Specs

Please leave comments on the game specifications below. However, I'm not too worried about spelling or grammar :)

Retailopia - MMO Shop Tycoon/Simulation

Introduction

The game puts the player in the position of managing at least one shop. Its played in an online server by a large number of players and/or AIs. The aim of the game is to make as much money as possible by building an empire of shops and/or become the most popular entrapaneur across all game servers.

Target Audience

Women in offices sat in front of computers with lunch-time half hours to waste. The game is intended to only require 30 minutes to an hour every couple of days to maintain he status of your shops for casual players. More adavance/experienced players may need to spend more time to manage a chain of shops spreading cities/servers.

Game Distribution

The game must be ultra-accesible. Initially it is envisioned as an applet for power in the client while maintaining ease of access. However, it may be easier to access provided as a web based interface through JSP. A single executable installer may be possible but since the target audience is users at work this may not be suitable (coporate installation restrictions). All server communication must be through http ports to allow ease of corporate firewall traversal.

Game Visual Style

The game is presented as statistics and options only. The city itself should be presented in a sim-city style isometric layout. Any personal interaction, player-to-player, employees, city officials should be accomapanied with avatar images for the player and the other party in the conversation. Imagine lots of rounded cartoony style options screens to tweak the various options for the player's businesses.

Game Start

The player starts out in Newbie-Town where they are given a fixed amount of money. This allows them to rent a plot of land and a building in which to house their shop/service. The player chooses one of the shops/services available to newbie users and proceeds to setup the statistics of the shops as described below.

Cities

The game is played within a simulated city. They may be multiple cities hosted seperately to ensure availabilty of game play and the concept of shop chains spanning across multiple cities. Players will be able to use the money/resources in all cities at any time.

City Simulation

Cities will be simulated as 100s maybe 1000s of individual person units that have wants, needs, fashion, knowledge and rumours. The people en-mass will define which shops are successful and which fail. For instance, in a given city there may be 5000 people, 20% of which own cars. A shop selling cars would therefore has a potential market of 1000 people. Those 1000 people may want fuel economic cars (based on how much some other player is selling petrol for). The car seller will therefore get an amount of business based on their market potential and how close their stock is to the desires of the people. What people want/need/desire will be influence by costs, advertising, the rumour mill and the quality of the sales people employed in the car yard.

Population Growth

The population of cities will grow and shrink based on several factors.




• The number of businesses present - the more shops there are, the more people will come for work and commercial retail


• The quality of life - defined by the number of facilities available (see sponsorship)


• Transport availablity - trains/planes/roadways will grow as thresholds are reached in population size (causing more population growth)



Town Planning

The potential for facility growth will be visible before hand as part of the town/city planning information. For instance, if an airport is going to be built it will be specified in town planning before hand with a potential completion date. It may make sense to build certain types of businesses or more shops based on the predicted completion dates.

Shop Details

Obviously the shops owned by a player are the primary interest. The details below describe the different aspects of shop that can be modified or must be obeyed by the user.

Shop Types

There will be a fixed number of shop types defined by the administrator/designer of the particlar game and/or server. The shops supported by the engine can range from retailer (e.g. furniture store), service provider (e.g. mechanic) to resturaunt (e.g. pizza).

Shops Leases

Each shop (or plot of land) costs the owner a fixed amount of cash each month. Time passes in the game around 4x the speed of real life so your shop is expected to make payments about once a week in real time (maybe this should be faster?). The cost of the plot of land is dependent on the size, city and "quality of life" of the area.

If a player does not have cash to pay the monthly lease their shop and land is reclaimed and made available for purchase. A player who loses all their money can either apply for a loan or simply start a new character and get their new grant.

Loans act as an overdraft. They simply allow you to go into negative values in your bank account balance. Loan approval is based on your current bank situation, assets and previous loan applications.

Pricing

Players will be able to specify the costs of the items their shop provides. The price will be presented both as the absolute price and the cost to the shop (i.e. how much profit/loss will be made per unit). It will also be possible to specify "deals" for each item sold. There will be generic deals that can be applied to all sale items (i.e. 2 for 1) and specific deals on particular items which will be defined as part of the shop/item specification.

