Question For You

[EAST]

I'm curious to hear some opinions on the following:

The Scenario:

Designing a new entry for the submarine game/sim player. Budget is extremely tight, team is non-existent, looking to try and release something within a year.

Question:

1) Preferred platform to see a new game/sim on?
2) Most important features (keep the budget in mind).
3) What type of game play would hold the most appeal? (rts, 1st person, etc.)

--E

[FIREWALL]

This has been tried a few times in the past.

I don't recall anything comeing from it.


I'd like to be proven wrong.

[EAST]

This has been tried a few times in the past.

I don't recall anything comeing from it.

And I don't expect much from this post either, but, regardless of how our products have been received, I'm still interested in the opinions of subsim members.

The new SH5 shots have convinced me that returning to do something competitive with them at this stage would be frustrating and futile; it looks beautiful.

I've been completely sidetracked for the last couple years after we sold Tesseraction, trying to help the new owners get it off the ground properly. That said, I think there is a real opportunity to do something with some of the new technology out there. It helps I'm playing in a band with Jeff Tunnell (Dynamix, Garage Games, Pushbutton Labs) and he's rabid about the new technologies.

[Hitman]

Make something for consoles. No, not joking. UBI has already done Blazing Angels and also there is another pure racing simulation based on SimBin's engine being done for consoles. The simulation genere is starting to go there. But AFAIK, nothing about submarines still.

My choice: A very simple wolfpack game, just player and AI subs vs. convoy+escorts in single mode, and player controlled destroyers and AI subs in multiplayer. For the most sold console.

Good luck

[Mikhayl]

1) PC

2) Depends on the era/side you will choose, but a big one would be uncertainty, or enemy AI "fuzzyness" so that you can't just learn a way to escape and then repeat it all the time while sipping coffee.
Also, a particular graphic identity. Not necessarily ultra-detailed 3D stuff, but something "clean" and catchy, I think this can be compatible with tight budget and short dev time.

3) 1st person (sub commander or 1st WO)

[Sonarman]

1. PC

2. Don't do a subsim, the competition in SH5 is just too great and it has a massive budget, instead do a surface sim, many people are crying out for this (and you have great expertise in this area already). I would suggest making a PT-Boat or destroyer game as a simulator (ie the game that Akella had 4 years ago before "crossbreeding it" with Battlestations Midway). As a follow on from this do a Solomons game loosely based on the great "Task Force 1942" from Microprose.

3. A first person simulation game with simple "wingman" commands for the other PT boats in the squadron.

This old poll I set up some time ago to guage members opinions on the future of the Silent Hunter series may be of some interest/use to you.

[Chad]

East, check your PM's

[EAST]

@sonarman - thx for the link to the pole. Also thanks to those of you posting...

[hellfish6]

I second the surface sim. I played Enigma because it let me command small surface ships - not because of the submarines. I've always had the SH series for my subs, but for my surface ship fix I have a handful of half-baked mods for the SH series (DD Fletcher and CL Cincinnati for SH4).

The Cruel Sea is one of my favorite books... and I'd love to see a modern game that puts me in the command of the corvettes, DEs and DDs. Hell, throw in CLs and CAs and I won't complain.

If you really want to do a sub game, how about for avoiding the extremes? Sim gaming tends to go to extremes - either WWII or super ultra modern. There's a 60-year gap in the middle there with tons of subs that have never been made into a sim.

What if you made a hypothetical sub sim based in 1962? Or 1975? Or '85? Cuban Missile Crisis goes hot, Cold War goes hot, etc. You'll certainly be able to carve a niche for yourself - when was the last time you saw a game that let you command a Foxtrot-class or Permit-class? In the early '60s you still have a lot of WWII technology but with the nuke boats, guided missiles and electronics just starting to become prominent. You've got a lot of diversity in ships and battle locations, you've got a lot of WWII-esque types of fighting (especially for the Soviets against NATO convoys and shipping) but you've also got the ASW/H-K, espionage and recon missions too.

I can think of one other game series that has done this - the Strike Fighters series of flight sims by Third Wire . They specialize in those early-mid Cold War aircraft put into hypothetical conflicts (in SFP1 and Wings Over Europe) or as part of a couple of Cold War fights (Wings over Vietnam and Wings Over Israel).

They're not exactly making money hand over fist, but they're doing very well for an indie company with only one full time employee. Namely, they're still alive after many years, and still producing.

I see the key to their success is their flexibility. The games thrive because there are tons and tons of mods. The game's architecture is very open and it is very easy to add new aircraft, terrain, flight models, etc. People buy the core game, which offers settings and capabilities with a couple of aircraft, but then they go and download all the mods to fulfill their special interests. In a way, the games really do become everything to everyone - with mods, you can be a MiG pilot even if the vanilla game didn't let you.

If you can make a good game engine for subs (and possibly surface ships) set in a plausible Cold War environment, I can see it being successful. I think you'd have to make it open for modding too - that way you can spend your time working on the engine and setting yourself, while only building one or two player-controlled subs (or ships) in detail and letting modders flesh it out.

Anyway, just a thought. I wish you well!

[Sung]

Make a Subsim easy and smart.


It does not need high detailed graphics and a Harvard K.I.

It only needs fun...

[XabbaRus]

1. PC

2. Cold War - early nukes and Soviet diesels.

3. Gameplay, something where the AI makes you work.