First off, a big thank you to everyone on the development team for this game. It's really gotten me interested in a gametype I have rarely seen before. I thought I'd add my two cents about the game thus far. I preface this by saying I didn't get to talk to you guys long about where you want to take the game from here; Gunnar was being uncooperative right after I walked up on the last day of PAX East. Thus, I didn't get to hear your full vision of the game, which may be totally different than what I've been thinking about. I used to think about game development a lot, and I slip into full-on brainstorming pretty easily, so forgive me if I sound presumptuous. :)
I've been playing a lot with having/training children and events. I really like that every hero's life will be defined by perhaps a few very important events, which also resonate with the society you're in. I like that there is simultaneously a lot of planning to ensure a skilled succeeding generation while also forcing you to work with the children you can get (who seem to have to some extent skills/attributes that are derived from their parents?). This direct management of a small hereditary group with varying traits is very compelling.
As mentioned elsewhere, the one feature that seems like an odd man out is exploration on the world map. I guess I'm curious how this will be further developed. It seems like there are a couple directions this could go, including allowing the establishment of new cities/bases and perhaps more combat options. However, as it stands, and I think someone mentioned this, the current explore option could simply be replaced by an explore button that removes fog-of-war with no real change to how things function. The only location dependent event I've seen has been the wizard's tower, and again, the world map only serves to give a spot to click on. More importantly though, while the world map is the “default” screen, it really doesn't graphically connect the player to the most impressive parts of the game: the family and societal advancement.
It might be interesting instead to restrict the default screen to a city view. This came to mind because of that beautiful shot of the Loviisan city (it's on your main page as well) as the families are departing. It really gave a flavor of the city and culture; it struck me that a city environment like that actually offers a huge number of possibilities for representing how the player is affecting the culture/lifestyle of the Loviisans. The city and perhaps individual buildings could visually change and grow based on the Loviisans families, military versus cultural development, etc.
A few possibilities that spring to mind:
- Distinguishable hereditary mansions belonging to the great (read: player's) families that are passed down with the lineage; they could go dark when a family member is exploring, while appearing fully occupied if he's staying home with his children.
- Walls or fortifications could appear as your culture's military increases
- As your city grows, inns, magic guilds, ancestor temple, embassies, etc. would appear as time goes on.
All this wouldn't need to be SimCity levels of complicated or require vast additions to the interface; directly controlling buildings and the like would probably take focus away from what you're trying to do. Yet a bustling city backdrop with spaces for ~20-30 modular building art assets would give a lot of ways to observe your city developing and mean that every player's city will always be different. I don't know if any of you played much Civilization II, but a surprisingly satisfying part of building a supercity with huge numbers of wonders and advancements was the ability to go into city view and overlook the whole thing.
These could even provide a really rich source for events. A lot of potential events are already based on interactions between two family members (the funeral rites event, for instance). Creating persistent organizations within the city that are not directly controlled but that occasionally interact with the family through events (say, a mage's guild) would offer a lot of opportunities to use that skilled oratory and charisma (or subterfuge). It also means that certain organization might be more favorable and provide you with benefits if the right type of family member is currently around (mages appreciate a powerful wizard as a leader, etc.) Again, these organizations could be physically manifest as a building. Selecting a building might display the name of the building and perhaps the family's history and relationship to the organization within.
The world map could remain for the purposes of fog-of-war, military excursions, and etc. As for the game objective of following/defeating the Kraken, a focus on the capital isn't to say that the Loviisans wouldn't establish other settlements, but Nef Loviisa could simply remain the most important. It might even provide an interesting mechanic if it were possible to “exile” (with consequences) inconvenient family members to a frontier post.
To summarize, the possible benefits of the city view are that it would very viscerally connect the player to his city and give an intimate connection to the organizations and people in it. It also allows the introduction of new non-family member entities you can interact with. At the same time though, the introduction of all this wouldn't require any major new interface or game balancing, and is essentially the artistic equivalent of the type of scripting that's already being done for events. (ie. it's all under the hood and modular)
Again, this may not mesh with the current ideas of where the game is going. Either way, though, I'm extremely happy with what you guys have been working on, and anticipate a really engaging game. It's definitely stoked my imagination. Now I'll probably be a little more practical and start chasing down some bugs :)