Suppliers

The player will specify which of a selection of suppliers will be selected to provide different parts of their inventory. Each supplier will be defined as part of the shop specification and will have a quality rating which will cause their price to vary. Some suppliers will also conflict will political interests (i.e. child labour etc). The choice of supplier quality will effect the quality of the items sold in the shop. A retailer that sells low quality merchandise at an unreasonable price "may" got a bad repitation with people and hence get less business. Where saleable items are a combination of supplies each part of the combination may be purchased seperately. The final combined item will be factor of the quality of the parts and the skill of the employees doing the combining (see employees below)

Advertising

A shop/chain owner is responsible for specifing their advertising budget on a per month basis. The player can also choose how far the advertising should go, local area, city wide or world wide? This makes more sense as the player starts to own chains of stores. The advertising can also be focused on certain items and/or deals within the store(s). The advertising will increase the chance of customers for the item/deals/generally.

Employees

The player can decide how many staff to hire in their stores. Different types of businesses will require different numbers of staff to function at an optimum level. For instance, a resturaunt requires more staff (and types of staff) per store compared to say an electronics store. However, the quality of staff to hire and how much above or below the expected level is also under the players control. Hiring staff cheap firstly may make it hard to obtain staff (depending on how many other employers there are for similar skills in the city). Secondly, cheap staff tend to be less able and hence the quality of products and service may suffer - potentially giving the shop a bad repitation and hence getting less customers (eventually).

Inspections

Some businesses will be subject to inspections. Most businesses will be audited once a year. Some businesses may have health and safetly inspections - food servers for instance. Some businesses will have safety checks (e.g. garages). The chances of passing these inspections will be a factor of how much money is put into training staff and how much the staff are being paid.

If an inspection is failed the player has two choices. First they may pay their fines and what-ever is deemed as required to fix the problems. This cost will increase each time an inspection is failed. On the other hand they could attempt to bride the inspector - however, if they fail they run the risk of additional fines (which might put them out of business).

The Rumour Mill

As player's shops do business the customers will go out into the world and tell other people what they thought of their service and goods they recieved for their hard earned cash. This will in turn effect how many customers decide to come to your shop. It will be possible to pay to have a survey performed on the general populace to get a feel for the current attitude towards the players shop(s). However, the results of these polls are not always entirely accurate.

The Local News

Facts will be reported through a local newspaper. Facts include who's making money, who's buying land, who's gone out of business and what changes in city law/taxes there have been. The paper will also show the advertising for different businesses in the city. This should give players a view to the amount of money being spent on advertising by different businesses.

Shop Location

The location of a shop will have an effect on how many customers it will recieve. A shop close to residential areas is more likely to have casual customer interaction. However, if it gets a bad repitation no ammount of residential areas locally will help. If the shop is the only providing its services/items in a city then it logically has more chance of selling there. However, it does not have a monopolpy. If the prices/service is extremely poor customers will travel to other cities to obtain the things they want. This provides cities with "out-of-town business".

Buying Land

Once a player has earned enough money from their initial shop they can go on to buy more land and shops within any city. This allows players to own more than one shop and hence potentially start chains. The cost of buying land and building shops must be significant. The cost of a given section of land must also be determined based on the elements around it. A section of land in a residential area with a high quality of life (see sponsoring) must cost significantly more than a remote section of land.

Cities are inifite. It is always possible to buy more land within a city. Land is available at the edge of cities at all times. However, it is not possible to buy or build on a plot land more than 10 sections from any other building. This prevents players placing shops in the middle of no-where.

Sections of land can be bought and converted into several individual bonuses:




• Recreation Park with Statues of Owner - increased creadibility


• Car Park - increases potential for visitors


• Free Space - makes things look better


• Advertising boards - free advertising for whatever you want



Sponsoring

The quality of life of an area is defined by the facilities made available there. The city will pay for some of the facilities through the taxes it collects from the shop owners and citizens. However, some facilities must be sponsored by private companies. It will be possible for players to select facilities to buy for the city which can be named after them. When a sponsored facility is created the city may be required to buy buildings from players to provide space - this could be very lucrative for players should their building be chosen.

Examples of possible facilities are:




• Sports Stadiums


• Hospitals


• Schools


• Parks


• Libraries


• Memorials



Player to Player Interaction

Since this is a multiplayer game the players will be expected to inteact with each other.

Malls/Plazas

Groups of shops in an area may buy areas of land local to each other as part of a "Mall" or "Plaza". These groups may be considered similar to guilds in traditional MMORPG games. The groups can build common resources between their stores and operate a validation system to ensure users of the resources have shopped in appropriate stores. A good example may be a parking area shared between multiple shops to encourage shopping. The cost of these shared resources can be footed equally by each member of the group.

