Greyhound Game

[alexrules01]

Thought I'd post my game idea here to get some feedback.
I took a bit of break from coding and stuff for a while, but then got back into it in the last week. So I thought of neat idea, but it is one of those 'huge game' ideas, so i thought I'd try and tackle something smaller, a game that will use the knowledge I have thus far, and a game that can actually finish! But I needed a good idea.

Then it hit me! A greyhound manager/trainer type game. Where each user has a few greyhounds and races them. My dad is into greyhounds and races them etc so i thought it would be a good idea, and there arn't that many games out there like it.

So every player will start out choosing one dog, a free one, thats ready to race, and start training it and racing it. From there, a player can train the dogs stats and move it up the ranks to group 1! A player will be able to purchase and race more than one dog...but will have to keep track of their finances, or they will be forced to sell their dogs for money. (there may be other ways of generating cash, betting being one of them.)

There are four types of dogs

1.Small
2.Medium-Small
3.Medium
4.Big

Each dog will have a specific weight that they can race good at, and if they are too over they won't run aswell, and if underweight, they won't run aswell and maybe even the authorities will wonder why your dog is malnourished!

Each dog will have four stats

1. Strength
2. Stamina
3. Endurance
4. Speed

A player can train these as the dog gains experience through racing/training

Also each dog has 3 attributes

-Keeness
-Aggressiveness
-Intelligence

These stats are worked out randomly (between 1-100) These attributes will be abled to be trained, BUT they will be much harder and decrease/increase at a slow rate

A dog with high aggressiveness will have less fear but it could also lead your dog to starting fights and attacking other dogs, resulting in a suspension.
A dog with low intelligence will be all over the place and may even forget where to go! A dog with higher intelligence will know where to go, know what to do during the race.(I may make it, if a dog has a really high intelligence, they know that the lure is not really a rabbit or any type of food, so they don't put in much of an effort)
A dog with low keeness means they arn't interested in chasing the lure and just has a relaxing run. A dog with really high keeness may wear itself out before it even gets into the boxes, and put eveything into the race right at the start and get burnt out.

I think I've covered just abut everything so far, now I need to code it all!

[Jackolantern]

It sounds interesting, and definitely unique! Hope to see more of it soon!

[hallsofvallhalla]

i love simulation greyhound and horse racing games along with stock market games.

[Callan S.]

I've seen a horse manager game that seemed to do well for itself - you might be really hitting a nail on the head by offering a greyhound racing game! And good on you for heading in a new direction rather than another orcs and dwarves game!

[alexrules01]

Thanks guys
School just started back...so I have much less time to spend on it, even though I think of what I can do to it half the day! (probably not the best thing! )

I wanted to make it like a worldwide-type thing, where players can choose a country the live in and race there...but that might come way, way later as there is going to be a LOT of tables! Well it will only be lots, if I have different racetracks, which I am aiming for.
Done (or mostly done so far)
Apart from the obvious (login, reguser etc)
Player chooses first dog
List of dogs a player owns (linkin to stat page)
Stat Page
Level up
And starting a Nomination page, where players nominate there dogs for racing!

[alexrules01]

Bit of an update so far. And seeing if anyone has any ideas.
A player can choose his first dog and name it.
They can nominate a dog and select 2 racing distances for the dog
And a few other minor ones that have escape me

But what I mainly wanted is to mainly bounce around ideas for the actual race.

I want to try and simulate a real race, so it will use all the dogs stats and attributes

So one idea I had was break it up into sections, say like a 400 metre race had 8 sections + the start, where in each section there would be calculations to determine who was in the lead etc.

Another thought I had was a point system, where points get are added to a dog every 10 metres or somthing, and the one with the most points at the end wins the race.

Theres still a couple of things I have to work out, like to make it seem more real, dogs can be side by side.
Also if a big dog and small dog and pushing eachother, or a small dog behind 2 big dogs.

If anyone has a thought, please post it I have been thinking about it for a while and think I need a different perspective on it.

If you need anymore info, please say

[Jackolantern]

Start small. That sounds way over-complicated for a first project (unless I am misunderstanding), and if you wanted the race to be quasi-real time, it would require some complex AJAX as well. No one said you can't come back later and make the race more interesting after the game is mostly completed.

[Callan S.]

Yeah, you can get trapped in the notion of 'getting it just right'.

Sometimes it can be hard because converting an idea to code goes from fun creativity to the data entry style grunt work of putting code together, and it's kind of off putting - like going from a nice warm sauna and trying to step straight into some icy water - it tends to make you go back to the sauna/the idea making process.

Or it's been like that for me, so I thought I'd give the story in case it applies somehow.

[alexrules01]

Yea you guys are right, got over-excited lol. I thought of all these features to place in there, but yea it is complicated
I will finish a simplier working version, then work on other things on the game and come back to it later

[hallsofvallhalla]

make your list of every features you want and put them in order of most needed to can live without. Figure out where Alpha can start and how many features are needed for Beta.
Start at feature 1 and work your way down.