Game Design Ideas
Recently I’ve started looking into mobile development again, mostly Android, with webOS and Maemo(now MeeGo) as later possibilities. What makes this time different, is that instead of writing pointless projects to learn, I actually have a specific project I want to create(always a good motivator). Now this particular project is a game, more specifically a (likely turn-based) 2D strategy game based in a scifi universe I’ve created. The biggest thing I’m trying to decide on the game’s design is the actual game play mechanics.
Since this will be a mobile game(and only mobile for now), I’m leaning towards turn based pretty heavily. The reason is that most of the time when I (and I suspect many others) play games on a cell phone or other mobile platforms, it’s while waiting on something else or some other in between time. It’s usually not I set time to sit down and do, so getting involved in a fat moving game that you can’t put down, like Star Craft doesn’t usually work for me. A turn based game is generally easier to put down and come back to.
The problem is that the game is on a small scale, so that leads me to more of an RPG approach. So you’ll have many units to move around the map and control them like you would in any other strategy game, but once you enter combat, it takes on more of an RPG feel. You’ll be able to attack with specific weapons(a pulse cannon or a missile), launch evasive maneuvers, or try to flee the battle. This is also where I want to make some compromises between real time and turn based strategy. In a real time game, it you send a small scout ship ahead and it gets attacked, you can usually save it if you have heavy forces near by. It doesn’t always work that way in turn based games; the little ship can try to run, and may be destroyed, but no one is coming to help. There are two ways I plan to combat this. One, is that the units do not have to be on the same “tile” to be in the battle, just with in weapons range of one another. So if that a heavy cruiser is in range of the ship attacking your scout ship, it’s in the battle. The second is being about to call for reinforcements. So if that heavy cruiser is one turn away from being in range of the battle. the scout ship can call for reinforcements and launch evasive manuvers, and after a turn, the cruiser will join the battle.
While I’ve not seen this specifically implemented before, I’m sure this probably isn’t an original idea, so if you know of any games that have something like this, let me know. So any thoughts or suggestions?