Joint Sponsorship

When the city requests sponsorship for facilities groups of players can contribute part of the cost in exchance for a vote on the name and location of the facility when its finally created. Since buildings may be bought from players by the city the location of sponsored facilities may be very important to cash flow.

Buying/Selling Land

Land and shops can be traded between players. However, there will also be a city tax on every transation of this sort which must be prohibitive enough to prevent transations taking place on a regular basis. There will also be a minimum and maximum value placed on land/shops to prevent gifting or money or land between players.

Sabotage and Muck Slinging

For the under-handed it will be possible to hire people to provide illegal services to tamper with your opponents sales potential.

It will be possible to hire people to spread unhealthly rumours about other businesses. This is risk free however doesn't have a high success rate since people who spread rumours arn't often believed.

It will also be possible to hire people to interfere with supply lines to other people's shops. This has a higher success rate at causing problems but is also completely illegal. If your hireling gets caught the player could end up paying hefty costs (legal and bribes) and potentially tarnishing your reputation.

Finally it will be possible to hire people to set fire to opponents shops. Again this is illegal and could incur huge costs on hireling capture. This always works (assuming the criminal isn't caught before the act) but may also cause damage to surrounding buildings. If you're implicated in the an arsen you might aswell leave town.

Seeding Cities and AI Players

It must be possible to create and seed cities with businesses, facilities and residential areas before players start colonisation. The businesses in these cities must be AI controlled. However, the AI logic doesn't need to be intricate. It would be safer if players could out market AI players pretty easily to give a sense of success.

It must also be possible, at administrator disgression, to add AI business into a city at a later date. This might be to address a balance or need in the city or simply to make the city more interesting while player's build up. It would be ideal if the game engine could detect when a business was required and add it.

Administrator Intervnetion


If administrator's deem that the balance of the game has been broken by a monopoly or cheating player they can bring down several disasters (natural or otherwise) on player's buisnesses. These disasters may destroy businesses resources to a greater or lesser extent.


• Natural Disasters - flood, fire, tornado, godzilla attack


• Computer Faults - banking errors that cost money


• Robberies - either shops are attacked or supplies are intercepted before they arrive



League Tables

League tables will give players something to aim at from an overall viewpoint. They will be held on a per city and global stage. There will be a league table for the following categories:




• Biggest Empire - number of shops/lands held


• Richest Player - amount of cash in bank


• Most Popular Player - the player with the most tributes and sponsorships


• Most Versatile Player - the player with the most different successfull businesses


• Oldest Player - the player who has had successful businesses for the longest time



It may also be possible to have anti-league table with such titles as "Most Hated Player" and "Most Illegal Player". However, these might not appeal to the targest audience of the game.

Battle Scape Armada - Space battle based collectiable trading online card game

Introduction

The game is based around a set of cards and would be ideally suited to a phical card game. However, since the cost of producing this would be prohibitive it could be made as an online multiplayer game. The game allows the players to battle each other using armadas of ships and equipment represented by their pre-created decks. The battle takes places in a sector of space described by a set of randomly selected cards distributed at the beginning of the game and shuffled into the player's decks.

Target Audience

The game is aimed at your average Magic/D&D player that hasn't been masisvely interested in computer games in the past. While similar to many trading card games this one takes a new domain (space combat) and the rules and plays system are significantly difference. The balance here is shifted from having the right cards in your deck to having more luck and adaptability to new circumstances. There is also a fair amount of cloak and dagger tactics. This should make it possible for even extremely experienced players to be beaten by a lucky player with an ounce of sense.

Visual Style

Since the game essentially card based the display can be fairly simple. Nice spacey backdrops are a must and the cards in play and in hand must be easily accessible. The target audience means that the game can be developed as a stand alone app - although a web based (webstart?) distribution would be desirable to ease adoption of the play system in workplaces.

Technical

Since the game is to played online there must be communications of some sort. Its desirable to have a central server in this case to ensure legal play. A central server also gives the potential to add and charge for new cards and features. Communication must be corporate compatible so http or e-mail based comms would be ideal.

Cards

The game itself is based around a set of cards. The details below describe the general card attributes and the specifics of different types of card.

Card Layout

All cards share the same layout although some don't utilise all the features. The card layout is similar to other trading cards games and should be as shown below.





The name of the card is as you'd expect an identifier for the card type. The picture on the card shows the entitiy represented.


