My game idea Sim Cinema

[Twilight]

Hi All

I am going to start writing my first online game. I have had a lot of ideas but would like to keep it simple for the first one I hope. I like sim and tycoon games and played M.A.D. T.V. and loved the game. It was simple yet very enjoyable. I thnk this is the most important thing about games and find that this is forgotten at times. I am sure i am not the first to think this. If the game is enjoyable and make you want to play more then the graphics are not as important.

Here are my ideas to move the game forward.

I am going to let the player start with so much money.

The lay out will be off a city. The player can have a look around the area and select a building to buy or rent.

Once they have done this they can then start to buy items for the Cinema

Items will include

Screen
Seats
Ticket office
Movies
stalls that sell sweets, popcorn, etc

Now depending on the building the player has bought or rented will depend on how many screens they can have. The idea is to get the player to either sell to buy a bigger place or to save and buy a secound building.

The player will be in control of how much the tickets, popcorn, sweets, etc all cost.

They will also be incrontrol of their stock so if they run out then it is their own fault.

To make things a little easier they will be able to have adverts before each film. The adverts will have conditions that have to be meet before they get paid and if they don't reach them then they will have to pay a fine.

Where do I start is my biggest question

I have completed step one and that is to put the idea in to writing

What next

Do I start with the data base or do I start to design the background (I am not a very good artist lol)

What programmes should I use (PHP, mysql, HTML5, Java)

If you have any ideas or suggestions please do let me have them.

Regards
Andy

[Nihilant]

I suggest working even further on writing down all the important things (not all the details, though). For example:
1. Clearly define the goal of the game. Is it to get certain number of tickets sold? Total or maybe average per month?
2. Decide what's the targeted group of players. Will affect your choice of user interface (graphics), names of the movies, technical details like screen resolution etc.
3. Decide if it's going to be multiplayer or not.
4. Decide if it's going to have AI competition.
5. What is the most important info for the player? In other words, what should always be displayed on screen (City map, inside of the cinema, manager's office interior, money on hand, bank account, etc.?)
6. Make a list of types of 'upgrades' for the cinema, if not even the whole list of detailed upgrades. For starters, group updates in categories (number and quality of screens, type of sound system, quality/number of seats, workforce-motivational group of options/upgrades, food/drinks/treats to sell, etc.)
7. Decide on timeflow - is it turn based or realtime (with fast forward or pause options)? For starters it might be easier and better option to go with turn-based game (like a move or option(s) per day/week or month, depending on level of details you want to have in the game).
8. Outline the most important 'behind the scenes' details and game mechanics/formulas - like what makes audience buy a ticket (price, movie reviews, quality of cinema service/experience, time of projections, audience targeted by the movie [children cartoon, adult movies, westerns, horror flicks] etc.), or how the workforce reacts to changes (lowering/rising wages, adding extra hours or late-night projections, motivational perks given to employees, etc.). With all those details I'm not suggesting making it too complex - you can list several important actions/upgrades/moves/whatever and make them work all the same way in some straight-forward logic.
9. Draw simple layout of the game interface. Refer to number 4. for details, and decide on the way things are brought up to the user - are they simply opening through loading a new page/link, are they popping out as menus/charts, or maybe sliding to the screen from some side? My suggestion also is to keep the user interface visually separated into important areas, like menus always going to one side, maps or graphical zooms/details always showing in their own field or pop-up etc. It helps users to know where to look at when they need to check something.
10. Finally, try to note some necessary steps in game development. Maybe a list/schedule of what you have to do to go to next stage in development. Is it making login/registration, then database and items, followed by mechanics etc. or you prefer to go from the map, graphics, user interface, items icons etc.
11. Put some deadlines for parts of the game and expect to hit many many problems and days of frustration with some stupid problem (that will turn out to be caused by simple typo that you found only 10 days later xD). Thus, I suggest you lay your development plans on parts of the game that can be tested on their own, leaving final wrap-up for later, when you have several screens/pages/options already working nicely.

Hope this helps

[Jackolantern]

Very nice suggestions!

Also, while this may sound initially on paper to be a pretty small game idea, it will actually be quite large. Sim games live and die by their details and the management of those details. The more specifics you add for people to manage, the more fun it could be. All of this requires thinking out (and probably writing down) all of the program details ahead of time. How is each part of the system going to interact with other parts? What is going to be stored in each player's record, and how are these going to be passed around? Are you storing too much in one place?

Also, as far as the design goes, I am not sure if you plan to have this, but when I hear about a simulation of a movie theater, the most critical piece is what movies the theater is going to buy. Cinemas essentially license movies as they are coming out. Today it is not such a huge decision since most theaters have enough screens to buy all of the major movies, but it wasn't such a clear-cut choice back in the 50's and 60's when many cinemas had only 3 or 4 screens. I think it would be fun if you made a slew of fake movies that are going to come out through the player's playing sessions. You could add stats based on their genre, their "star power", budget, buzz/hype, etc. Maybe certain genres would start to perform better than others, and the budget and star power of the movie could affect how much it costs to show. It could add a lot of strategy to the game, and the fake games were one of the more engrossing elements to the very popular "Game Dev Story" game

[Twilight]

Hi Guys

I did not think it would be so much work. I was only hoping to build a simple game, but when you start to go in to the details even the simplest of games need a lot of work.

So where best to start is the question.

I have played a lot of brower games and the graphics are all so good. What do they use to do this. I am not very good at drawing.

I will also be happy for other people to help me with this project as I have never wrote a browser game before.

Regards
Andy

[Jackolantern]

You could do it, depending on how much planning you do ahead of time. Have you done Halls Browser-Based MMO tutorial series yet?

[Twilight]

You could do it, depending on how much planning you do ahead of time. Have you done Halls Browser-Based MMO tutorial series yet?

I have started this but not finished. They were a big help as I needed to write a call logging system for work. I am just finishing this off. Maybe I need to go through them again.

Regards
Andy

[OoZI]

As far as art, that seems to be a very common thing. I have yet to come across a decent programmer who is also a great artist. I suggest looking at places like graphicsquad.freeforums.org. They will do art for free, totally un-watermarked. The only thing they ask is some kind of credit (Which could be as simple as a mention in your disclaimer.) Your idea, as stated by Jackolantern, is complex, but can be done. If you run into trouble, you can always ask here.

[Nihilant]

I did not think it would be so much work. I was only hoping to build a simple game, but when you start to go in to the details even the simplest of games need a lot of work.

There will always be a lot of work, never doubt it The way around it might be to make things run the similar way, so that you can reuse your code or build packs of code that will be called for execution on many occasions and from different screens/menus.

I have played a lot of brower games and the graphics are all so good. What do they use to do this. I am not very good at drawing.

I use Photoshop for designing a GUI or for editing images/drawings. I tend not to draw all the things since it takes too much work (yeah I'm not far from being lazy xD) but if I draw it's for some details that will be used many times with simple changes (like vignettes, faces, outlines of parts of the map etc.). I might even suggest you focus on the coding side of your game - thus really progressing with it - and use images from the web while building the engine itself. When you make it work to some length, changing the images will be the least problem

As for the interface and options, I suggest browsing a bit through 'Rock Manager' game (this video has options shown nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIWR-Q1ofqI). In essence, the city view is the main area, each building holds options for some things (in this game it's: 1. clubs where you can book your band's concert, 2. tv/radio stations where you promote the band, 3. places to sell your CDs, 4. recording studios, etc.) so it fits the idea of simple Sim/Tycoon game, and also all 'buildings' act the same way as menus: thus you can reuse your code easily.