A hack hack here, a hack hack there...
Machine City is a game I was building for a lot of reasons, but it is not a game I would have chosen to build if I had known I was going to do it alone. Therefore, the idea of spending another 100+ hours rewriting virtually everything that sets it apart from any other shmup is intolerable.
SO, I'm going to work on another game instead. I may ressurect Machine City later, when the setback doesn't hurt so much, but for now:
Her Majesty's Hackers
This was going to be my second game - the game I planned to make money on - whereas Machine City was intended to be largely for the experience of making a game and trying to sell it.
"Her Majesty's Hackers" (HMH) is about an empire a bit like colonial England crossed with giant robots. It's steampunk. Heavy steampunk. Same world as Machine City, but above ground.
In this game, the young new queen, in an attempt to get an edge in a war her empire is losing, starts bringing in the best minds from all over her kingdom. Placing them together in a number of facilities, she does a "Los Alamos" and tells them to come up with something bright.
Your job is to manage one of these groups.
On the surface, HMH is mostly about deciding which scientists to bring in, managing what projects they are working on, and making neat discoveries. It's like a tongue-in-cheek Steampunk version of "Civilization", except instead of managing a whole civilization, you're working out of one facility.
Of course, the real hook isn't the discoveries, as much fun as they are. It's the fact that scientists are fickle and socially inept creatures, and you've got six or ten of them all living and working together, not really allowed out much thanks to security restrictions.
So you get inept soap-opera melodrama against a background of rampaging robots and peasants with pitchforks. You can, because I am such an understanding and caring guy, turn the difficulty for the soap-opera up and down independently of the difficulty of winning the war.
The reason I'm so fired up about this game as opposed to Machine City is because I believe I have the most cutting-edge personality simulation algorithms. I haven't seen any other games come anywhere near what my test programs have done. So, you should be able to clearly identify with the various scientists, far stronger than in any sim game to date, including "The Sims".
I hope. :)
Anyhow, I'll post updates as to how I'm doing on THAT. So this blog is temporarily not about Machine City... but I think you'll like this game even better.
Side note for the people who read my personal blog: HMH does not use player-driven Pattern Adaptation Control. Rather, it turns the idea on its head, and uses pattern adaptation to drive realistic characters. This is rather a different application, but the same fundamental theory. I think you will enjoy it.
SO, I'm going to work on another game instead. I may ressurect Machine City later, when the setback doesn't hurt so much, but for now:
Her Majesty's Hackers
This was going to be my second game - the game I planned to make money on - whereas Machine City was intended to be largely for the experience of making a game and trying to sell it.
"Her Majesty's Hackers" (HMH) is about an empire a bit like colonial England crossed with giant robots. It's steampunk. Heavy steampunk. Same world as Machine City, but above ground.
In this game, the young new queen, in an attempt to get an edge in a war her empire is losing, starts bringing in the best minds from all over her kingdom. Placing them together in a number of facilities, she does a "Los Alamos" and tells them to come up with something bright.
Your job is to manage one of these groups.
On the surface, HMH is mostly about deciding which scientists to bring in, managing what projects they are working on, and making neat discoveries. It's like a tongue-in-cheek Steampunk version of "Civilization", except instead of managing a whole civilization, you're working out of one facility.
Of course, the real hook isn't the discoveries, as much fun as they are. It's the fact that scientists are fickle and socially inept creatures, and you've got six or ten of them all living and working together, not really allowed out much thanks to security restrictions.
So you get inept soap-opera melodrama against a background of rampaging robots and peasants with pitchforks. You can, because I am such an understanding and caring guy, turn the difficulty for the soap-opera up and down independently of the difficulty of winning the war.
The reason I'm so fired up about this game as opposed to Machine City is because I believe I have the most cutting-edge personality simulation algorithms. I haven't seen any other games come anywhere near what my test programs have done. So, you should be able to clearly identify with the various scientists, far stronger than in any sim game to date, including "The Sims".
I hope. :)
Anyhow, I'll post updates as to how I'm doing on THAT. So this blog is temporarily not about Machine City... but I think you'll like this game even better.
Side note for the people who read my personal blog: HMH does not use player-driven Pattern Adaptation Control. Rather, it turns the idea on its head, and uses pattern adaptation to drive realistic characters. This is rather a different application, but the same fundamental theory. I think you will enjoy it.
posted by Craig Perko at 10:08 AM
1 Comments:
As a side note, HMH uses about 1/10 as much material as Machine City. It should therefore be faster to complete.
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