’s abilities, not the powers that impact NASA’s wallet.
- Saying to the player that we barely have enough resources for them to research is highly disjointed with the fact that the player is on Mars in the first place, which having a human mission is extremely inefficient in space exploration.
- Limiting choices for exploration so harshly almost forces replayability (bad), rather than voluntary replayability (good). Specifically, choosing to not explore punishes even playing the game, and kills the player anyway, not good.
- Killing the player may fracture the message into also being about the last moments of someone’s life
Now all is not woeful in my thoughts about this issue, most of these revolve around delivery of our message, not the assets themselves, so the major architecture is still in place. Here is my solution that can add to the player experience:
Instead of having the player on such a tight resource management, we open up the experience a bit. Roughly I was thinking the NASA person you interact with explains that NASA has X money, and you need to decide what tools you want to buy/upgrade. Then a shuttle comes in similar to Batman: Arkham City when the batwing drops new equipment in for you. The player will regularly check in with NASA to see if they can purchase more upgrades as they explore more. At the end of the game, probably when the player makes a huge discover, we layout what they spent, and how that technology influenced earth technology, and show their final budget and time on Mars.
This is when we drop the message of the issues that NASA has, but showing their true budget in comparison to what you spent. Provide links to interesting charts that I was looking at, especially what NASA does for earth. These sites got me going quite a bit. Then, we can offer the player to replay using the budget that NASA actually has (for the people that want a challenge in the replay).
There are two reasons why I personally think going in this direction is stronger:
1) It removes any hint that NASA itself is bad and strengthens how helpful it is economically or technologically.
2) The message that NASA is horribly funded remains intact, but decouples it from the player experience. This causes two sub feelings:
A) The player enjoys the game as its own entity, but understands the plight of NASA.
B) The player sees that NASA doesn’t get to have the fun they just had.
Let me know your thoughts about this, and possibilities of what we could put in as upgrades that they player would want and be fun (jump higher, live longer, drill harder, gather quicker, etc). Also let me know how the direction feels as a whole.
Our game has two messages, “Space Exploration is cool and important for our future.” and “NASA is currently not getting enough funding and support to explore further.” . This ultimately means that NASA is going to be funded by other large entities like corporations who have more motives than just Space exploration.
Have NASA send in additional resources for you is very unrealistic. It takes around $500 million dollars to send resources to Mars. Now if there was a small colony or something there it would be more feasible to send resources once every two and a half years when the Earth and the Mars are closest. This could add to the gameplay, but it would be merely fantasy.
I agree that we should not make NASA seem evil. It should be clear to the Astronaut that this is most likely a one way trip and he only has food resources to support him for a year or two. He is a true patriot and hero for Mankind who is taking another giant step in helping rally global support for space exploration. We were destined to go to the stars.
Figure out a good solid plan of gameplay here is the tricky part. I say we give the player enough resources, but give him stupid missions, like drinking a Coca Cola on Mars and stuff. Everything should be clearly sponsored by other corporate ventures which get in the way of pure exploration. We could have conflicting messages between NASA and a Corporate Sponsor.
One way I thought of that we could add to the sense of exploration and player control is by having probes that can be launched from the Rover. You would only have so many of these, but they would tell you were to look for resources. Part of the freedom of manned mars exploration as opposed to unmanned Mars exploration is that it is done in realtime. With the rover, each move is carefully calculated, then executed, making for a very slow exploration process.
We need to address some very important gameplay concerns like what is going to motivate the player to look for things? What problems will the player have? Replay value, etc. I think we ultimately want this game to be a lot of fun, but also want to keep it more on the realistic side.