In a post earlier today Brian wrote:
The first idea that has come to me is to simply set a couple variables at the beginning when starting a new game: Starting date & Starting Player Age.
My theory is that to incorporate these concepts would allow for something more tangible and personal than simply the turn number. This would enable players to input their own age, for instance. I believe that seeing the age of their in-game character displayed would greatly increase the tendency to compare the game with “real life”.
Additionally, I like turn number, and would like to see that preserved, perhaps next to or underneath the current game date. From a longterm strategy point of view, seeing: Turn: 1,545 of 2,444 Turns (that’s a working lifetime) as valuable as mentally I estimate that’s a little more than halfway through the game.
Starting date might be less useful, actually. My thinking was that if a player had been investing in real estate for the past 3 years, then they could have the game start in 2005 and so more easily compare in game performance to performance in real life.
I too had a similar idea when I was originally designing the game and I stumbled upon some challenges that made it hard to implement these. I intend to discuss them below.
First, I really wanted to be able to enter your age and have the game tell you where you are as you play and this works great if you are a younger person when you start playing. The challenge is playing the game when you are 70. If you enter that in, you’d be 107 at the end of the game. I have a lot of faith in medical advancements, but not sure how much faith I have in that type of progress.
Now, I also recognize that the number of 70 year old or older people playing the game is a small percentage, so that might not be a huge deal.
I also considered assuming everyone started at age 18 in the game and then stating your age throughout as time progresses, but does not make as much sense for everyone either.
I also considered cutting the game short depending on the age you put in at the start. So, if you started at age 45, you could play until you were 70 (or another arbitrary age that we selected as a cutoff). I decided to eliminate that as an option when we talked about being able to compare games and rate players (who has the most real estate, most cash, most luxuries, etc). You need a set number of game turns to be able to fairly compare apples to apples.
I can’t think of a good reason to limit you being able to put a starting year in when you play EXCEPT I have a lot of text in the game that references prices back to the current year values and if you change the year you start I would need to either figure out if I needed to adjust the prices back or forward and clarify the year issue a little more. Adjusting prices back can be a little tricky too.
I’d be interested to hear some suggestions to overcome these challenges AND see if this is a priority feature to implement or if we should be adding some other features like:
- buying houses without an agent and putting out your own marketing to get motivated sellers calling instead of spending a turn to meet with an agent to buy houses
- buying houses creatively (subject to, owner financing)
- selling houses creatively (rent-to-own/lease options, owner financing)
- the concept of luxury and health scores instead of just a money score
- setting life goals and working to achieve them
- “magic” houses (houses with special, abnormal attributes like houses that never go vacant or houses that never have maintenance)
- adding “tickers” for maintenance on houses that deplete over time instead of random maintenance (like % life remaining on carpets, roofs, kitchens bathrooms on each house that deplete each turn until you must replace them)
- model asset protection like lawsuits and how you hold title to house, stocks and business (trusts, corporations, LLCs, IRAs)
- add refinancing of houses
- model marriage and divorce
- head to head game play with friends or rivals on a per turn basis (we compare results based comparable turns)
- offer to do more with businesses like sell them or buy pre-existing ones
- improve modeling of taxes (especially with using entities like corporations and trusts)
- random starting positions: start with a house, start with a business, start with a single maxed out dream team member, start with $10,000 (or another amount), start with stock
- allow for real world sponsors based on the zip code you enter
- brag and complain interface that automatically shares in game victories and defeats with whoever you select via e-mail
So, that’s a partial list of some of the things I have been thinking about implementing. Which are the most exciting for you? What would you want to see next?
Until my next post,
James