The cost of the card restricts how many cards can be built into a deck. For instance you might have a 1000 credit deck where the card costs in the deck add up to no more than 1000 credits. The cost also shows how much of the different resources is required to bring the card to the table.


The attack values indicate what amount of each type of damage is inflicted when this unit attacks. The defense values indicates how much of each type of damage can be absorbed by a unit. These values are the "base" for the unit and can be augmented by the upgrade cards.


The sector identifier defines which one of the 6 sectors of space (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, phi) the entity on the card comes from. When playing a card, if the game is played in the same sector as the source of the card the attack/defense powers are +1. Some cards have no sector and hence recieve no bonuses.


The description section may contain a simple text description of the entity on the card. However, it may also contain special rules that apply when the card is used in certain circumstances.

Damage Types

Damage occurs in 4 types. Weapons and shields have either cause or absorb certain amounts of each type of damage. The damage types are:




• Plasma - burning chemical substances propelled through space


• Energy - energy based weapons (lazers etc)


• Kinetic - machine guns etc, lumps of material pushed through space


• Chronotonic - time based weaponary that attempts to destabilise the fabric of time around their target



Resource Types

Playing cards from the player's hand to the table requires the resources cost shown on the card. The planet cards that have been played define how many resources are made available to the player each turn. The resources defined are:




• Metals - alloys etc used in construction


• Energy - the fuel required in construction and/or deployment


• Labour - the labour cost required in construction



Planet Cards

Planet cards begin the game in the playing field deck. At the begining of the game the field deck is shuffled and delt equally between players. Each player then shuffles their field deck cards into their main deck. During the a player's turn they can play a maximum of one planet card onto the table. Once a card has been played it can be used immediately.


During a turn a player may wish to bring cards to the table which require resources. To achieve this they must use the planet cards to amass enough resources by turning them 90 degrees (like tapping in magic). A planet card can only be used once a turn but is reusable next turn. A planet can only be used to bring one card into play. Partial resources can-not be shared between multiple deployments.


Planet card can be attacked by the opposing player assuming there are no units on the planet owner's field. The planets defense value must be overcome to destroy the planet.

Anomaly Cards

Anomaly cards are playing field cards that have special properties or rules. For instance, a particular playing field may have a black hole which causes all units on the table of a certain chronotic defense or lower to be destroyed. Anomaly cards are a place holder for any feature that might want to be added to a playing field deck at a later date.

Spacecraft Cards

Spacecraft cards represent the units that can be deployed to attack the opposing player. Any type of unit can be presented by the game is intended to be space craft based. The spacecraft cards in a players deck are selected by the player before hand up to a certain credit limit agreed by the players before hand. To a bring a unit from the player's hand to the table (in-play) the appropriate amount of resources must be available from unused planets under the player's control. Once a spacecraft is deployed (on table, in-play) it can be utilised immediately.


A spacecraft can be used to attack an opposing player, player's units or planets. An opponsing player's units must be all be destroyed before either the player or the planets can be attacked. A unit can only attack once per turn. The unit's potentially augmented attack value is compared against the potentially augemented defense value of the attacked unit. The player attacking choses the type of damage inflicted. If the attack value is higher that the defense the attacked unit is destroyed. If a unit's defense or attack value is in question any upgrades related to the values must be made visible to both players.


When attacking players the attacked is assumed to have no defense value. Any damage chosen will effect the player. A player is assumed to have 1000 points of health. Once 1000+ points of damage have been done to the player the game is over and the attacking player wins.

Upgrade Cards

Units and planet can be upgraded using upgrade cards. Planet's have one upgrade slot. Units have 3 upgrade slots. When upgrades are played they are placed under the upgraded card. Upgrades may be played publically (face up) or privately (face down). Playing a card privately prevents the player's opponents from being able to determine what attack/defense values may be available to a unit or planet. Note that some upgrades are only applicable to units or planets.

Weapon Upgrade

A weapon upgrade card adds an attack value of particular type of damage. Only the highest value for any given damage is applied during an attack. Attack values do not accumulate. When an attack is made the attack value is declared. If an attack value is question (due to a private upgrade) the upgrade must be made public.

Shield Upgrade

Shield upgrade cards increase a unit or planets defense value for a particular damage type. Upgrades to shields are accumulative. For instance, if a unit's base value for plasma defense is 4 and it has two shield upgrades applied of 1 plasma and 2 plasma shielding its total defense value for shielding can be declared as 7. In addition, a player may choose to declare a lower value and hence not have to make upgrades to shields public before absolutely required.

Scanners Upgrade

Scanner upgrades allow detection of private upgrades before attacks. However, a particular scanner upgrade can only detect certain types of upgrades/damage types. Additionally scanner upgrades have a set number of uses before failing and being destroyed. A scanner upgrade can be used at any point in a turn but cannot be used on the turn that its installed.

Drive Upgrade

Drive upgrades allow units to respond to attacks in different manners. For instance, a spacecraft with a jump drive may be able to "dodge" an attack by jumping to a new location. However, drives have a fixed number of uses and often incur other penalities (losing turns of attack for instance).

Game Start

Before the game starts the players must have built a deck based on an agreed credits cost. The cost of each card in credits must be balanced to ensure that its not possible to fill a deck with super powerful cards.


Next the playing field deck is selected based on the roll of a 6 sided dice. The field deck contains the cards and anomalies for the selected sector. The field deck is shuffled and then delt between the players. The players then shuffle their part of the field deck into the their playing deck. At this point the games is ready to start.

Game Play

Each turn the player takes enough cards to increase the number of cards in hand to 6 - a full hand. At this point the player can deem to play any card in their hand (planet, upgrade, anomaly or spacecraft) or to use any card they currently have in player (e.g. attack with a space craft).

Bringing cards into play

Cards can be played assuming there are enough resources available unused this turn on the player's planet cards. There are no resource requirements to play a planet card. Only one planet card can be played a turn. If no move can be made by the player they can choose to throw away all held cards and draw 6 new ones. The 6 cards are thrown away and destroyed. This circumstance should be very unlikely but should it happen puts the player in question at a significant disadvantage.


All cards except scanner upgrades can be utilised as soon as they enter play.

Attacking Spacecraft

A spacecraft card in play can be used during a player's turn to attack opponents spacecraft cards that are in play. When attacking a player's spacecraft the attacker must declare what how much and what type of damage they are hoping to inflict. This value can be anything up to value that spacecraft (including upgrades) can inflict. Should it not be obvious how the value is reached the opponent can challenge meaning the attacker must justify the value by exposing any private upgrades that are required. Once the attack damage is agreed the defending opponent must declare what defense value in that particular damage type they are putting forward. This can be anything up to the defense value of the spacecraft (including upgrades). As with the attacker the defense value can be questioned and hence defense upgrades may need to be exposed.


If the attack value is higher than the defense value the spacecraft and its upgrades are destroyed.

Attacking Planets

If the opponent has no spacecraft in play the player may choose to attack any planet's they have in play. The player must declare the attack value of their spacecraft (as with attacking spacecraft). However, multiple spacecraft can be combined to attack a single planet. If the combined attack value is higher than the defense value of the planet (including upgrades) the planet is destroyed.

Attacking Players

If the opponent has no spacecraft in play the player may choose to attack the opposing player. The player is deemded to have a defense level of 0 so any damage inflicted will damage the opponent. Players are initially given 1000 hit points which are lost at the player is attacked. If the player loses all their attack points that player loses.


There will be anomaly cards in the field decks that return hitpoints and defend the player in attack situtations.

Avoiding Attack

If a spacecraft is attacked it may be able to avoid the attack all together if it has an appropriate drive fitted. On declaration of attack (before calculation of attack value) the defending player must declare that they are attempting to avoid the attack and show the drive upgrade in use. Drive upgrades allow the spacecraft to "jump" out of the attack. However, drive upgrades have a speed assocaited with them and should the attacking player have a drive upgrade equal to faster than the defending players upgrade they may choose to use one of their drive uses to follow the defender and continue the attack.


If the defender manages to avoid the attack unfollowed then the attack is ended and no damage is done. The attacker can not go on to attack any other spacecraft within the same turn.

Scanning for Upgrades

At any time during a player's turn a spacecraft can use its scanner to detect upgrades on other ships. Scanners describe which types of upgrades can be detected and the opponent is required to make public any upgrades matching the scanners capabilities currently in play. A scanner can-not be used on the turn that it deployed. Scanners have a limited number of uses (mostly 1 time hits) before they burn out.

Online Game Ladder

Players must be able to choose to fight any other player registered with the central game server. However, each game server will maintain a competition ladder which players can attempt to conquer and become the supreme commander.